What Manufacturers Should Consider for Long-Term Machine Tool Purchasing Decisions

Companies invest millions of dollars on equipment to meet their productivity goals and manufacturing requirements.

“It’s at a much bigger scale for machine tools, because you’re investing in so much more,” explains Brad Patterson, Chief Improvement Officer at Advanced Machine & Engineering (AME). “One of the decisions in [our] turning department is to stick with the same brand, MAZAK. Our guys know Mazatrol programming, so we would unlikely [use] another brand [for turning] because we would have to learn a whole new thing. Cross-training is expensive and difficult to do [so] in the turning world, we are pretty much MAZAK.”

Patterson also explains how the decision making process should be more of a collaborative effort than a snap decision that focuses on:

• Long-term vision of the company
• Employee training and cross-training of new machine and programming
• Overall cost of the equipment
• Type of machine and its capabilities to achieve company goals
• Manufacturing speed requirements
• Accuracy requirements

Once you have your decision narrowed down, request the manufacturer to produce practice parts so you can confirm the machine fits into your overall productivity goals.