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June 2015 | AdvancedManufacturing.org 41
One Snowflake Too Many Leads Shop to Advanced EDMs
That’s how Henry Kalkman describes the snow on the roof
of his shop, JK Machining Inc., the day it collapsed in
February 2014. Kalkman can make light of the incident now,
but without proper insurance and good industry connections,
the calamity could have shut down the Kalamazoo, MI,
Read more, P43
ERP System Tracks EDMJobs, Grows Shop’s Business
W hen your job shop is running 80 electrical discharge
machines (EDM), 24 hours-a-day with an output of
more than 5000 jobs a year, keeping track of every aspect
of your business might seem impossible, but not for Carl
Sommer and his sons at Reliable EDM (Houston, TX).
Read more, P46
Software Speeds 3D EOAT Build for Molding Robot
B emis Manufacturing (Sheboygan Falls, WI) is the largest
manufacturer of toilet seats in the world and a leading
producer of healthcare products, custom plastic products and
precision plastic parts. The family-owned company also manu-
factures a host of other plastic products.
Read more, P92
sSHOP SOLUTIONSProblem Solving on the ShoP Floor
JK Machining’s new AgieCharmilles FORM 300 Sp sinker EDMs are
easier to program, faster, and more accurate for the moldmaker.
FeatureCAM CNC software reduced time to program this finished
part from eight to two hours for a robotic EOAT at Bemis Mfg.
Realtrac ERP system tracks production from more than 80 EDM
machines with output of more than 5000 jobs a year at Reliable EDM
(Houston, TX).
June 2015 | AdvancedManufacturing.org 43
mold-and-die shop permanently. Instead, JK Machining
weathered a long year of rebuilding and continued to meet
customer delivery dates with help from neighboring shops.
Launched by Kalkman’s father John in a garage in 1980,
the company gradually transitioned
from general machining to mold-and-
die work for customers in the automo-
tive, medical and consumer products
industries. Business continued to grow,
and the company moved to a new
space—the shop where the roof would
eventually collapse—in 1990, the same
year the shop bought its first EDM.
The day his shop’s roof collapsed
is one Kalkman won’t soon forget. The
event began with a loud crack at about
4 pm, when many of JK’s 16 employees
were in the shop. Fortunately, everyone
had time to escape before the roof cov-
ering the company’s 5000 ft2 (464 m2)
shop area caved in completely.
Kalkman was able to salvage some
of its manual machines, small tools and
other items from the wrecked shop,
and the company’s office area was
unscathed. Fortunately, he had a good
relationship with a long-time provider
of business insurance. The policy not
only covered full replacement value of
machines wrecked in the roof collapse,
it also included a year of fully paid busi-
ness interruption insurance. “I didn’t
have to lay-off employees. Insurance
paid the rent for our temporary facil-
ity, and it paid for all the services we
needed to get up and running there.”
JK Machining is a member of the
Southwestern Michigan Tooling Coali-
tion, so the company quickly moved all
molds in process out of its ruined facility
and into member shops in the regional
alliance. As a result, JK didn’t miss a
delivery date. The company’s business
interruption insurance coverage was very
important—it allowed the company to
continue operations while its new facility
was under construction. But the replacement value insurance
on production machines might have been even more signifi-
cant, because it enabled Kalkman to purchase the shop’s
current state-of-the-art EDM equipment.
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SHOP SOLUTIONS
44 AdvancedManufacturing.org | June 2015
“The machines we have now are here be-
cause our building was destroyed,” Kalkman said.
“We’ve always owned AgieCharmilles EDMs, and
over the years we updated quite a few times to
the latest technology.” The company purchases its
AgieCharmilles equipment from GF Machining So-
lutions (Lincolnshire, IL) through Kalamazoo-based
distributor KM Industrial Machinery Co.
In addition to a stronger roof design, when
JK reopened in its new 8500 ft2 (790 m2) shop, it
featured significant improvements in machining
technology. Its new advanced AgieCharmilles EDM
systems offer much easier programming as well as
significantly faster speed, higher precision, and su-
perior part-surface finishes. Plus the new machines
help reduce the shop’s EDM consumables costs.
Kalkman quickly discovered that more than
a decade of advances in control and genera-
tor technology resulted in new levels of pro-
ductivity and ease of use. JK Machining has
three AgieCharmilles FORM 300 Sp sinker EDMs and an
AgieCharmilles CUT 300 Sp wire EDM. The new FORM 300
Sp sinker EDMs feature robust construction, glass scales on
all axes and 16-tool electrode changers.
“Our new sinker machines are easier to program, faster
and more accurate than the old ones,” Kalkman said. “The
new generators run more efficiently and use fewer elec-
trodes. We spend less time milling, use less graphite, and
reduce polishing/benchwork time.”
SHOP SOLUTIONS
For untended operation, AgieCharmilles’s Pilot Expert 4 remote machine
monitoring and control capability allows JK Machining employees to
remotely access the shop’s CUT 300 Sp wire EDM and machine programs
using PCs and other mobile devices, like smart phones.
JK Machining produces mold sets and other components for
40–50 mold orders per year with lead times for the tool steel
molds ranging from six to 16 weeks with its wire and sinker
EDMs from GF Machining Solutions.
June 2015 | AdvancedManufacturing.org 45
Machine controls use AgieCharmilles’ AC FORM and AC
CUT human-machine interfaces (HMIs) that feature touch-
screen interactive graphical assistance for all 2D and 3D
EDM operations, positioning and measurement. A CAD/CAM
link automatically integrates machining
sequences to further speed program-
ming. Plus, online help lets users find
information relevant to the job at hand
using a clearly organized navigation
system that can be searched by key-
words or other parameters.
Generators on the sinker ma-
chines use multiple technologies to
maximize electrode life and productivity
while producing fine surface finishes.
AgieCharmilles’ iQ technology, for
example, regulates power adjustments
to increase material removal rates
while preserving electrode geometry.
Machining is said to be 10 times faster
than previously. Electrode consumption
is down and the shop averages two or
three electrodes per burn compared
with the previous four to six.
The generators also feature
AgieCharmilles’ Power Control Expert
technology, which controls each
spark to allow real-time determination
of machining discharges based on
changes in the electrode. The result
is minimal benchworking to achieve
required surface finishes, and the
technology gives JK the ability to use
EDM to produce stipple-type Class
“A” surface textures for automotive
interior molds.
Regardless of geometric complexity
or burn time, JK’s new AgieCharmilles
300 Sp sinkers enable the company
to use graphite electrodes almost
exclusively. “We have experimented
with copper electrodes,” Kalkman said,
“but they take longer to machine and
typically involve longer burn times. We
easily achieve finishes comparable to
those of copper using graphite.”
On the wire EDM side, JK’s new AgieCharmilles CUT
300 Sp wire machine also offers significant performance
upgrades compared with its predecessor. Like its sinker
counterparts, the machine’s improved CNC and generator
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46 AdvancedManufacturing.org | June 2015
technologies allow easier programming and faster, more
accurate machining.
But more important to Kalkman are the machine’s
automation capabilities. Its optional large spool capacity
allows loading of wire spools weighing up to 55 lb (25 kg)
to enable untended operation for extended periods. “We
can leave on Friday and not come back in until Monday and
know there is plenty of wire to do the jobs we have sched-
uled,” Kalkman said.
An even more significant advance for untended op-
eration is AgieCharmilles’ Pilot Expert 4 remote machine
monitoring and control capability. Using a camera and
Internet-based software, the system allows JK employees
to remotely access the machine and programs using PCs
and other mobile devices.
JK’s wire EDM technician demonstrated the capability
using his mobile phone. “I can change from screen to screen
on the control,” he said. “I can monitor operations, I can edit
a program file. The package allows panning and zooming of
the camera images, resulting in true remote machine moni-
toring and control capability all through a cell phone.”
Kalkman recalled one job that ran completely untended
on the CUT 300 Sp, a run of 60 lifter pockets with varying
angles. “Those parts had pretty specific tolerances, and
from the first one to the last one there was less than 0.0001"
[0.003-mm] difference,” he said. Another program ran un-
tended for 130 hours nonstop.”
For more information from GF Machining Solutions, go to
www.gfms.com/us, or phone 847-913-5300.
Continued from P41
ERP System Tracks EDMJobs, Grows Shop’s Business
When your job shop is running 80 electrical discharge
machines (EDM), 24 hours-a-day with an output of
more than 5000 jobs a year, keeping track of every aspect of
your business might seem impossible. But the team of Carl
Sommer and his sons at Reliable EDM (Houston, TX) have
not only kept track, but also managed to build Reliable into
North America’s largest EDM job shop.
Reliable does all forms of EDM: wire EDM, ram/sinker
EDM, and small-hole EDM. They specialize nationwide in
machining parts that no other form of machining can do, and
some jobs even impossible for other EDM shops to pull off.
Carl Sommer started in the machining trade in 1949 and has
worked as a tool and die maker, foreman, tool designer, and
operations manager of a large tool and die and stamping job
shop. Carl with his extensive machining experience and his
son, Steve, a mechanical engineer, are able to do unusual
EDM jobs. For example, they modified machines where they
can wire EDM parts up to 62" (1575-mm) tall. They have also
written the book, Complete EDM Handbook, which is used in
colleges and trade schools.
“Being in Houston, the energy capital of the world,” said
Carl Sommer, “we do EDM work that requires costly large
EDM machines. We’re not the typical job shop.” Ultimately,
the goal for Reliable EDM is to EDM any needed part for their
customers in the high-tech oil and gas industry, aerospace,
defense, power generation, plastic, electronic, medical, as
well as other companies throughout the U.S.
To maintain the same growth that his father had spear-
headed for the last three decades, John Sommer, the IT arm
of Reliable, knew the company needed a new shop control
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SHOP SOLUTIONS
June 2015 | AdvancedManufacturing.org 47
system. So the company began search-
ing for the best invoicing and tracking
system to ensure that growth path. “For
almost 20 years, we had been using a
paper-based filing system, tracking, and
invoicing system,” John Sommer said.
“We knew to keep up with growth, it
was time to go paperless.”
John Sommer, a trained computer
programmer before taking on the IT
role at the family company, knew the
shop control system, also called ERP
(Enterprise Resource Planning) software
needed to be complete, robust, and
also simple to implement and use. As
he looked at the available shop control
software options, he saw a common
theme. They were complicated and had
steep learning curves.
The ERP system they needed would
have to help them streamline their
operations and keep them organized
without slowing down production. It
also had to pass muster of the other
Sommer brothers: Steve, vice presi-
dent; Phil, vice president-operations;
and, of course, President and Founder,
Carl Sommer, as well.
“My Dad was a Marine during the
Korean War, and his focus is always on
efficiency and productivity,” John Som-
mer said. “If a part can be machined in
a way that shaves five seconds off the
process, then that’s how he wants it
done. The last thing we wanted was a
system that we’d have to enter a bunch
of data into it, spend hours on reports,
or take months to learn.”
In their search for a shop control
system that would increase productiv-
ity and have a short learning curve, the
Sommer team narrowed the choice
to just two systems. The clear leader
from the beginning was Realtrac’s
Performance ERP. “I could immediately
see what was possible with Realtrac’s
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48 AdvancedManufacturing.org | June 2015
software,” said John Sommer, “so I scheduled a demo and
was quite impressed. During the demo, they also showed
me that future version they had in development. After seeing
that, I knew Realtrac Performance ERP was the system for
us, hands down.”
He was so convinced of Realtrac’s benefit to Reliable
EDM’s bottom line and the future of their family’s non-tradi-
tional manufacturing business that he delayed implementing
any shop control software until the new release was ready—
which was over a year away.
“John Sommer first contacted us in June of 2012 for a
demo, and I set it up,” said Ron Settimi, Realtrac’s sales
representative. “He really liked what he saw with the Realtrac
shop control system, but he was pretty certain he wanted to
wait for the Realtrac 10 Performance ERP. He wouldn’t even
let us install the current version.”
“I could see the power of what they were developing, and
I knew it was what we needed and was worth the wait,” said
John Sommer.
Realtrac 10 ERP was installed on April 7 with training
scheduled for the following week. Within two days of the
training the whole shop was up and running on the new
Realtrac 10 Performance ERP.
Before Realtrac 10, Reliable kept track of individual jobs
with a bundle of hardcopy invoices, design prints, and job
notes all stapled together. By the time the job shipped, the
papers would get tucked away into filing cabinets. If there
were questions about older jobs, finding what you needed
could take a long time.
“With Realtrac 10, everything about a job is stored right in
the system. No need to put job notes into filing cabinets. If a
customer has a question about pricing, or any part of the job,
it can be found quickly with Realtrac. One of the best parts
about the Realtrac ERP is the drag and drop feature.
“If something on a job changes, or an email about the job
goes in or out, anyone on the job, from the shipping guy to the
VP, can drag and drop any needed document into Realtrac.
And it stays with the job. There may be other ERP software out
there that has features like this, but we found no one does it as
effortlessly and seamlessly as Realtrac,” said John Sommer.
Since implementing Realtrac 10, Reliable EDM has seen
improved productivity on the shop floor with increased
accountability of every aspect of a job. They use Realtrac’s
bar-coded routing templates to track each step of a job
from initial invoicing all the way to proof of delivery. “Knowing
what happens at every point on the job helps us improve
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SHOP SOLUTIONS
Continued on P92
Reliable specializes in wire EDM, ram/sinker EDM, and small
hole EDM (shown here), machining parts that no other form
of machining can do and some jobs even impossible for other
EDM shops to pull off.
92 AdvancedManufacturing.org | June 2015
quality of workmanship and accountability on the shop floor,”
John Sommer said. “If there’s a problem at any point on
the process, we know where it is and can fix it. Ultimately
that means better service to our customers, better job cost
control, and higher profits.”
For Reliable EDM, probably the biggest gain from Realtrac
has been their ability to be more responsive to their custom-
ers’ needs. Before implementing Realtrac’s shop control
system, there wasn’t a dependable system to track where
a job was on Reliable’s shop floor. “Our accuracy on every
aspect of a job is greater than ever before. We can predict
delivery dates better and respond to customer needs during
the job and even six months or a year down the road,” said
John Sommer. “With Realtrac 10, we know the exact loca-
tion of every job. There’s no more running around asking the
whole shop where a specific job is. It has greatly helped our
company to be more productive.”
For more information from Realtrac, go to www.realtrac.com,
or phone 734-793-3811.
Continued from P41
Software Speeds 3D EOAT Build for Molding Robot
B emis Manufacturing (Sheboygan Falls, WI) is the largest
manufacturer of toilet seats in the world and a leading
producer of healthcare products, custom plastic products
and precision plastic parts. The family-owned company also
manufactures plastic lawn, commercial, indoor furniture,
and a host of various contracted extrusion and injection-
molded plastic parts for companies such as John Deere
and Whirlpool Corp. The company is a pioneer of co-injec-
tion molding, a process in which virgin resin is injected with
recycled plastic.
The company has a small machine shop that is primarily
kept busy building tooling for the company’s plastic extrusion
and injection molding operations. The CNC software used in
the past to generate programs for producing these tools was
difficult and time-consuming to use, taking about eight hours
to produce the typical program, according to Danny Little-
john, machinist for Bemis. As an example, the machine shop
was recently asked to build replacement left and right hand
end-of-arm tooling (EOAT) for a robot used to automate an
injection molding operation.
The EOAT is rather complicated to build because the front
side has a vacuum gripper used to carry inserts that it places
in the mold before the mold is filled. After the mold is filled
and opened, different grippers on the back side of the EOAT
are used to lift the part out of the mold. The original EOAT
was built by an outside supplier and destroyed in a crash.
Littlejohn was asked to build a replacement in as little time as
possible to keep production going at full speed.
“In the past, I used a 2.5D software package that was not
able to import solid models and machine contoured surfaces.
This meant that there was a large class of parts that it was
unable to produce CNC programs for all together,” Littlejohn
said. “The programmer typically had to start from scratch with
a new part rather than working with an existing solid model.
This was a long and drawn-out process and it wasn’t helped
by the fact that the old software was not very intuitive to use.”
Upgrading to the 3D version of the software package was
an option but Littlejohn was having so much trouble with
the 2.5D version that he didn’t want to upgrade. Littlejohn
entered very simple programs into the machine controller but
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SHOP SOLUTIONSContinued from P48
June 2015 | AdvancedManufacturing.org 93
running the part on the machine. He
often found errors in the program that
damaged workpieces or in some cases
even damaged tools.
Littlejohn had worked with FeatureCAM
at a previous employer and found the
software to be powerful and easy to use.
“Perhaps FeatureCAM’s neatest feature is
its ability to import a solid model and then
automatically recognize all of the fea-
tures in the model and organize them for
easy creation of toolpaths,” he said. The
software then automatically evaluates the
geometry and recognizes features such as
holes, chamfers, pockets and bosses. In
most cases, the programmer then defines
the toolpath for each feature. FeatureCAM
also provides the ability to automatically
evaluate each feature and recommend
a toolpath. As each operation is defined,
the program simulates it in operation on the machine, making it
easy for the programmer to check his work.
In the case of the EOAT, Littlejohn received the Pro/ENGI-
NEER model for the EOAT and imported it into FeatureCAM.
The solid model did not exactly represent the design intent
so Littlejohn made some changes within FeatureCAM. He
created several new surfaces and blended them into the ex-
isting geometry using Coons patches. He also changed sev-
eral hole diameters and depths. The part was to be made of
UHMW plastic and the only stock available was 4" (102-mm)
diameter round so Littlejohn defined the stock and manipu-
lated the part inside the stock to make sure it would fit. While
he normally uses the automatic feature recognition capability
of the software, in this case he decided to select the features
one by one in the order that he wanted to machine them
while allowing the software to automatically determine the
extent of each feature.
Littlejohn started by selecting a boss on the EOAT as the
first feature to machine. The CNC software automatically de-
termined the extent of the boss and selected all of its entities.
Then it prompted Littlejohn to select the tool and machining
parameters including feeds, speeds, and stepover that he
wanted to use to produce the boss. After making the selec-
tions, Littlejohn ran a simulation of the machining operation
on the box. The simulation looked good so he moved on to
the other operations on the part. He used the same methods
Bemis Mfg. programs with FeatureCAM CNC software the left and right nests that the
robot uses to place inserts into the mold for overmold.
94 AdvancedManufacturing.org | June 2015
to create toolpaths for machining three more
bosses and a hole pattern to complete the
front side of the EOAT. Then he programmed
another boss, a surface milling operation on
a contoured surface, three pockets and two
holes on the back side of the EOAT.
Even though he had simulated each of
the individual machining operations, when he
had finished programming all of the machin-
ing operations, he simulated the machin-
ing of the complete part as a final check
and to be sure that none of the individual
operations interfered with each other. With
the right-hand EOAT tooling completed,
Littlejohn programmed the left-hand EOAT
simply by mirror-imaging the program with
a few mouse clicks. Finally he generated G-
code to run both programs on a Haas TM-1
machining center. The programs worked
perfectly the first time they were run, making
it possible to complete programming and machining for both
EOAT’s within a single day.
“FeatureCAM CNC software has substantially reduced
the time required to create the typical program to about two
hours,” Littlejohn said. “Key advantages of FeatureCAM
include its ability to import solid models from CAD software,
automatically identify features in the model, and store com-
mon machining operations so that they can be applied to the
part geometry with a few clicks.
“We couldn’t have produced these EOATs using our
previous CNC programming software because it is unable to
program 3D surface milling operations,” Littlejohn said. “But
even if it could have done that operation it would have taken
at least eight hours to program the part. FeatureCAM, on the
other hand, made it possible to completely program both left
and right-hand EOATs in just two hours. The ability to import
solid geometry and recognize features makes the CNC pro-
gramming process nearly seamless. The ability to simulate
individual operations as well as the complete part has nearly
eliminated errors and crashes. A key to our success with
the software is that FeatureCAM is very intuitive. We have
also received excellent technical support from Automated
Solutions Inc., the FeatureCAM integrator from whom we
purchased the software,” said Littlejohn.
For more information from Delcam, go to www.delcam.com,
or phone 877-335-2261.
SHOP SOLUTIONS
Left and right ultrasonic test parts on the finished parts at Bemis Mfg. Each is a
mirror image of the other.
