Is your workshop still in the stone age?

21 Oct 2020

The workshop where you work or have responsibility for have undergone huge improvements over the last 50 years. Just as society has as a whole. But the workshop is probably still in the stone age when it comes to one area in particular.

Cutting is by far the most common form of processing in the metalworking industry. The research and development within cutting technology has improved production security and metal cutting performance, thereby giving substantially improved quality and reduced processing time, interference and processing costs. Production efficiency has improved a hundredfold!

The evolution has led to the development of new CNC machines, that are often running completely unmanned with incredible cutting speeds and tool changes are done lightning fast. Everything is measured and registered down to the smallest detail to enable further optimisation and save milliseconds, all according to Industry 4.0. Well, this certainly looks good, one might think. And it does. But the truth in a lot of companies is much closer to the stone age if you study the production process a bit closer...

Does the stone age still reign in your workshop?

What I mean by the stone age is the time that staff spend on handling the coolant in the machines. Or the time that they DON’T spend on this so important but often forgotten production parameter.

The formulations of metalworking fluids have been modernised, presenting fewer health hazards and becoming more environmentally friendly, but at the same time becoming more sensitive and short lived with higher demands on maintenance. The fluid handling however, has not kept up with this development, looking basically the same as it did 50 years ago. Handling, measurement and documentation is mostly done manually and the control parameters are often roughly set. The methods used for control and measurement that everyone thinks work, doesn’t work in practice.

The result is that the major part of the time saved in seconds and milliseconds per part by the new fancy and expensive time saving machine is simply eaten up by in-effective fluid handling. For example, it takes 28 800 000 milliseconds to do a coolant change-out in the machine.

What do we often see in workshops where they think they have good control on the coolant?

What goes wrong?	Cause	Consequence
Varying coolant quality over time	Varying contamination levels, temperature and volume in the tank	Scrap due to quality issues on produced components
Wrong concentration in machines - Despite logs being filled in.	Logs are filled in only after concentration has been corrected. Measurement and adjustment is done too infrequently.	Problems with bacteria and change-outs
Too low fluid level in tank	Fluid is not topped up often enough	Wrong temperature, foaming, varying contamination levels and in the long run: quality issues
Flooding when filling up water and concentrate manually	Human factor	Cost of sanitation, increase costs of chemicals
Filling up with water only when topping up	Human factor	Low concentration stresses the fluid and opens it up for microorganisms, corrosion and tool wear
Overdosing coolant concentrate	An attempt to compensate inadequate top-ups	High concentrate consumption, high costs and work environmental problems