8/11/2019 Industrial Business Mart- May Indo MIM

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/industrial-business-mart-may-indo-mim 1/1

www.martonline.in26 May 2014 www.martonline.in 27May 2014www.martonline.in26 March 2014

FINE MACHINING

The Journey of Fine MachiningMachining of Metals has always been a challenging task and when dealing with Metal Injection Molded (MIM) parts, it has

become tougher. The machining process at Indo-MIM started wi th operations like drilling, tapping, surface grinding to nish

features and tolerances; which were beyond the MIM tolerances. Due t o unavailability, most of the prominent operations

like turning, drilling, reaming, tapping and surface grinding were bei ng outsourced in the initial years of inception.

The major thrust for in-housemachining came from ourFounder and ChairmanDr. Krishna Chivukula, who wasnot satis ed with the partsbeing ricocheting betweenplaces and sub-suppliers. Hehad foreseen the need tostart in-house machining toinstill customer con denceparticularly for the automotivecustomers.

We established in-housemachining in 2009 and have sofar established many criticaloperations including

• CNC turning with closetolerances of upto ± 6 microns

• CNC Milling – 3rd and 4thAxis in machines with Palletchangers

• High production Single-pass honing with one partevery 13 secs.

• High production Pro legrinding at 15 secs. / parthaving ± 7 micron tolerance

• Multi-part Surface grinding

• Lapping and Polishing toachieve atness of upto 2microns.

• ID Grinding with ± 6 micronrequirement

Against the general beliefthat in-sourcing is moreexpensive, we have beenso far successful in makingthe supply chain leanerand easier, with in-housemachining as it gives ustremendous amount of focused improvement

initiatives. We have alsocrashed the lead time forproduct delivery by as muchas 400 % in some cases. Thecustomer delight being theicing on the cake.

The following advantagesare helping us to sustain ourmachining process:

Right machine selection

We have engaged ourselvesin an active role in the processof selecting the machines.Our guiding factor for theprocess has been the methodof maximizing the machinerunning time. We opted forVMS’s equipped with palletchangers to shorten the timelost in loading and unloadingtime. Further, we opted formachines which were small,compact, rigid and with low

torque spindles since weremove very less materialand most of our parts aresmaller in size. Whenevercritical tolerances are to bemaintained within capability,machines have been tted withprobing systems for auto toolo set corrections.

Even for honing and grinding,we have opted for formachines with the facility ofparallel loading and unloadingof parts, while the operationsare carried out in otherstations.

Work Holding

Even though we use thegeneral chucking systems andcollet systems in our turningcenters, we have custombuilt xtures for speci cparts. Having our own designdepartment doing both the

Swaminathan S B

swami.b@indo-mim.com

Honing machine

Milling Line

Multi part

part design and xture design

has helped us decide theoptimum clamping systemsfor highly challenging partrequirements. All our millingand surface grinding xturesare multi part xtures. Havingmulti part xtures not onlyhas helped in increasing theproductivity, but also havegiven us the advantage offull machine bed utilizationirrespective of the part size.

Most of the small batchproductions have multipleparts / operations preset inthe machine bed therebypractically zeroing the changeover time.

Cutting Tools

Though we get support fromdi erent tooling manufacturersand dealers, we work with thesuppliers to achieve the lowestpossible ‘per piece rate’. Thetool cost alone is not takeninto account but the advantageof higher cutting parametersand better material removalrate is also being consideredto nalise the optimal toolsource for any application.We approach each applicationwith an open mind giving equalopportunity be it established

players like Iscar, Sandivik,Walter etc., or low cost sourcesin India who manufacture andsupply tools which are lessexpensive.

Continuous Improvements

Our culture to work alwayson continuous improvementsby conducting kaizen events,identi cation of Improvementprojects and tracking themhave helped us completesigni cant improvementprojects in optimizing theusage of Man, Machine andMethods.

Statistical Process Control

The usage of statistical processcontrol is another tool we havesuccessfully implemented toestablish robust and repeatableprocesses. Statistics have come

handy in the study of tool wearpattern and establishing autoo set corrections throughprogram macros. The macroprograms have reducedthe high variability causedby operator interventions.Processes where very closetolerances needs to beachieved have been establishedin this way and we have derivedsigni cant reductions inproduct scrap levels.

Collaborative approach

As we believe that whenbright minds meet, ideasspark out; we approach any

challenge with an open mindand discuss them with machinetool suppliers, tool suppliersor work holding sources foroptimum solutions. This has

not only helped us to arrive tothe solutions, but also to getthem fast. There have beeninstances where the outcomeof our discussions have becomestandard options for themachine tool manufacturerlater.

With the establishment of ourInvestment casting facility atTirupathi, we have got into thechallenge of machining biggerparts having more materialremoval. The machiningof MIM parts have helpedus quickly establish highlycritical machining projects forInvestment casted parts. Allthrough our machining journey,our primary objective has beenand will be low operating cost.

With our management willingto invest on suitable machinesthough expensive butguarantees lower operatingcost in future; is the cornerstone for our rapid growth in

the machining process . Withstarting from three machinesin 2009 to currently holding 60machines in 2014 is a remarkableachievement!

Having established sales o cesacross the world in addition tohaving satis ed customers, hasopened new opportunities ofbigger and more challengingmachining projects. Withthe strong fundamentalsestablished along with the pastlearnings, we can con dentlysay that we are well placed tohandle them and succeed.

The author Swaminathan S Bwith rich industrial experience ofmore than 25 years in forging andmachining elds have establishedseveral high volume projects forthe automotive customers. He isworking with Bangalore basedIndo MIM Tec Pvt Ltd as DeputyGeneral Manager Machiningprojects and can be contacted atswami.b@indo-mim.com

Pallet Changer

www.martonline.in26 May 2014 www.martonline.in 27May 2014