Constant Production Improvements About six years ago, KT Engineering anticipated the trend
for more demand of titanium parts from its clients and pre- pared by researching the typical parts and the work envelope required for 80% of the work that would be outsourced. Te company purchased two additional Mitsui Seikis—five-axis horizontal mills with trunnions—as a companion to its two other legacy four-axis Mitsui Seiki HMCs.
here has its place, its areas where it’s the optimal choice. For titanium, it’s the Mitsuis. For aluminum, it’s the SNKs.” A tool presetter with optical magnification and a shrink-fit
system are the centerpieces in a well-organized tooling area at KT Engineering. Tool presetting contributes to time savings and human error reduction. Tooling adjustments that can take up to 15 minutes in the machine can be made offline in less than a minute on a presetter. Te data are transferred directly
“We are a subcontract business. We have to be flexible and ready for whatever work comes in.”
“We have gained a lot of experience in titanium since then.
Tis is another aspect of planning—we listen to our vendor resources about what they are seeing in the marketplace and the technology solutions that are truly working. We also visit the OEMs in our target sector and note what they have on the production floor or, perhaps more importantly, wish they had on the floor. Mitsui Seiki advised us on the comprehensive titanium-cutting solution, including tooling, such as the Ken- nametal Harvi cutters.” KT’s early-and-oſten planning approach might be intangible,
but quantitative data are not, and the company’s clients evaluate KT’s part consistency, among other factors, in numerical terms. To that end, Tajirian and his team are continually looking for ways to improve part precision. Te two CMMs—supported by the latest PCDMIS and CATIA soſtware—and the other gaging devices in the cool, quiet quality room get a healthy workout at KT engineering. Te company is certified to both ISO 9001:2008 and AS9100C. Quality technicians measure part accuracies, monitor productivity gains, track all parts via a barcode system, and compute and appraise the trend analyses. For instance, a titanium hinge used in an aircraſt wing assembly used to take 32 hours to produce; now it’s down to 18 on the five-axis trunnion HMCs. KT’s skilled machinists have always been able to hold required tolerences, but before those new HMCs were in place the part had to travel to and from five dif- ferent machines, which increases the risk of going out of bounds with varying positioning values of each piece of equipment. Plus the extra physical handling added more unproductive time to the statistics. An unforeseen benefit: finer surface finishes are also being achieved, which translates to less bench time. “Te ample work envelope on the trunnion machine allows
us to cut two parts out of the titanium block now, and cut five sides in one setup,” said Tajirian. “Tat has also improved our efficiency. As for the quality impact, the rigidity and accuracy are exceptional. On the bores we are achieving a plus or minus two ‘tenths’—better than half a thousandths, and true position- ing of less than a thousandth. Te customer asked for plus or minus one thousandth of an inch, but is getting even greater accuracy and at no additional cost. Each piece of equipment
to the machines rather than an operator having to manually input the figures. Tajirian said that shrink fitting the tools has extended the tool life and run-out on the high-torque trun- nion machines cutting titanium significantly. “Everyone is noticing how much our tool life has improved
on titanium,” he said. “By at least 15%.” As a back-up check, machinists use a separate mechani-
cal presetter to verify that the tooling dimensions are indeed correct. While this step takes extra time, it provides additional insurance to avoid potentially costly errors during machining.
Content, Competent Workforce For many employers, people represent the most challenging
aspect of managing a company. KT Engineering is committed to continually provide training to its diverse staff to expand the employees’ knowledge, capabilities, and confidence. Further, Tajirian cultivates—mainly by example—an atmosphere of respect, dedication, integrity, and striving to improve. He is considered a generous employer; he, in turn, is grateful to the KT team “for their dedicated, persistent effort every day and the value they bring to everything we do here,” he said.
Going Forward As do most subcontract manufacturers, KT Engineering
would like to expand its business, but at a manageable pace to maintain its high level of customer satisfaction. “About 99% of our work is in aerospace and defense,”
Tajirian said. “Serving additional industries would diversify our base, which we welcome, but in no way would it dilute our aptitude and interest in our core market, particularly with our growing knowledge in titanium machining now with the Mit- sui Seiki equipment. We are extremely dedicated and proud to be a member of this critical, complex supply chain and will do what we need to do to ensure we keep evolving to become even better partners to our current, and new, customers.” At KT Engineering, it’s evident that plan is well underway. ✈
This profile was edited by Senior Editor Michael Anderson from information provided by Mitsui Seiki.
Aerospace & Defense Manufacturing 2014 89
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