Roughing. Heat treating. Grinding. Electrode manufacturing. EDMing. Benchwork. Sound familiar? Each step in this traditional approach to forging die production adds time — and money — to the process. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Today, Makino’s high-speed horizontal machining centers, sophisticated software and control technology can slash die production times, boost accuracy — tolerances to 0.0004" (0.01 mm) are easily maintained —and reduce or eliminate benchwork. Flush Fine machining, a process developed by Makino, can be utilized to manufacture most shallow-cavity dies with one setup, eliminating the multiple processes and multiple set-ups of the traditional method. Consider the following capsule case history —A major manufacturer of axle components had been using multiple machine tools with as many as eight setups to complete a single forging die.
After switching to Makino horizontal machining centers, the total lead time was reduced to a single setup with machine time of less than four hours. That’s a lead time reduction of 87.5% and a machine time reduction of 90%.
Results: This forging die used to require eight setups, 40 machinehours and a six-day lead time. Today it takes a single setup and three hours and 57 minutes to complete.