CNC Machining Market & Machine Capabilities

[CNC_]

Hi all,

I am looking for some market intelligence regarding the CNC industry. I would appreciate any guidance you could give.


1) Approximately what percentage of parts require 5-axis or 3+2-axis machining capabilities to manufacture in the industries listed below?

A) Aerospace/Military & Defense
B) Medical Devices
C) Tech Industrial products (Tech Industrial examples: warehouse automation parts, industrial HVAC parts, etc.)

2) Approximately what percentage of parts would be optimally machined on a 5-axis or 3+2-axis machine (setups minimized, improved quality, etc.)?

3) Approximately what percentage of parts are CNC turned?


Any feedback would be appreciated. I am looking at expanding capabilities of a shop and this information would be useful to use as guidance.

Thanks in advance.

 

[DouglasJRizzo]

I believe the S.M.E. publishes studies on this quite a bit. You may want to ask them.

 

[TeachMePlease]

I believe the S.M.E. publishes studies on this quite a bit. You may want to ask them.

Aren't we all SMEs?

 

[IninefingersI]

I run an OEM machine shop in Aerospace. What I see probably isn't closely aligned with contract shops in the industry because all of the parts I make are for our own products, and I have design input to streamline our parts with our equipment.

We run a couple Makino A61NX 4-axis horizontals.

We have a couple VF3-SS, one of which has an add-on rotary table.

Our production workhorses are Haas DM2's. Straight up 3-axis. They probably handle 80% of our workload.

I would say maybe 2% or less of our parts are farmed out for 5-axis. Ownership has approached me a few times about investing in a 5-axis, but I keep pushing back. I was in Engineering for 15 years. I know how they think. As soon as we got a 5-axis, every part they release would be a 5-axis part.

Less than 5% are turnings.

 

[CNC_]

Hi IninefingersI,

Thanks for the feedback. My application would be a little different. I work for a contract manufacturer, so I am typically at the mercy of my customer's design. Do you think you could benefit from setup reduction enough to justify a 5-axis? I know in my past I had several VMCs outfitted with trunnions and it we could usually get away with 1 setup.

2% seems lower that I would have imagined for 5-axis (required) parts, especially in aerospace. Would you say that your turned part % is low because of the type of parts you're machining, rather than the industry served?

Thanks for all of your feedback.

 

[DouglasJRizzo]

Aren't we all SMEs?

You never know..

 

[winger]

school assignent???

Dave