ENERGY EFFICIENCY PLUS FULL DATA TRACKING – A CNC CHRISTMAS PRESENT!

Today’s CNC not only puts a greater degree of energy efficiency at your fingertip, it can also provide you more usable data for running your entire shop or machining department… yes, Virginia, there IS a Santa Claus!

This last column of 2011 will have something for every group I’ve addressed this year, namely the programmers, operators and maintenance personnel who work every day with CNC machine tools. Let’s call it an early Christmas present.

It’s a matter of fact that modern machine tools not only run more energy-efficiently and in a higher level of production mode than ever thought possible in the past, but they can also do something you often don’t see until you simply ask the control to tell you!

On the energy efficiency side of the equation, it’s currently estimated that 40 percent of all power consumption in America is used by production machinery and that over 70 percent of that number represents power consumed by electrical drive systems. Did you know that the modern CNC has the ability to monitor and report the actual power used to produce each part in your shop or machining department?

With just the touch of a few buttons, a report can be generated. Furthermore, during machine downtimes this built-in function can actually power-down certain components automatically to save energy. It makes no difference whether it’s a small shop, major chip-cutting operation or fabricator using a variety of CNC machines for metalforming and cutting, this function can result in significant power savings during the year. And it can prove out those savings in hard numbers for you.

Also, with many of the modern drive platforms a power recovery system enables the storage of generated braking energy inside a DC link that can be fed back into the grid rather than allowing the brake resistance to convert into heat. Alternatively, there are many products and systems for this waste heat recovery on the market today that can warm your shop, further reducing HVAC power costs.

There are many other machine tool and fabricating machine component options available as well, including high-efficiency motors, frequency converters, cold plate and direct fluid cooling. Software tools are also on the market for drive size calculations, based on anticipated load cycles in the machine. Ask your suppliers for these tools – they will make a difference.

Just as impressive is the fact that the modern CNC can also capture, access in real-time, report and analyze all machine production data. Now, I know this may sound like something only the big boys need. But I disagree with that notion because I have visited many shops of all sizes where the manager, operator, programmer and maintenance personnel alike can all benefit from having the basic production data available, whether for machine-to-machine comparison or for input into a full-blown existing corporate IT system.

Best of all, on the modern CNC there is absolutely no compromise in machine performance when you want to gather, store, access or analyze the data, because the control does all of that automatically. The benefits of such powerful CNC tools are many and really do apply to all job functions. The programmer has faster access to libraries of NC, PLC and HMI functions; the operator can know exactly where a failure or bottleneck is occurring on the machine; and the maintenance personnel can see full machine data directly or from remote locations for better anticipation of predictive maintenance needs, while the manager has the full picture in a prioritized presentation for easier analysis of machines, shift performance or machine utilization scenarios. Something under the tree for everybody.

I’d encourage all of you to talk to your CNC suppliers directly or through your machine builders and dealers. The help you need to run a more energy efficient and productive operation might just be as close a button . . . or touchscreen legend.

Lastly, on a personal note, I do wish all of you a very happy, peaceful holiday season and I’ll CNC you in 2012!