I took two weeks of production and recorded the power on time and cycle start time at the beginning and end of each shift for 6 lathes and three VMC's. The barfed lathes were at anywhere from 75% to 95% cycle start time of power on time. I thought that was pretty good, even though a bar can sometimes last an entire shift. The mills, however, averaged about 50%. They require a lot more interaction since you have to open up the door, remove the parts, blow the chips out of the way, put new parts in, close the door, and then hit "start" but still think that seems low.
We are OEM making production parts so we put anywhere from one to 24 pieces in the VMC at a time and drill holes, tap them, mill shapes, etc so it's not like we are making molds that have a 10 hour cycle time. I would say most cycles last anywhere from 2 min to 40 min, so the operators do have to get in there relatively frequently.
Has anyone else monitored that? What do you get?
We are OEM making production parts so we put anywhere from one to 24 pieces in the VMC at a time and drill holes, tap them, mill shapes, etc so it's not like we are making molds that have a 10 hour cycle time. I would say most cycles last anywhere from 2 min to 40 min, so the operators do have to get in there relatively frequently.
Has anyone else monitored that? What do you get?