With partially attended work-stations and twin-spindle, 13-axis, 4-turret machines, Kennebec can optimize cycle times for competitive pricing of high-precision parts, while maintaining a high level of service and quality.
For the better part of the decade, Mastercam has been used primarily for programming the CNC equipment. However, over the past few years, users at every critical point in the company’s workflow: Quoting, Manufacturing Engineering, CNC Programming, Manufacturing and Process Optimization are using it.
Specialists in each of these disciplines have been cross-trained in Mastercam, and this development has played a pivotal roll in Kennebec’s efforts to strip inefficiencies from every phase of its manufacturing processes. Now they can access the same CAD/CAM files, and work together, both formally and informally, to improve productivity, not only during product development but throughout the life of a program.
Kip Tjelmeland (pronounced “Chum-land”), CNC Programmer and Process Engineer for Kennebec, explained that his company’s aerospace and defense manufacturing contracts frequently call for percentage reductions in piece part pricing every year. Becoming more productive is essential if you want to avoid having the project you won this year becoming a drag on profitability next year and beyond.
He said, “There is no such thing as an acceptable loser. If it's running five minutes longer than what you quoted,—that's not acceptable. So if the process isn’t frozen, we go back to the drawing board and try to get it to meet our quoted time while maintaining quality.”
At Kennebec, everyone is working together to make sure that optimizations created in the CAD/CAM system fulfill machine cycle expectations that were originally established in the quote stage – and this all happens within the same Mastercam CAD/CAM environment. |