Page 42 - Fall 2024 EDM Today

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EXPERT’S
CORNER

Automation requires a deep-dive into the work holding methods. The tooling not only needs to provide easy set-
ups and adjustability and the ability to be moved and relocated accurately, but it also needs to provide an interface
and gripping method so that a robot can grab and move the tooling fi xture. If you do not have tooling of this nature
already in your shop, then the shift to automation will require some sizable investment in tooling that is needed to
facilitate the transfer of parts in the automated system.

Plan, Plan, Plan
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Are you Planning to Fail or Do You Fail to Plan?
This article has examined many items that are vital to creating a stable and effi cient manufacturing process and that
must be addressed before incorporating automation. Reviewing your current processes and questioning everything
that you do is a humbling exercise. In some respects, we have to tear down our existing systems so that we can reas-
semble them into something far superior.
Adding automation to an ineffi cient and
uncontrolled process will accomplish little
to no benefi t.

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The key to planning is to develop and enact
a vision for your operations and apply
methods that maximize unattended ma-
chining. There will be diffi cult problems to
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overcome, but this manufacturing journey
is made one step at a time. We also need to
measure ourselves along the way and de-
termine if certain process change(s) have
provided the benefi t or result we are after.

In Conclusion
The basis of this Part 1 article was to lay
the groundwork for a laundry list of items
that need to be addressed before automa-
tion can be considered. Automation and
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robots are just tools in our manufacturing
arsenal that are only useful and effective
when a proper plan is executed with stable
processes. A structured, consistent, and
competent operator is still a requirement
for success, but it is imperative that an
operator is provided with the tools to
maximize unattended operation. In the next
issue, Part 2 will examine several types of
automation hardware and software sys-
tems with varying complexity and how they
can be deployed to Wire, Sinker, and
EDM Drilling machines.
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