WHY OPEN HOUSE COLLABORATIONS MEAN BUSINESS FOR YOU

By working together as a team, large and small shop operations can all benefit from the collective talents of dealer and control personnel.

As we open the New Year, this month’s column will be a little different because I want to address the subtext of the manufacturer’s relationship with their machine tool dealers and their control suppliers. Nowadays everybody seeks to become more value-adding. How do we do this?

A job shop or contract manufacturer might add extra finishing operations such as coating, heat treating or even sub-assembly work to enhance their piece part runs. A major OEM production department might bring in additional services to offer customers, from various forms of metalworking, forming and fabrication processes or even packaging.

From the controls side, the CNC supplier seeks to make instruments that allow machines to do more with less energy, less wasted motion, even less footprint space. That supplier works to enhance the usability and communication power of machine tools, while also helping operators, programmers and maintenance personnel get more useful information to perform their tasks, from the simple USB port to condition monitoring to full data networking across the plant or around the world.

The machine dealer, however, has a completely different situation. Dealers thrive on being able to solve problems by bringing their repeat customers the right answers to their production challenges, every time. This typically involves the special skill needed to match the right machine to the jobs at hand. As most dealers work in a defined geographic area, they must provide their customers with consistent quality, sound advice and solid support services.

The phrase that Clint Eastwood said in one of his old Dirty Harry flicks – “You’ve got to know your limitations” – is something that really holds true for everyone in this relationship. Each company has their unique skill set and nobody knows it all . . . and this is where that term “collaboration” comes into play.

At a typical dealer open house, a visiting manufacturer can see a variety of machines capable of doing a variety of tasks. As more of their customers ask for more machining, fabricating or secondary operations, it’s easy for that manufacturer to get overwhelmed. At this point, having a controls supplier onsite at those open houses can be a real eye-opener. I attend many such open houses and often field questions about how to get more production from a certain machine.

Because a controls supplier has a deeper knowledge of what the CNC can do to help, they can give specific recommendations relating to specific machines. Combined with the dealer’s strengths in knowing the best machines to fit that particular manufacturer’s work mix and production needs, this collaboration can benefit their operation greatly. I have personally found this is most helpful for those shops that are just now entering the 3-plus or true 5-axis world of applications. A CNC supplier sees things from a different perspective than a machine tool builder or dealer – and that is a great benefit to all manufacturers, regardless of their size.

One quick example will illustrate what I mean. I went to an open house in a Midwestern state and spoke to a shop owner who literally had one brand of machine tools all across his floor. However, these machines had radically different controls on them. The owner was shopping for a new lathe and I was surprised to hear he was not going back to this existing brand name for the next machine. He mentioned that, since his employees had to learn a whole new control system anyhow (even if they bought that existing brand), he figured it was worth a look to see what another machine tool with another CNC could do. He ended up buying the different lathe and his technicians were up and running on it in just a couple days, with only a couple of quick email questions to me about the control.

While machine tool and CNC technologies are advancing at light speed, it is still possible to find the right solution to your specific needs by simply finding the right people to question – before making the next investment.

When the next dealer open house invitation comes across your desk or computer screen, take a minute to find out if a controls supplier will be working the event. If so, gather your guys and your questions.  It will be a worthwhile use of your time and it might just make a very big difference in your operation. Sometimes you see something very simple and wonder why it works so darned well.