Small/Medium size shop looking to move forward with CNC Plasma/Laser/Punch Press

Probably going to be a bit of a long, disorganized post, but our shop has been been leveraging our CNC machines more and we're sure we can get even more use.

One bit of a problem though, is that spending a large amount of money on a fancy machine would pay off I'm sure, but would take a long time as our work doesn't result in continuous usage. To better illustrate where we stand, I'll give the gist of our CNC machines.

CNC Plasma:

• Hypertherm cutter and control
• Is typically used a few times each day, primarily for cutting out ducting components
• About 10 years old, appears to be in relatively fine shape

Notes/Issues:

• Cut consistency isn't stellar, seems like some areas of the table are worse than others too (The moving head as opposed to our other machines' fixed heads probably doesn't help)
• Slag is always an issue, machine had been using factory settings all this time so recent adjustments to cut tables have helped, but I'm not experienced with it and don't know how much cut quality can be feasibly improved
• Good for contour cuts, cutting of large pieces, thicker materials, and very large sheets/parts
• Bad for precise parts, thin materials, and holes

CNC Punch Press:

• Wiedmann Centrum 22-ton punch press
• Might not be used for 1-2 weeks at a time
• Volume-wise, use it for everything from hitting out a single sheet of small parts to running 12 hours a day for 2 months
• More than 20 years old, control's work hours have rolled over at least once though (Only goes to 1000 hours)

Notes/Issues:

• Frequent hardware/control issues, everything so far can at least be worked around
• Machine support is lackluster to say the least, most problems we have to find and fix ourselves
• One issue we've never been able to repair prevents us from even running the machine at full speed, very bad for perforation-like uses
• Good for holes, perforations, precision, and little cleanup compared to plasma while being much faster
• Bad for any kind of contour, angled lines are just "acceptable", shapes that don't work well with our fixed tooling, and with tougher materials (Thickness max is about 1/4" for everything we hit but 316 SS, and about 10GA for that)

CNC Mill:

• Old Hurco Hawk mill
• Generally sees the least use (Last time it was used was 3-4 months ago), but when we have parts to make we'll run it as hard as the punch press
• Not sure on vintage, but the controller runs a custom version of DOS 3

Notes/Issues:

• Issues are few and far between, but always stem from the controller
• We do have a relatively low spindle speed (3400 RPM) limit on the machine, but only slows us down when machining plastic parts as opposed to our usual alum/steel

Meanwhile we're of the opinion that a laser would be a good addition, as we do occasionally have to contract out laser cutting services for parts, and if we had a laser in-house we could likely find many more uses for it, like making up for shortcomings of other machines.

Would it make sense (Based on cost, usability, etc...) to look at getting a CNC laser based on our other machines' usage?
Would a waterjet make more sense?
Or could we improve our plasma setup enough to get results more like what we might get from a laser?
Our only real consideration for the mill is looking into getting a second one, and getting both of them working on identical controllers so it'd be feasible for 1 operator to babysit both machines at once, have a smoother work process, and a backup in case 1 machine encounters issues
In that case, would it make more sense trying to find a 2nd CNC mill and refitting mill 1 with an identical controller, finding a CNC mill and refitting both with a newer, 3rd-party controller, or heck even getting a non-CNC mill and converting it to CNC with a matching controller on mill 1?

Hopefully this doesn't come across as me being a jerk, but out of these 3 machines, the one you're using the most is getting used "a couple of times a day"?

What machines do you guys have that are getting used constantly? That's probably where you're doing your best work, have the largest customer base, and have the most ability to grow. I would focus on 'expanding' by going deeper on what you're best at, not spending a lot of money getting 'wider' than you already are. New machines either mean new employees, or teaching your guys new systems - both are expensive propositions if you don't have work already lined up for the machine.

Based on your usage of these current machines, I wouldn't be looking at spending any money in these areas until you're running out of capacity on your current equipment. Buying a new (or newer) machine to replace or supplement one you rarely use just isn't something I would do.

You're fine, I get what direction you're going with what you were asking

Our CNC plasma definitely has the most consistent amount of work. To clarify on "A couple of times a day", I'd guess the machine probably averages 1-2 hours of runtime per day, and 75% of it is on ducting, the remainder on steel plates.

In that vein, it's not bad at cutting ducting components, and most of our other components aren't hurt too badly by the consistency issues. There's a significant amount of man-hours in part cleanup though, if someone is burning out light gauge ducting they have to run a grinder down every edge. Other components though require much more work as they're typically also being welded, and our cuts aren't "weld-ready" by any degree.
So improving plasma cut quality would probably be the single most effective thing we could do.
Most here feel like a laser table would make a great upgrade, but I wonder if it'd be a 'needed' upgrade. For all we know just tweaking the machine setup/hardware might be all the upgrade we need, or maybe the whole system simply isn't capable of getting much 'cleaner'

I mostly included the punch press because while it's not as consistently used, when we get big fabrication jobs it's practically a money printer comparing making parts by hand, on top of its machine accuracy. I'm just worried we need to look into something along the lines of a replacement or backup, because it's regularly having issues and we almost had a nightmarish scenario when it quit on us during a large project with 50 hours of programs left and took 4 days to make functional again.
On that front, my thought was kill to 2 birds with 1 stone, as in if hardware changes need to be considered on the plasma side, a punch press combo is worth considering

I included the mill just because I felt it gave more context, it's nowhere near as critical as the 2 others in this scope

Addendum:
Thinking on it, our runtime vs. value might seem a little weird, but our company isn't solely in the business of sheet metal fabrication, we do whatever the customer needs, and most of the time it means we start with a customer telling us they need a thing, designing thing in CAD software, fabrication of said thing, and installation of said thing.
Don't know how that compares to others here or if it's even worth mentioning, but more info rarely hurts

My understanding is there are some late model (3-6 years old) beam path lasers that are trading very cheaply relative to their purchase price when new. The reason is for a 12 hr/day laser in a shop, the new fiber lasers run time cost is 1/4 the cost of the beam path units.

For your low hour usage shop, a late model beam path machine might do you a good job.

we just purchased a 2000 watt Amada fiber laser to replace a 15 year old plasma table. every day we say "wow", the difference in quality and speed is really something. we are gradually taking advantage of the greater precision to improve efficiency, like tabbing and self fixturing features, etc. one thing I am doing is making kerf lines for bending. some small features can then be bent with pliers and larger bends become more precise on a break because they will follow the kerf lines. so if you are thinking of a better brake, I say improve your cutting first. what is the cnc mill used for? can a more precise laser cut eliminate that requirement? stacked plates? vs milling a piece of thick stock? this is a in used design trick, used a lot in automotive. instead of say milling a 1/2 inch thick piece of steel with a bunch of holes and what not, cut thinner layers our of sheet metal and stack them up. say you need a screw boss, can that be a riv nut or Pem stud, etc etc etc

Im not sure what the cut off point between out sourcing and owning a laser is, there not cheap. IMHO your going to want to be running it every day for a lot more than a couple of hours if its ever going to pay for its self. IMHO its a lot better to find a great laser cutter that can offer a fast turn around and great pricing. I can relaibly get parts in 3 working days over here, can get em faster than that for a small surcharge too.

Excellent Question, imho.
Bad analytics, IMHO.
I am not known for excessive spin.

You need to look at Your business metrics, and not Your machines.
This is, usually, true for 95% of all companies.
Imo, ime, over 200+ cases.

Find out, your total income/month/year for each machine.
Lost opportunity cost/optional cost/work values for outsourcing same work.

Then and only then You know what YOU pay/get, and can make informed decisions.
IME, 100% of companies have major errors, on the order of 50%-500%-2000% in their expectations of costs/opportunity costs/margins.
Yes, many mist-estimate costs 20x.

This does NOT mean You are wrong or doing it wrong - if You are successful, typically Your competitors do it even worse.
Usually, with companies I advised, their productivity/job went up not 50%, but 500%, per dollar billed.
And almost all of it, is silly "paperwork/process systems".

And no, absolutely not, any sigma x (nothing wrong with them), etc, but a different way of utilising the machines/facilities more efficiently.

My experience.
Everyone hated my ideas - always. My ideas were backed by owners - so it was get it done. Or else.
But part of my push was always share the wealth. And it is critical (at first, mostly).


After everyone, absolutely everyone (janitors, bookkeeping, everyone), gets 10-20+% more bonus / month, .. in 2-3 months...
all resistance magically vanishes.

Imho.
Forget the same control.
It is vastly cheaper to train 3-4 people on 2-3 controls, than take wrong machines for the job/cost.

E.
One of the best businesses that I know of, most profitable, very nice guys, a big company, makes molds.
Like for tuna cans.
Yeah, I know.
But they finish them on 500k€ german grinders, to 0.8 micron precision. 5 axis.
Yes, they do. 400 strikes/minute in production.
(Solid carbide bits, like a very very special lathe tool.)
40+ years in business, growing.

They have about 60 machines from about 50 manufacturers.
Absolutely crazy.
Every machine is different.

See the point about the money ?

Yes, I know all the arguments, but I used that as an example of disruption ...
It is better to have same systems, but is Much Better to have profitable systems.

*Anything* can be right.
*Everything* depends on details.
It is Really, Really, Hard, to understand details.