Standardized Workholding Saves Shop Hours of Setup Time

Long setup times are a drain on productivity and profitability. Fran Roman and Mike Kelly, owners of Will-Mor Manufacturing, felt this issue keenly as their shop grew and acquired more customers over the past decade. The Seabrook, New Hampshire-based manufacturer specializes in tight-tolerance complex milling and turning, as well as fabrication and assembly, for the aerospace, defense and power generation industries. The 90 employees at its 45,000-square-foot facility handle three- and four-axis vertical and horizontal machining centers, vertical and horizontal turning machines, wire EDM and welding. With this kind of diversity in their work, workholding inefficiencies and lengthy setup times have prevented the shop from reaching its full potential.

To solve these issues, Will-Mor turned to 5th Axis, a workholding manufacturer based in San Diego, California. Will-Mor first began using 5^th Axis’ V552 vises and, after being impressed by the vises’ performance and versatility, soon invested in the brand’s R96-D115 dovetail fixture and a RockLock base.

Adjustment Period

Will-Mor kicked off a six-month long project when it began switching to its 5^th Axis workholding. The overhaul in tooling, workholding, fixturing and CAM paths had to take place in parallel to the production schedule, and its success came down to the work of senior manufacturing engineer Douglas MacKinnon and lead product line programmer Alex Bickford. MacKinnon designed and modeled the new setup, selected the workholding and programmed the fixtures, running technical and practical support throughout the process introduction. Bickford selected the new tooling, assisted in toolpath generation and gathered data — as the operator most familiar with the old process, he was in a good position to identify the process bottlenecks.

Standardizing the base and clamp positions has enabled Will-Mor to run multiple parts on the same setup, with the same work zero.

Tweaking all the details to the shop’s liking — optimizing feeds and speeds, carrying out postprocessor updates to suit zero edits to programs after posting, developing program paths and other process adjustments — extended the project by another three months, but resulted in significant benefits.

Standard Vises

Will-Mor points out two parts that used to require extensive fixture changes. The parts used different radius jaws based on diameter, as well as different locating pins — and sometimes needed shimming into alignment. With the V552 self-centering vise, these parts now run in the same vise, and Will-Mor has 360 degrees of clearance. The V552’s repeatability of less than 0.0005 inches, along with the low repeatability of other 5^th Axis products, ended Will-Mor’s need to “dial in” most of its parts after setup, which had involved cutting with stock on and adjusting it — a productivity sink the shop found unacceptable. The increased repeatability boosted productivity by over 30% and decreased per part cycle times.

5^th Axis’ solutions standardized Will-Mor’s setups, removing the need for custom jaws, work and tool offsets, setup-specific quirks and the vast majority of its fixture changes. For one part with five setups per week, Will-Mor reduced the setup times from around six-to-seven hours to between one and two hours. Will-Mor could also now do the entire operation plus some extra machining in one set of serrated jaws. For another job, Will-Mor says it was able to reduce the setup time from around four hours to just about 15 minutes.

Accessibility Through Dovetails

The RockLock base from 5^th Axis provides even more stringent repeatability than the V552 self-centering vise, at 0.0003 inches, and uses a four-pull-stud system with industry-standard 96 mm or 52 mm stud spacing for maximum compatibility with other major four-pull-stud systems and mounting compatibility with most three-, four- and five-axis tables. It standardizes setups and work coordinates — a benefit which combines with the small footprint of 5^th Axis’ D115 dovetail fixturing to minimize both the number of setups and the necessary setup time. For one part, this combination enabled Will-Mor to remove 90% of material in one operation.

Standardizing the base and clamp positions has additionally enabled Will-Mor to run multiple parts on the same setup, with the same work zero.

One of 5^th Axis’ signature innovations is the “poka yoke” feature of the dovetail clamps, which prevents operators from misloading vises and fixtures. It also enables Will-Mor to be confident that the stock is both centered and loaded in the proper orientation. The strength and stability of the fixturing resulted in a 40% reduction in scrap.