Platform migration doesn’t have to involve an entire plant or production line. It can be on a much smaller scale, as The Timken Co., of Canton, Ohio, discovered when it embarked on a program to rebuild the aging grinders that make the ball and spherical bearings that the company sells. Engineers at its bearing factory in Rutherfordton, N.C., had always believed that precision grinding needed custom controls built for the process. But control engineer Dave Mow dispelled that myth when engineering manager Mark McIlrath asked him to make the grinding process more competitive.
Although the company had maintained the machines well over the years, the controllers were dated, and programming was cumbersome. “In some cases, serviceability was a major issue because suppliers experienced in servicing the old controls were diminishing,” explains Mow. “Spare parts were a concern, and we had to maintain a larger inventory, which increased our costs.” The old programming tools did not give the shop the flexibility and fast setups necessary for producing thousands of bearings every day in small lots and high mixes.
Mow and his team decided to replace the old controls with new off-the-shelf components and replace manual systems with electronic ones. They stripped the machines to the castings and replaced the motors and relay-based control panels with GE Fanuc Series 90-30 programmable logic controllers (PLCs) with DSM314 motion controllers, Alpha Series servos, and PAC-OP industrial computers. One machine got an S2K servo amp.
Since rebuilding nine grinders, Mow and the team at Timken cut overall costs substantially and improved production by decreasing machine set-up time by more than half, reducing machine maintenance by 50 percent to 60 percent, improving spare-parts availability, and breaking efficiency records. The company has recouped its investment in less than a year.
GE Fanuc Automation Inc., a Charlottesville, Va.-based affiliate of GE Industrial Systems, is not the only vendor that can boast of the successes that its off-the-shelf offering has had in rebuilt and remanufactured machine tools. Bosch Rexroth Corp., of Hoffman Estates, Ill., also has an offering called the TK1 Retrofit Kit, which replaces the outdated Trans01 motion controller and distributed control system (DCS) drive that was popular for automotive transfer lines. According to Bosch, users not only can install the retrofit kit within 48 hours, but they also can save about $10,000 by not having to replace the existing Trans01, DCS and MAC motor.
Consequently, retrofitting machine tools is a kind of platform migration that pays handsome dividends for individual machines and transfer lines alike. To get them in your facility, “ask, ’Where do we have limitations on becoming more competitive and increasing production?’ ” advises Jeff Bartoletti, market development manager at GE Fanuc. “Boil it down to individual processes in your facility, and put a magnifying glass on them to figure out what needs to be done.” Like Timken, your team will more than find its bearings for a profitable platform migration.
See the story that goes with this sidebar: Platform Migration Without Going South
