particular tool is worth the investment. If there’s an improve- ment with the particular part operation she’s testing, she tracks the results in a database and then applies the tooling change across the board to all other jobs with the same operation. The first thing Jackie looks at is the part program, com- paring it to the part drawing to see where a change in tooling would speed the process. She pays special attention to cutter inserts and looks for those from Seco that will allow for in- creasing speeds and feeds, incorporating Seco drills wherever possible to eliminate pecking operations.
With these simple changes, she often shaves minutes off of each and every part operation. In one instance, these sav- ings in individual operation minutes added up to reductions of hours in total part-processing time for a component the shop refers to as “Jackie’s part” because it was the first one she evaluated in her process planning position. Requiring 120 tools for processing, this proprietary and extremely complex aircraft part took 5 hr to machine. By
Components machined at Mikelson include Seco tooling in virtually all processes.
streamlining setups and using Seco tooling, Jackie was able to slash that time down to 3 hr. The longest operation takes 1.5 hrs, and most of the others she was able to keep to less than 30 minutes apiece. The part also requires drilling and finish- ing deep bores to within ±0.0002" (0.005 mm). “We now strive to keep major machining operations to within 30 minutes or less for all our complex parts,” said Jack- ie. “And the basic setup improvements made, along with the
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