How one shouldn’t have bought a machine tool and how it was put right

We as a company are engaged in metalworking. A year ago, we faced a problem. We were offered an attractive order with an outlook for about five years. Good volumes, but our machine tools are not fit for this piece. That means we are losing the order and have hardly any work.

The way out is to buy a new machine, but which? We decided to take the one that we saw in the fair. A beast of a machine! It’s expensive, of course. Bur don’t let’s sweat it: we’ll recover the costs on the new order.

To make the part, we need technologies and tools. No problem; we’ve got savvy engineers, not greenhorns; they have made the technology themselves. We bought the tools. We know how to run a CNC machine tool. No big deal, and we launched the production with the new machine. It is powerful, quite speedy, and highly precise. We are to manufacture 10 thousand parts per month.

However, something went wrong. The fabrication is slow, we have to retool frequently. Malfunctions came up. The cutting tools keep breaking down. We have immediately to think of something.

“Hey, guys! I’ve got an idea…”

“None of those ideas of yours. We’ll flub up the machine.”

At the moment, Pavel from the engineering company happened in.

“What, you’ve run out of money and decided to make some on us?”

“Oh, we never get money for nothing. Why, you know it yourselves. We can, indeed, get your production up. Talking of production, how is your new part getting on?”

“Not too well. We cannot get what we want.”

“Let me know more about it.”

He heard the story and had a look at the machine.

“Now look here. The machine you bought is no good for your application. It’s intended for other materials and is rather difficult to retool. Works fine for large quantities of simple parts.”

“So, what are we to do?”

“We’ll help you. Will do everything the right way. We do have a lot of experience in technical upgrade of machine-building enterprises. We’ll carry out a technology audit and select the best-suited machine. You will buy the machine with technologies. We will proofrun the process ourselves, so that to see what else can be improved.”

“And what about the machine we’ve bought?”

“We’ll take it into account in the course of the audit, and find a use for it, too. If you and we do everything correctly, everything is going to be okay. And immediately after the startup of the new machine, you will make 10 000 parts every month. Later, you will be able to respond flexibly to changes in the market by increasing the production of this part, if necessary, or manufacturing a different one. It’s hard to forecast, but we’ll help you to quickly find new solutions.”