Re: Is part design lagging cnc capability?

On Fri, 13 Jul 2007 00:16:12 -0400, John <amdinc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

GarlicDude wrote:

Joe788 wrote:

I think blame lies equally with shop owners who refuse to believe in/
examine the benefits of more complex equipment.

Go over to the Practical Machinist board and try to explain why a
$600,000 FMS with two HMCs and one operator is better than six Haas
VF3's and six operators. You'll find out what I mean very quickly.

It's the, "Why would I pay $50,000 extra for a gantry loader on my
lathe, when I can put a guy in front of it for $9.00/hr..."
mentality.

Joe, Not sure whether your an owner or not, but sometimes it's the lack
of capital that prevents the smaller shop from buying the $600,000 piece
of equipment.

When your bootstrapping your way up it's much easier to finance
something in the $100,000 range than the machine with all the bells and
whistles, even though in the long run it can be worthwhile. A $50 K
loader on a $100K lathe ups the payments in a big way and the bankers
make you spreadem even more.

Best,
Steve

yup, and in todays business world there is no such thing as a binding
contract... only big time lawyers to terminate the contract with you
holding onto a big payment with no work.

John

It's always easier for someone who's never been there.

My brother was always trying to convince me to buy $600 worth of
tooling for a job that was only worth $500. "Yeah...but you can use
these tools for other jobs....." Oh really. Where are those jobs?

I started out with a cam operated Swiss screw machine. Reality hit
with the first job. A set of cams cost me $350. No problem, don't have
to pay for it for 30 days. Same with material, $250 worth of 303 and I
don't have to pay for it for 30 days. No problem. The job's worth
$3200.

I was still working full time - in fact, I traveled for Tornos, and
sometimes only home on weekends. It wound up taking 6 weeks to run the
parts. Meanwhile, the bills for the cams and the material came due
before I finished running the parts. Oops. There goes the $600 I
needed to buy a compressor.

Then I finished running the parts and found out I wasn't going to get
my $3200 for another 30 days!! It was about that time I started to
freak out about how I was going to come up with another $1100 for the
next job! Good thing I was working in my garage and didn't have much
overhead.

Things went along OK for another year or so. The worst part was coming
to grips with the fact that I always had $5-10k of *my* money, money
out of *my* pocket, floating around that I couldn't get my hands on.
Was able to add a couple pieces of support equipment, and another cam
machine.

Then I bit the bullet and bought a CNC Gang Lathe. What I really
wanted was a CNC Swiss, but the difference between a $700/mo. payment,
and a $2800/mo. payment was mind boggling! I was buying a CNC to go
after some of the parts I kept finding that I couldn't run on my cam
machines. Even the $700/mo. Gang Lathe was a gamble, because I hadn't
gotten any orders yet, no promises, there were no guarantees. But I
thought, what the hell, I can make $700/mo. on a freeway exit with a
little cardboard sign, if I have to:-)

About a year later, I got in with an connector mfr. making
sub-miniature RF connectors. Tiny, intricate, little connectors that
were slotted, cross-drilled, crimped or flared. .011" diameter pins
w/.007" wide grooves x .0015 deep. Double ended .035" diameter
contacts w/.006" slots. Pretty fun parts to make actually, but it took
time. Lots of time. Especially when you consider that I was basically
still a start up shop, working out of my garage, and I was making
these little parts on a 5c gang lathe, which wasn't really designed to
make parts like that.

I needed a CNC Swiss with a sub-spindle. Well, after much ado, a
written commitment for about $130k/yr. worth of work from my customer
to the finance company, and at least 1 hole in my stomach, I bit the
bullet and bought a 5-axis Tornos ENC-74, that was loaded with about
every option they offered. It was a used machine Tornos had taken in
on trade for a Deco. Clean, low hours, 4 years old, and they only
wanted $80k for it (this machine sold new for about $240k). They even
gave me a 90 warranty.

Way cool. I was rolling - or so I thought. About 3 months later, this
customer was still giving me the little 100-600 piece orders, instead
of the large quantity stuff that I had seen. Intricate little parts
that would take a day and a half (or more) to set-up (while running
the other 3 machines), and then run out in 5-25 hours. Then on to the
next set-up. All these little orders were just barely making the
monthly payment.

I don't remember just exactly why, but something came up that I needed
to get my hands on about $5k right away. Had 2 jobs for the gang lathe
that needed to be done about the same time. One for the connector
company that was worth about $600, and another one from another
customer that was worth $3500. I had already accepted the $3500 order,
and my connector customer, who by this time thought he owned me,
placed the $600 order and wanted the parts in 2 days.

I needed cash, and I had a choice. $3500 in 3 days, or $600 in 3 days.
A no brainer, IMO. I explained to my connector customer that I had
another order that I had to run first and that he would have to wait a
few days (literally, it was only going to take 3 days to run the $3500
order).

He didn't like that. 2 hours later, 6 cancellation orders showed up in
my fax machine. Never heard from them again.

Now, I've got a $2800/mo. payment - and no work for the machine.

Great fun!

It only took a month or so to find more work. I can say "only", now.
But back then, I was in serious panic mode.

Things went along pretty well for another couple of years. Moved out
of the garage and into an industrial unit. Picked up a few more cam
machines, and was getting ready to buy another CNC Swiss ---- when the
ragheads took down the Trade Towers. Business came to a screeching
halt. Over the course of a year, things got really ugly, and I almost
lost the business.

Things have been pretty good the last few years, and in January this
year I was getting ready to buy 2 used CNC Swiss machines. But all of
a sudden, a customer who's kept my 8 cam operated Swiss screw machines
running 10-12 hours/day, 5-7 days/wk., for the last 5 years - decided
to make a change. There was a little more to it than that (details I
won't go into here), but it was beyond my control, and the bottom line
is that they went bye-bye. So much for buying any more toys for a
while.

I could go on, but the point is, like John said, you never know what's
going to happen. Just when you least expect it, the *** can hit the
fan - in a big way.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to advise anyone to not take risks.
Risks are OK, but you have to be smart about it. Promises are just
words. In the business world, even written promises are worthless.

You can try to justify a big purchase by saying the 5 operators are
going to cost me $10,833/mo. anyway, so why not (not trying to single
you out Dan, I just like your numbers:-)). But you also have to
remember, if something does go sour, you can say bye-bye to the
operators - the payment for the wiz-bang machine isn't going to go
away.

I've never been afraid to take a risk, however, I'm a little gun shy
right now, and rightfully so, IMO. I just get a kick out of those who
say "You just have to do this - ", or "If you buy this, then you can
do that - " or "Do you realize all the parts you can make if you had
one of these?", and make it sound like potential customers are hanging
out on the street, like a bunch of Mexicans in front of Home Depot,
just waiting for a vendor to drive by.

It don't work that way dude!

Matt
.

Loading