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Development and Transfer of Technology Series
TECHNOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES IN THE MACHINE-TOOL INDUSTRY AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES :\BSTR:\CT
R~f.: IDl31~
Februar~ ( '):\5 '.\c:w Y De,·elopment and Transfer of Technology Series No. 19 Serie '"Mise au point et transfert des techniques"' NO 19 Serie .. Desarrollo y transferencia de tecnologia" Num. 19 TECHNOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES IN THE MACHINE-TOOL INDUSTRY AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES LES PERSPECTIVES TECHNOLOGIQUES DE L'INDUSTRIE DE LA MACHINE-OUTIL ET LEURS ... INCIDENCES SUR LES PAYS EN DEVELOPPEMENT PERSPECTIVAS TECNOLOGICAS DE LA INDUSTRIA DE MAQUINAS HERRAJ\ttlENTAS Y SUS CONSECVENCIAS PARA LOS PAISES EN DESARROLLO ABSTRACT I SOMMAIRE /EXTRACTO ID!.112/ Ah, tract PrintC"ll in ·\11'.,1ri.1 V ;-.;<•. ;.'~; The ability of the machine-tool industry to prodo :e the multifarious types of machine tools necessary for industrialization profoundly affrcts the industrial and economic progress of any nation. Many developing countries have nevertheless lagged behind iP establishing their capital goods industry in general and their machine-tool industry in particular. Estimated world production of the machine-tool industry in 1979 was $22. 7 billion. Of the 33 major machine-tool-produciPg countries, 22 developed countries accounted for 92 per cent of the total production. In order to guide policy-makers in developing COL'.ntries in the further developm.:nt of this crucial sec.or. the present publication provides for a review of the machine-tool industry throughout the world in the context of developed and developing countries and of the technological trends in machiPc-too: design and manufacture, as well as production engineering. An assessment is made of the implications of these trends for developing countries. On the basis of a forecast that, by about 1985. assembling jobs will be integrated into other production routines, making use of computer-aided manufacturing systems. that by about 1987 .. approximately 15 per cent of the total machine-tool production will consist of flexible production systems. that by about 1990 robots will attain human ;::apabilities in final assembly sequences and that by about 1995 almost 50 per cent of the '.Ina) assembly in the automotive industry will be achieved by programmable autor.iation and robots, an analysis is made of possible action .1:: developing countries to bring their progcamme~ for the production of machine tools into line with some of the latest advances in technological developments in the incustrialized nation'>. SOMMAIRE La C3p:J.cite de l'industrie de la machine-outil a produire Jes divers types de machines-outils necessaires nour !'industrialisation ir.flue fortement sur le progres industriel et economique d'un pays. Or de nombreux pays en dheloppement sont en retard pour etablir leur i>ldu.~trie prnductric~ de biens d"equipement et en particulier cel!e des machines-outils. On a e~time la production mondiale de l'industrie de la m~chine-outil en 1979 a 22. 7 milliards de dollars. Sur Jes 33 grands pays projucteurs de mad.ines-outils. 22 pays dhel ·opes assuraient a eux seuls 92 r( de la production t'Jtale. La presente publication passe en rerne la situation de l'industrie de la machine-outil dar.s Jes ~ivers pays - pays dheloppes et pays en dheloppement - et les tendances technologiques en matiere de conception et de fabrication de machines-outils. ainsi que d'organisation de la prnducrion. et repond au souci de guider Jes dirigear1ts des pays en dheloppement dans les efforts qu'ils accomplissent pour developper ce secteur d'une importance capitale. II est procede a une ~\·aluation des incidences de ces tendances sur les pays en developpement. .. En partant de la prevision que d'ici a 1985. les taches de montage seront integrees dans d"aucres taches roi.;tinieres de production faisant appel a des systemes de fabrication ::a:lo'.na"isc!s. que d'ici a 1987. 15 r; environ de la production totale de machines-outils ~era 'ffectuee par d::s systemes de prnch. :tion polyvalents. que d'ici a J990. Jes robots poUH')llt ;-.ssurer les sequt>nces finales de montage aussi bien que des etres humains et que d"ici a 1995. pres 5 EXTRACTO La capacidad de la industria de maquinas herramientas para producir los multiples tipos de maquinas herramientas que precisa !a industrializaci6n influye profundamente en el progreso economico e industrial de cualquier naci6n. Ahora bien, muchos paises en desarrollo se han quedado rezagados en la creacion de una industria de bienes de capital en ge"leral y de una industria de maquina!; herramientas en particular. Se calcula que en 1979 la produccion mundial de la industria de maquinas herramientas ascendio a 22. 700 millones de dolares. De los 33 principales paises productores de maquinas herramientas, a 22 paises en desarrollo les correspondi6 el 92 Ck de la pr0ducci6n total. A fin de orientar a 19s formuladores de politicas de los pai!;es en desarrollo sobre la manera de continuar el crecimiento de este sector crucial, la presente publicaci6n estudia la industria de !as maquinas herramientas en todo el mundo. tanto en los paises desarrollados como en los paises en desarrollo, las tende:icias tecnologicas del diseiio y 12 fabricacion de las miquinas herramientas, y la ingenieria de produccion. Ademas, hace una evaluaci6n de las consecuencias de estas tendencias para !os paises en desarrollo. • Se pronostica que para 1985 aproximadamenre los trabajos de montaje estaran integra 7 TECHSOLOGIC:\i. PERSPECTI\'ES I~ THE ~.1:\CHI;..;E-TOOL ISDL'.STRY :\~D THEIR IMPLICATIOSS FOR DE\'ELOPl.'G corsTRIES l"'.\IHD '.\.HIO'.\S !'.\DLSTRIAL DE\"ELOP'.\IE'.\T ORGA'.\IZATIO'.\ \"ienna Development and Transfer of Technology Series No. 19 TECHNOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES IN THE MACHINE-TOOL INDUSTRY AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR DE'/ELOPING COUNTRIES UNITED NATIONS New York. J 985 \kntt••n ,,f '.·1rm name' anJ ,,,mmc:r..:ial pr,>Jud' J,,,:, !l•>t lntfJI~ the .:nJc>rsemeni c>f the: l"nttc:J :-.;atll>n' lndti-tn.11 Dncl.•pment !lr;;ant1at1.in 1l Sil)()). anJ an~ failun: t•> mc:nti,m a particular firm. ,,,mmc:r.:;al pnidm:t •'r rr111,,.t:-.' ltl LllfiOt:1,,:(111n \\Uh tht:' tt:Lhth1h1g:1t:' Jc:,Lr~hc:d tn tl-ti..;. \t.liUffit: i'.' nt.l[ a '.\ign llf <.h:-.a~pfl''l\al. !he Jc,;gnall•>n' cmpl•>HoJ and the pr.:,.:ntJtll>n ,,f the: m:itaial j;1 this J,>cumc:nt d,, n,ll tmpl~ the: .:xprc:"i,1n ,,f ,1p:- ••'11tlt,>n \\hat,"c":r ,,n the: part .,f the Sccrc:tanat ,,f the l"nitc:d :-.;c:!i,,n, C•>nccrmng the: legal 'tatu' ,,f a:-i:. i.:11t!ntr~. tt:rr1t11r~ . ...:tt~ llf ~Hl."a 11r tlf 1t' authlHitie'. llf (nncc:rn1ng th~ ddimitati .. 10nf1b fr,1ntit:r'.\ tlf bllUndarie,_ (SS;\ 0250-SO IX Preface ..\ccording to one \·iew. the most urgent task of de\·etoping countries is to meet the b.:sic needs of the poor. using simple. small-scale appropriate technology. An opposing view is that modern ~echnology and rapid industrialization alone can soh·e the problems of developing countries. Many countries in the third world consider the emphasis placed on basic needs to be an attempt to deny them the benefits of modern industry. and regard appropriate technology as backward technology that is particularly inappropriate at a time when some de\·eloping countries arc becoming important exporters of industrial goods. It is also argued that such concepts perpetuate the existing international division of hbour that allows developed market economies to u11dertake modern. highly producti\'e indi•strial activities. while encouraging de\·eloping countrie~ to concentrate on low-paid. less productiw l:tbour-intensive work. Such a debate. how e\·er. is meaningless. The cruci.:I task of developing countries is to overcome their lack of technica: development and raise the productivity of their labour to a level that would enable them to make progress towards the goal. set by the Seconc.i G~neral Conference of l'~IDO held at Lima. Peru. in March 1975. of achie\·ing at least a 25 per cent share of world industrial production by the end of the twentieth century. Thi~ study of technological perspectives ;n the machine-tool i:idustry is designed to assist developing countric..; in the selection of appropriate modern machine-tool design and produc'Lion technology. It consists of three parts: part I comprises a global review of the machine-tool industry. including a case study of the machir.e-tool industry in India; part II considers prospective technological developments in the machine-tool industry of developed countries; and part 111 discusses the implications for developing countries of technological development'> in the machine-tool industry. The study is based on replies to a questionnaire sent to leading machine-tool manufacturers. designers. production engineers. technologists. researchers and tead.ers in production te;:h nology and marhine-tool users throughout the world. The annex contains an extrnct from a report of the Technical Policy Board of the Institution of Production Engineers. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The study was prepared by S. M. Patil. acting as a consultant to UNIDO. The views expressed arc those of the consultant and do not necessarily reflect the views of the secretariat of ~J~IDO. EXPLA~ATORY !"OTES References tl> dollars (Sl are tl> l'nited States dollars. unless otherwise stated. References co rup.:es I Rsl are to Indian rupees. In 1980. the \'alue of the rupee in relacion to the dollar was SI = Rs ~.9:;. The folh,wing forms ha\'e been used m tables: Three dots I. .. ) indicate that daca are noc available or are not separately reported . ..\dash 1-) indicates that the amounc is nil or negligible. Be,ides the comm1rn abbre,·iations. symbols and terms. the following have been used in this study: AJ\1 abrasi\'e-jet machining CAD wmputer-aided design C.-\'.\1 computer-aided manufacture CH\1 chemical machining C'.\1EA Council fo, '.\1utual Economic Assistance C'.\C c11mputer numerical cirntrol D'.\C direct numerical control Ek'.\1 electron-beam machining EC'.\1 electrochemical machining E D'.\1 electron-discharge machining EEC European Economic Communiry E'.\l'.\1S Experimental Scientific Research Institute of \1eta1-cutting \.lachine Tools IB'.\1 inn-hea•n machining l.B'.\1 laser-be;,m machining '.\1[)1 manu?I data input '.\C numerical contrnl PA \1 ph,ma-arc machining P'.\1 pnwder metal I 'S'.\I ulrra,onic rnachrnmg W.J\1 water-JC! machining VI CONTENTS Pa~,· Preface ...... 1· Explanatory notes ...... ··i Part one Global study of the machine-tool industry and a case study of India Clr11rrer I. BACKGROUND...... 3 Objectives of the study ...... 3 Defi.1ition of a machine tool...... 3 Importance of the machine-tool industry ...... 3 Brief review of the world machine-tool industry ...... 4 II. THE MACHINE-TOOL INDUSTRY IN SOME OF THE LEADING MACHINE-TOOL- PRODUCING DEVELOPED COUNTR;ES ...... 8 Czechoslovakia...... 8 Federal Republic of Germany ...... 9 France ...... 10 German Democratic Republic ...... 12 Italy ...... 13 Japan...... 15 Poland...... 17 Switzerland ...... 17 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics...... 18 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland ...... 20 United States of America ...... 21 III. THF. MACHINE-TOOL INDUSTRY IN SOME OF THE LEADING MACHINE-TOOL- PRODlJCING DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ...... 23 Argentina ...... 23 Brazil ...... 23 China...... 25 Mexico...... 25 Republic of Korea ...... 27 IV. CASE STUDY OF THE MACHINE-TOOL INDUSTRY IN INDIA ...... 28 Industrial base of India ...... 28 Development of the Indian machine-tool industry ...... 7.9 Structure of the industry ...... 32 Research and development ...... 33 vii Part two Prospective technological developments in the machine-tool industry in developed countries 37 \". BACKGROUND ...... \"I. '.\1ACHI'.'E-TOOL MECHANICS AND DESIGN ...... 39 Structures ...... 39 Guideways and bearing surfaces ...... 40 Spindle systems...... 41 Feed dri\·es ...... 41 Mechanical drive elements ...... 4 I Accuracy of design...... 41 l\1odular construction ...... 42 Ccmputer-aided design ...... 42 High-speed machining...... 43 Ergonomics. noise and safety ...... 44 Energy management in metalworking...... 45 VII. CUTTING-TOOL MATERIALS AND TOOL DESIGN...... 46 Tool materials...... 46 Tool dc-;ign...... 49 VIII. MACHINE-TOOL CONTROL SYSTEMS...... 52 Computer numerical control systems ...... 52 Manual data input controller ...... 54 Direc~ numerical control ...... 54 Recem trends in numerical control of machine rools ...... 55 l\1aciline design...... 57 IX. NON-TRADITIONAL MACHINING METHODS ...... 58 ~lectron discharge ...... 58 Electrochemical process ...... 59 Chemical process ...... 60 Ultrasonic process ...... 60 Abrasive jet ...... 60 Laser beam ...... 61 Electron beam...... 61 Plasma arc...... 62 Ion be<.:n ...... 62 Water jet ...... 62 X. METAL-FORMING MACHINE TOOLS...... 64 Forming methods...... 64 Press equipment and tooling...... 65 lnnova:ions in punching by numerical control ...... 67 Powder metal technology ...... 67 !'Ion-traditional forming processes...... 6 7 Future of forming ...... 69 XI. TECHNOLOGICAL TRENDS IN PRODUCTION ENGINEERING ...... 70 Computers in manufacturing ...... 70 Integrated manufacturing...... 70 Computer-aided manufacture...... 71 Technl>logical evoluti"n ...... 71 viii Flexible machining systems...... 72 r.roup technology ...... 73 Col'lputer control and inspection of machine tools...... 73 Metrology and inspection ...... 73 Assembly and materials handling ...... 74 XII. AUTOMATION AND FUTURE TRENDS IN THE MACHINE-TOOL INDUSTRY...... 15 Robots...... 15 Future prospects...... 15 Part tlrru The implications for developing cou:itries of technological developments in the machine-tool industry XIII. THE TECHNOLOGY GAP AND ITS IMPLICATIONS ...... 79 Technological factors...... 79 Metal-forming ...... 80 Non-traditional machining ...... 81 XIV. ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS...... 82 XV. GUIDELINES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MACHINE-TOOL INDUSTRY IN THE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES...... 83 Production units...... 83 Production technology ...... 84 Production process...... 84 Annex Current and future trends of manufacturing management and technology ...... 86 Bib/ioKraphy ...... 89 List of tables I. World machine-tool production and trade ...... 4 2. Leading machine-tool consumers ...... 6 3. The machine-tool industry in Czechoslovakia: production, consumption and trade ...... 9 4. The machine-tool industry in the Federal Republic of Germany: production, consumption and trade ...... 9 5. The machine-tool industry in France: production, consumption and trade ...... 11 6. The machine-tool industry in the German Democratic Republic: production, consumption and trade ...... 12 7. The machine-tool industry in Italy: production, consumption and trade ...... 14 8. The machine-tool industry in Japan: production, consumption and trade ...... 16 9. The machine-tool industry in Poland: producrion, consumption and trade ...... 17 10. The machin,.-tool industry in Switzerland: production, consumption and trade ...... 18 11. The machine-tool industry in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: production, consumption and trade...... 19 12. Numerically controlled machine tools: world production in 1977 ...... 20 13. The machine-tool industry in the United Kingdom: prCJduction, consumption and trade...... 20 ix 14. The machine-tool industry in the United States of America: producticn, consumption and trade ...... 21 15. Machine-tool production and trade of Argentina. 1974 to 1979...... 23 16. Development of the: metalworking industry in Brazil...... 24 17. Machine-tool production and trade of Brazil. 1974 to 1979 ...... 24 18. Machine-tool production and trade of China, 1974 to 1979 ...... 25 19. The machine-tool park in Mexico...... 26 20. Machine-tool production and trade of Mexico. 1974 to 1979 ...... 26 21. Machine-tool production and trade of the Republic of Korea, 1974 to 1979 ...... 27 22. Machine-tool production of India, 1941-1950...... 30 23. Machine-tool production of India, 1951-1960...... 30 24. The machine-tool industry in India: production, trade and consumption. 1961-1970...... 31 25. The machi.,e-tool industry in India: production, trade and consumi;tion, 1971-1979...... 31 List of figures I. World machine-tool exports ...... 5 II. World machine-tool consumption ...... 5 Ill Growth of machine-tool production of the nine leading producers ...... fJ IV. Share of machine-tool production of developed countries as a percentage of world output.... 7 V. Share of machine-tCJol exports of developed countries as a pcrcen!age of worM exports ...... 7 VI. Growth of machine-tool production, i'!llports and exports of India...... 32 Vil. Share of domestic machine-tool pruduction consumed in India...... 32 x Pu1t one Global study of the machine-tool industry and a case st.1dy of India I I ~ I. Background Objectives of the study quired for the production of metalwork and a wide range of capital a'ld consumer goods by the Stead;Iy ircr'-:i.sing production costs in devel manufacturing and engineering industries. oped ccuntries ha\·c led to a corresponding There are at present two main types of expansion of demand for more highly producti\·c machir.e tools. namely chip-removing and form and precise machine tools: The activity arid ing types. There arc IO main operations in the technical standards of the machine-tool industry chip-removing process: turning. milling, planing. ha\·c therefore t>ccomc an accurate index of the shap:ng, drilling, boring, gear-hobbing, tapping. economic efficiency and productivity of manu broaching and grinding (cylindrical, profile, ex facturing industry. Many machine tools currc.uly ternal. internal and flat). Like all machine-tool in use arc clearly recognizable successors of basic operations. the above ten processes depend not designs. Some. however. arc comj'lctely new in upon heat or pressure as do castings. forgings and conception and invol\·c machining methods, stampings, but upon removing metal chips which normally electrical. whereby the intense concen range from the metallic gravel of planing 10 the tration of power (emanating from electric sparks. fine dust of grinding and electrolytic. chemical. electron beams or laser beams) vn a small area of plasma and laser machining. The variants and a workpiece causes the metal to melt and vaporize. combinations of these and a few other operations Similar innovations involve the manufacture of could result in hundreds of different kinds of turbine blades by electrochcn.ical techniques, the machine tools. electrolytic grinding of very hard metals and The main category of forming machine tools ultrasonic and abrasive jct machining. includes all types of presses. forge hammers, In view of such rapid and innovative changes explosion f"rming machines. welding units etc. in the design and technology of machine tools, developing coumries should thoroughly inves Importance of the machine-tool industry tigate the question of obsolescence in the machine tool industry before acquiring foreign designs and Few. if any. products and services of modern technological know-how. The objective of this civili ation would exist if it were not for machine study is to provide an in-depth analy~ii of that tools. However, despite its fundamental impor question and to make a realistic forecast of tance, the machine-tool industry has always repre machine-tool technology up to the end of the sented only a ~;nail part of the total industrial century. Thi~ would help developing countries to output of dcve1oped countries, thanks 10 tile establish their own machine-tool industries on a cff;cicncy and longevity of its products. The entire proper basis, avoiding designs and technology ill world machine-tool industry is in fact smaller suitcd to their needs or likely 10 become obsolete than many individual corporations in the United in the near future. S•ates of America. The ability of the machine-tool industry to Definition of a machine tool prod"-:e the great variety of machine tools neces sary 1r industrialization has a major impact on A machine tool is a power-driven tool, the economic and industrial progress of a country. non-portable while in operation, used for carrying Many developing countries have lagged behind in out, individually or in combination, the opera establishing their own capital goods and machine- tions of machining, forming and electrochemical 1001 industries. A few, however, have a sizeable processing of metals. wood, glass, plastic and capital goods industry and a large machine-tool similar materials. Machine tools range from simple industrial base, which has given them a big drilling machines and lathes 10 complex, fully advantage over other developing countries. They automated and computerized machines, machin arc now able to substitute local production for ing centres with tool changers. multi-station ma imports of many types of capital and consumer chines. transfer lines and flexible machining sys goods, and some have reached a stage of devel tems capable of automatically producing work op1ncnt that enables them to improve their that meets the required st; ndards of quality and balance of trade through the export of a •:ariety of quantity. Metalworking n achinc tools are re- industrial products. .I 0 l"n·hno/1t.~tcilf r~r\pt•r.: . . t"I ln lhr;,• ntll1.:ltllft -tm:/ tnJuHn 11nJ tlr~lr ltrf1"fl'-·.zt1a1U fd1 J&":.·efopln'( Cl1Unfrlt"\ ~~~~~~~~--~~~~~~~~~~ Brief revie" of the world machine-tool industr~· the nine leading producers since 1966. The countries listed in table 2 consumed about 75 per The world machine-tool industry. which con C.!nt of total world machine-tool production and sistently registered an increase in output from accounted for about 93 per cent of world exports. 196::! onwards. generally reflecting strong indus The slt~re of production and exports accoun trial growth among the main produ.:ers and users ted for by the leading machine-tool-producing of machine to...'ls throughout the world. suffered dc\·eloped countries is shown in figures IV and V. its first setback in 1974 as a result of the oil crisis. The high degree of industrialization. the Rising oil prices. inflation and confusion in the monetary strength and the flourishiug economies world financial markets had their repercussions of the nine bigp.est producers pro\·idc the basis for on machine-tool production during the rest of the their strong machin::-tool industries. Trarlitior.ally. decade. Production estimates of leading machinc these countri'!s have acc:>i.;Gt'!d for 80 per cent of tool-producing countries and areas in 1979 and world tradi: in rrost industrial goods and for data for 1978 arc shown in table I. These near!\· all the technological innovations in the countries and areas also account for a major share field d metalworking equipm;:nt. Their i'.d\·anced of exports. World exports and consumption of designs and technological developments have to a machine tools have risen sharply since 1964 . .ts la;ge extent been achieved to meet their own may be seen from figu1.:s I and II. Figure Ill requirements, namely increased production and shows the growth in machine-tool production of producti\·ity 2nd the progressi\·e saving of labour. TABLE I. WORLD MACHISE-TOOL PRODLTTIOS ASO TRADE f.\f1//:01u of dollart) /9 .. 9 fr111mat,J1 19".~ ·---- J'roJ1'c·1111n PmJuctum Trad~ TraJ.· <'urun.f f"o.rmmt ("uttmf Formuu~ (",>u111r, or ar~u Tnr.il lnob :ooh ftP"'' Impart Tnral loaf( tfMIJ Etpnn lmpflrt I. Germany. Federal Republic of 4099.9 2 951.9 I l4K.O 2 460.0 541.2 3 396.4 2 373.X I 022.6 2 122.J 4(!2.0 ' I' nued State• 3 K90.0 2 940.0 950.(' 660.0 I 060.0 3 004.3 2 205.i 79K.6 560.2 715.3 3. So\.·1ct Cnion 2 K92.0 2 234.0 658.0 350.0 800.0 2 652.0 2 0~'>.f) 596.0 332.0 XOJ.O 4. fa pan 2 (,97.X 2081.5 616.3 I 113.R 155.2 2 35fU I 736.6 613.-:' I 017.5 119.9 5. Ital~ I 3X5.7 903.7 482.0 698.9 265.1 I 060.5 69lU 371.2 596.2 194.4 6. l:nued Y.mgdom I 106.4 872.3 234. I 4611.1 ~14.5 K21.4 639.1 IXL' 426.0 399.2 ~ France 91X. I 5116 2 331.9 479 K 352.4 723.0 53P 187.3 3K2."' 2119.6 X. German Democ.atic Republic K05.K 636.7 169. I 661.6 243.K t.9X.6 552.0 146.6 547.9 217.ll 9. s,. it1erland "'97.1 677.5 119.6 677.5 139.5 76K.2 652.K 115.4 652.K 124.J to. Poland 61!4.6 600.R 83.M 190.9 518.3 678.K 594.9 l!J.9 163.4 595.X II. China 420.0 315.0 105.fl ~11.0 60.0 405.0 305.0 100.0 20.0 65.0 12. Roma:ua 403.6 359.7 43.9 130.7 JXl.2 294. l 2611.0 26.3 8K.O -'39.n D. C1echoslo•·ak1a 357.2 2K5.9 71.3 265.0 166.3 363.4 295.I 6X.3 246.2 170.2 14. Spain 313. I 219.9 93.2 216.2 82.1) 232.2 161.K 70.4 147.6 90.I 15. Bra11l 239.K 191.K 4X.O 33.0 136.0 25D 203.0 52.3 20.1 226.2 16. YugMlav1a 222.5 121.0 101.5 50.0 150.0 173.5 105.1 6X.4 4P 150.2 I"'. Sweden 199.7 !JU MU 156.7 iOl.7 IM.4 105.5 60.9 IJx.J I09.5 Ill. \hma (T~:'"" Prmmcc) li2.2 165.2 7.0 120.0 70.0 126.0 119.7 6.3 94.0 50 19 Au~rr1d 150.8 64.1 86.7 lilt 147.0 112.5 69.X 42.7 93.9 9K.9 20 Repuhhc of Korea 150.0 107.0 4J.O .no 140.0 95.0 68.0 27 (1 5.0 156.0 21. lrd1a 129.0 112.9 16.I Jl.O 55.X 111.K 96.K 15.0 24.4 4K X " Belgium 127 3 44.7 K2.6 110.5 126 ..1 114.0 40.0 74.0 99.0 11.1.2 2.1 tlungar) 115.9 107.J K.6 K9.K 12.l.9 109.J IOU 7.6 K4.2 111.7 24. Canada I IO. .1 64.6 45.7 66.4 330.2 K4.K 47.4 37.4 52.K 22X.O 2S. Sether land• 75.0 so.o 25.0 39 0 102.0 66.5 439 22.6 34.7 90.'i 26. Argentina 62.0 24.5 37.5 12.0 75.0 60.0 24.0 36.0 12.0 Ml.ll 27. Denmark 4K.O 26.0 220 25.0 42.0 45.3 24.9 20.4 2.1.7 .19.K ~K. Bulgaria JO.O 30.0 15.0 25.0 30.0 JOO 15.0 25.0 29. ~mgapore 21.3 19J 2.0 27.7 92.1 12.0 I0.4 1.6 IK.K 46 K .10. South Africa 20.0 74 12.ti .1.9 112.J 14.9 4.6 l!U 4.0 K0.5 11 Au•traha IK.O 9.7 K.3 I.I 155.4 IK.5 9.9 K.6 I.I IOfi.7 .12 Mcuco IS.5 15 ll 0 15 KS.O 13.6 6.6 7.0 u 75.0 31 Portugal 14 ..1 6.1 K.2 46 311.9 I0.2 4H 5.4 4.0 14.K ·------· Total 22 692.9 16955.4 5 1.11.5 9 .1nx 7 4411. I 19 06K.O 14 IKl.9 4 Kll6. I K 070.K 6 426.9 .\nurrt A"ft'1ft11f .\lt1flflf11U. l·thruar\' l~KO ::ipn I. World macin.-tool npo:ts I I 1 I 5 i 5 0 I ! 4 l ~ 3 2 1114 111& I- 1117 I- I- 11111 1171 1172 lln 1174 1175 1119 1177 11711 1171 Sourc' Sa11onal Machine Tool Budden' Assocu •.. n. Fi~rr II. World madlinr-cool c:onsumplion 11.J 11.5 15.0 i i 12.5 0 j "' l! 10.0 ~ 7.5 1.0 2.1 1.. 1• 1• 1117 1- 1- 1m1 1171 1m 1m "" 1m 1171 1177 "'" 1171 Sm"" Na11onal Mach1M Tool BullMn' An<1<:ia110•, Figutt Ill. Gro•lh of m:aclliow-cool production of I~ niH k:ading produttn... ·- ,.. ,_ 21111 ,_ i , i .. Ii f ,_ !. I ~ 1'1111 ·- ·- .. ·- 1111 - ~-~-~-~-~-~-..--~r--- ·- ••, ·- ·- 1170 1971 ••12 117J 1174 ,,,. 1111 1177 111'1 1111 \·nurct' ..fmrrrcan .\.fadunnr. Fcbruar~ 19~0 TABLE 2. 1.1'.:\Dl:-;G '.\l..\CHl:-;E-TOOI. CO:'llSl'.!'-ll'RS Oulf'"l fm1/lum SJ ------r,·rfc"lflm:r· 1~-y (/r1m..;r· c.1untn iv-~ 4 290.ll .15.X I. 1· nited State' .1 159.4 7.0 , So\ tel (.* nion .112.1.ll 3 3420 .1. \,111rr.- .f"''''"'" \ladflnnt. f·thrudr\' IQMO I 1114 1- 11111 1•1 1.. 1- 1110 1111 11n 1m 111• 1175 11111 11n 1118 1111 Sourc~· S.il.Uonal l\b.ch1nc T Chll Builders· Association. Fii:urr \.. Sharr of machinr-1001 upor:s of drnloprd countries :.s a prrcrnlagr of world nporls .,,...--- ...... - llepuDlc of c;...... , - ...... , ------~ -- ' /------' ...... ' // ...... '/ '~ ...... __ _ ...... Elnom E- ,::::.::::~. -·-·-__::::.· . ....-.:::::~:7'-:.:..::; .. -... _-...... __ ..... _·- ...... (. ..~1:::· ·----··-·· ...... ----:r..,,, ·-·-·-·-·-·- C>dsEEC-- 10 __.,,,,._.,,,.,...... ------.,,,, ------1114 1185 1• 1•1 1• 1- 1110 1111 11n 1m 111• 1175 11711 11n 11118 11111 Snura. Sauona! Machine Tool Builder,· AsS Not only has industrial expansion in devel envisaged before because their industries and oped countries given impetus to the growth of technology depend upon depletable energy inputs their metalworking sector, but also their higher such as coal and crude oil. But since developed level of consumption demands that those growth countries have predominant technological power. rate~ be maini.. .• 1ed to ensure continued affluence. resources and capabilities and the necessary infra· However. judging from their present level of structu. · for research and development activities energy consumption, some apprehensions have in aim~· .1 all industrial disciplines, alternate energy been expressed that developed countries may not sources may well be tapped by them mu-:h earlier register the same rate of economic growth as than by other countries. II. The machine-tool industry in some of the leading machine-tool-producing developed countries The machine-tool industry in most de\·eloped C zechoslovaki.t countries has many common features. Neverthe less. the developments taking place are not quite The machine-tool industry in Czechoslovakia uniform. For instance. some countries such as consists of 47 manufacturing firm~ producing Switzerland specialize in producing high-precision metal-cutting and metal-forming machines. The machine tools. including jig boring machines. jig industry in Czechoslovakia rlates back to 1905 grinding machines. gear grinding machines and and has a long tradition of building quality machine tools needed by the watch industry. The machine tools. The country has two major groups United States has specialized in producing very of manufactu'."ers, one being the Engineering high-performance productive machines. mostly Technique Group and the other consisting of with numerical control (NC). computer numerical \·arious national corporations. Czechosiovakia is control (CNC) and direct numeric::! control ( DNC) a leading product>r of mac' .ine tools in the systems. for small-. medium- and large-batch Coum:il for Mutual Economic Assistance(CMEA). production and mass produ.:tion of single com second only to the Soviet Union and th.: German ponents (for example. transfer lines). Countries Democratic Republic. belonging to the European Economic Community Besides general-purpose machine tools. its I EEC). Japan and countries with centrally industry is famous for machine tools designed fnr planned economies. such as Czechoslovakia. the heavy use and for ordnance work. German Democratic Republic and the Union of Soviet Socialist ~epublics. produce heavy-duty and high-production machines needed mostly for Production and trade general applications at very reasonabie prices. This explains why major machine-tool-producing The "roduction. consumption and trade of countries ha\·e themselves been the principal Czechoslovakia in machine tools from 1975 to importers of machine toob. It is very common 1979 are reflected in table 3. to see Swiss grind;ng machines, jig-boring Czechoslovakia has traditionally tr?'.lecl with machines or gear-grinding machines in the CMEA countries and with de\·eloped market Federal Republic of Germany. Japan. or the economies. Ir recent years the rnlume of imports Soviet Union. On the other hand. France. Italy. from the German Democratic Republic and the Swit1erland and the United States import Soviet Union has increased. However, Czecho substantial quantities of machine tools from the slovakia exports more machine tools than it Federal Republic of Germany for particular imports, as reflected in table 3. applications. No developed country has ever attempted to be self-sufficient in machine tools. S.ime de\, •>ped countries with centrally planned Technology economies which experimented with the concept of self-sufficiency to an extreme degree had to The Czechoslovak machine-tool industry is give up eventually in order to improve the greatly assisted by the research and developrnent quality and productivity of their domestic carried out at the Research Institute of Machine products and equipment and also to compete in Tools and Machining, Prague, and the Institute the world market. for Metal-f rming Machine Tools at Brno. The principal directions of research activity are in th..: The following brief accounts of the status of development of CNC for machine tools and the industry in some of the leading machine-tool modular manufacturing systems. Work is in pro producing developed countries should prm;e use gress on a fully flexible, automatic manufacturing ful to developing countries. system. This is to be achieved by means of a DNC fABLI: J THE ~t.ACHISE-TOOL ISDl'STRY IS CZECHOSLO\'AKIA: PRODl!CTICS. cossn.tPTIOS :\!'ID TRADE f.\{11/wn> o( Jol/arsJ Etr,,,n /mfh"" Pc-rct'nlaf:t' Pc·n·ent&1\tt" }r·.i,. Prod1.H·t.on ( ·,,n,umptron ~-alu.· proJ11,:t1mt ,.alut• con1u1"'rtum"' 1')75 _,05.-l .:!-l-l.7 1'10.5 62.38 12'1.l! 5'.0-l 1'17t> Jr'l .:!60.7 1'10.2 56.2'1 113.0 -l3.3-l 1'1-7 JOIJ.l .:!.< 1.-l 215.3 6'1.65 15-U> fi2.6'1 1'1-~ _,f>J.-l 287.-l 2-l6.2 f..7.75 170.2 59.22 l'l'IJ 35'7.2 258.5 265.0 7-l.19 166.J 6-l.33 s.. ur •• · .fmc·n~·.in \fc1dunn1 system with a three-tier hierarchy of ccmpt:•ers remarkable growth of its machine-tool industry. involving a central computer for systems control, which was facilitated by two important factors. In with tool movements from a central magazine to the first place, most of the capital equipment of tool sharpening, and intermediate computers the country, like that of a number of European (CNC) for control of the machining centres. A countries, was damaged during the Second World semi-automatic integrated manufacturing system War. The rebuilding of the country hinged on consists of NC machining centres and standard making available capital equipment like machine NC machines, such as measuring machines and tools for reconstruction. Secondly, the destruction ultrasonic work devices, and other supporting during the war provided an opportunity to equip equipment. The system is controlled by DNC machine-tool plants with the latest machinery. computers developed in Czechoslovakia. Some of thus combining the advantage of higher produc the new developments undertaken by the Re tivity with modern designs. These two factors search Institute at Prague are the following: an together with substantial assistance from the automatic system to sense tool wear and breakage United States under the Marshall Plan helped to in the automatic production system; and tool rebuild modern machine-tool factories all over the magazines for CNC machining centres to store Federal Republic of Germany and Berlin (West). large numbers of tools in a matrix formation. This The rapid reconstruction of the industrial base of represents an advance on the limited number of Western Europe and the favourable conditions of tools in the tool changer equipment currently expansion over a long period of time provided the provided with machining .::entres. ideal setting for the machine-tool industry of the country to grow into a powerful catalyst of industrialization. Federal Republic of Germany The machine-tool industry of the Federal Prciducrion and trade Republic of Germany rose from war-time devas tation to a leading position in the world economy Data 'line-tool production, consump- within two decades. Many att,ibute the economic tion and tra .e Federal Republic of Germany miracle of the country to the dynamism and from 1975 h I., -J arc shown in table 4. TARI.I' 4. TllE MACHINE-TOOi. INDUHRY IN THE FEDERA~ REPUBLIC OF GERMANY: PRODUCTION. CONSUMPTION AND TRADE (Mil/inn1 nf dnllar.1) f.tpnm lmpnm PactntiJKt' PuuntaKt of nf Prndur11rm ConJ11mp1um pmd11c11nn cnmumpt1on 1975 14019 808.M I Kl4.3 75.4K 219.7 27.16 1976 2 '110.6 909.4 I 738.7 72.12 237.5 26.11 1977 2 635.5 I 132. 7 I K23.2 69. IK 320.4 2K.,!8 197~ 3 396 4 I 631i.5 2 122.3 62.4K 462.0 2x.23 1979 4 099.9 2 IK2.2 2 460.0 60.00 541.2 24.110 \oura Amt'f/U1'1 .\larlttfffll flJ The r.ible shows a decline in exports as a includi:ig product reliability and safet~·. More than 25 per cent of NC machine tools on display percenta~e of production. which could be partly the result of currency realignments and partly of at the Third European Machine Tool Organi i:t1mpetition from countries with lower labour zation Exhibition at Milan. Italy. were equipped costs. Even in de\·eloped countries. the labc-ur with controls produced by a firm of the Federal Republic of Germany in a joint \·enture with a intensi\·e character of machine-tool manufacmre persists despite impressi\·e advances in automa Japanese firm. The two firms have forged ahead tion. 1'evertheless. the export sales of the machine of other control manufacturers. Using their micro tool industry of the Federal Republic of Germany processor-based CNC for lathes. the programmed workpiece contours and th.: machining sequence occupies the first rank. far ahead of other countries. This is mainly due to the technological are shown on the graphic display in the same way as on an electronic drafting machine. The control strength. quality-consciousness and high degree of system determines the necessary rough and finish aggressiveness of its tool exporters. ing-cut sequences from infeed \·alves and it has Although the industry continues to rely the capability to display current cutting data. primarily on exports. the role of the domestic The firms engaged in the joint \·enture have market is growing. The imretus to develop introduced two major new control s~stems. each highr~-technology machines is expected to come using a 16-bit microprocessor and offering the mainly from home demand and from sophis option of bubble memory with 256.000-character ticated export markets like that of the United States. During 1979 the increase in domestic storage. One of the systems. developed by the firm demand was reflected in higher investments in of the Federal Republic of Germany. includes an arrangement by which information can be pre indust:-ial development projects. Continued pro sented on a display screen that includes some of duct development is also required in order to compete effectively on the growing domestic the alarm and diagnostic functions. market. Laser cutting h:is been added to NC. A firm in the Federal Repubiic of Germany has incor As reflected in table 4. imports of machine porated a laser into its punching machine. which tools by the Federal Republic of Germwy cover floats on air supports when punching. but is approximately 25 to 30 per cent of total con lowered to a rigid foundation when laser cutting. sumption. This ;.gain proves the fact that the The firm has been trying further to reduce noise biggest machine-tool-producing and -exporting in its punching machines by putting sound countries are themselves large il'1porters of machine tools. Machine-tool imports of the Federal Re absorbing casings around those components of public oi Germany are likely to rise because of the the machine which produce the most noise. The increasing cost of manufacture brought about by principal source of noise is the cutting tool. wage increases and lower working hours in its machine-tool industry. Japan and Switzerland are expected to increase exports of their products to France the Federal Republic of Germany because of the almost steady cost of manufacture of machine The machine-tool industry of France showed tools in those two countries. Japan now ranks declining produ,tion up to 1977 because of fourth among countries from which the Federal progressively decreasing investments in machine Republic of Germany imports machine tools. tools by the French metalworking industries. In 1979. the French metalworking industry still did not provide hopeful indicators of higher invest Technolnf?Y ments. However, thanks to the export of high technology products. the French machine-tool The foremost position of the machine-tool industry had not suffered a serious setback. industry of the Federal Republic of Germar.. is The French machine-tool industry is com due to its technological strength in all spheres of posr.d of small and medium-sized establishments. machine-tool manufacture. ranging from simple Consequently, even their competitiveness has been lathes to the most sophisticated manufacturing limited because they cannot muster the resources systems incorporating robots and computers. Re required to make major inroads on the export search and development support to the machine market or to rejuvenate the home market by tool industry is provided by continuous work offering customers the facilily of payment by easy done at machine-tool research institutes such as insta:ments. the Technische Hochschule. Aachen, and the Technische Univer;,itat. Berlin (West). The coun The Fren1..h industry is now striving to try has pioneered some of the major advances not consolidate its position in the home and export only in electronics but also in many other fields, markets by virtue of its high technology products. l h,· m'1l lt11tt·-f,1oi rndtHtn Ilf """l" ,,,. tht' lt·11dm( m 1dr.1nrt-to,1f-rr11duoru: Jr:,·r>lorrtd c:auntrh"\ II ~~~~~~~~~-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Production and tradt• Argentina. the Republic of Korea. and European countries with centrally planned economies. An improvement in the competiti\-e position Switzerland has a surplus balance of trade in of the French machine-tool industry is hampered machine tools with France. by a \-ariety of factors. The majority of machine France has been importing high-technology tools installed in French industrial establishments and high-production machine tools mainly from are comparati\-ely old. It has been reported by the Federal Republic of Germany and the United the French Machine Tool Manufacturers Associa States. High-precision machines are imported tion that in 1979 only about 32 per cent of the primarily from Switzerland. The French metal installed machine tools were less than 10 years working industry imported machine tools at the old. while it was 37 per cent in the Federal rate of 45 to 50 per cent of its total consumption Republic of Germany. 39 per cent in the United throughout the 1970s. Kingdom and as much as 60 per cent in Japan. The more disconcerting fact about the French machine-tool industry is thllt while home con Technology sumption is mo\·ing at a slow pace. the countries competing with France are progressively installing 1 he French machine-tool industry has high newer machines to sharpen their competitive edge technological strength. The refinements on general in the world market- The production. consump purpose machine tools are identical to those seen tion and trade statistics for France from 1975 to on machines offered by competitors. and France 1979 are shown in table 5. has not lagged behind in the field of NC and CNC As reflected in table 5. France had a surplus controls or in the development of machining in its balance of trade in machine tools during centres designed to meet the requirements of the 1978 and 1979. Its export efforts are not limited to French aerospace industry. Major French machine a particular geographic region_ The principal tool companies have been exporting advanced foreign customers of French machine tools in machine tools to several other countries in addi order of priority are: Romania. Germany. Federal tion to leading aircraft manufacturers. In 1979. Republic of. Soviet Union, Italy. Algeria. Efforts there were 5,200 NC machines installed in the are also being made to penetrate markets in French metalworking industry. of which as many China. Mexico and Latin America more effec as 1.600 were CNC machines. A leading French tively. firm is building a variety of industrial robots and French exporters to the EEC countries im special pallet loaders to assure a high degree of proved considerably because of increased sales to automation, for example in painting and welding_ Belgium. the Federal Republic of Germany. the It has designed and built robots for applying Netherlands and the United Kingdom. By way of lacquer, zinc paint. primer and mastic and for comparison. Italy increased its sales to France. enamelling and metallizing. A se\-enth optional Among the ot'ler countries. it is important to axis provides access to work areas inside auto underline the penetration of French machine tools bodies. Another firm has produced a machine in into Spain. which is the ninth largest customer of which parts can be held in a central headstock for France. Exports to the United States also regis simultaneously machining both sides. Blanks are tered an impressive growth and made the United automatically loaded. centred. clamped, machined States the seventh largest customer of French and ejected without stopping the spindle. A machine tools. The French machine-tool industry leading French manufacturer has started market is also intensifying efforts to sell its products to ing an NC hone for engine sleeves. a 16-spindle TABLE 5 Tiii: MAClllSE-TOOL ISDl'STRY IS FRASCE: PROr>t:CTIOS. co-.;Sl':\fPTIOS ASD TRADE (.\(1//1nr11 nf dnllor<) f:trr>fH Import~ --·-·-··------·------·- ·- ,,,.".""'"f" I't'ft"I''"''~,. ),.,,, rrnJu(fltJlf ('orrfMmptmn i·alut pro1/1ut1rm"' ,."'"" """'""'P""""' 1975 h7K.h h95.S _ll9.4 4711h l_lh 2 4K._l4 19711 "57.2 7.127 172.2 41.42 .147.7 47.45 197' 590,, h07 5 2h9.l 45.hO 2Mh.2 47.11 197K 72.1.ll hlll.2 1>12.7 52.91 2K9 h 45.95 197'1 91K. I 790.7 479.K 52.2h .152.4 45. s7 \our1,. ,.,,,,.,,r,,,, \fa(lt1rr111 ,_. progressive honing machine for hydraulic parts The machine-tool industry of the German that main ains a tolerance of 2,um. and a high Democratic Republic is centrally planned and precision lb-spindle machine for fuel-injection controlled. O\·erall responsibility for sales and system parts. which features hydraulic .:xpansion marketing policy is determined by an export of the hone to hold tolerance to 0.5 Jlm at an import agency based in Berlin. The industr:y is output of 100 parts per hour. divided into four Kombinats or manufacturing Despite their impressi\·e level of technical combines. each responsible for the manufacture development. sc\·eral of the above-mentioned high of different grOl.tt>S of metalworking machine technology products are not purchased by French tools. One combme manufactures machines for customers because of the low level of investment the production of circular components (for in the countr~ in modern machine tools. It has example. lathes and grinders). while companies been sum;ested that the stagnation of investments within another combine manufacture machines in France has forced many French machine-tool for the production of prismatic or housing-shaped manufacturers to open ma ... ufacturing facilities components (for example. milling machines). The abroad. notably in the Unir.:d States. third combine concentrates on the man•Jfacture of sheet metal. blanking and forming machines and equipment for processing plastics. The fourth G~rman Democratic Republic combine manufactures tools. jigs. fixtures and maintenance machines. The German Democratic Republic currently ranks eighth among world machine-tool pro ducers and fourth among machine-tool exporters. Production and trade Even before the Second World War, Erfurt. Magdeburg. Leipzig and Karl-Marx-Stadt (Chem Machine-tool production. consumption and nitz) were important machine-tool-building cen trade figures of the Gc .. nan Democratic Republic tres. Since all those cities are now part of the for the years 1975 to 1979 arc given in table 6. German Democratic Republic. the country has Over 80 per cent of the machine-tool pro become one of the leading producers of machine duction of the German Democratic Republic is tools. The industry is concentrated in the south of exported. The export range comprises a multitude the country around Karl-Marx-Stadt. of machine tools for turning. grinding. gcar The German Democratic Republic produces cutting. milling. drilling. boring. planing etc. The quality machine tools suited for one-off. mcdium country now ranks fourth among leading world scalc. large-batch and mass production. It also exporters. and it imports only a fraction of what it produces custom-built machine tools for large exports. as reflected in table 6. manufacturing planes. Machine-tool manufaccurc In general, three quarters of the trade of the assumes an important posicion in the economy. German Democratic Republic is with other mem and abouc four limes as many people arc involved bers of the Council for Mutual Economic Assis in chc manufacture and marketing of machine tance (CMEA), about half of which is with the cools than. for example. in the United Kingdom. Soviet Union. The country also imports machine Ac present. more than 80.000 people arc employed tools from the Soviet Union and other countries in the machine-tool industry. the products of with centrally planned economics. Another im which include h'Jth metal-cutting and mctal portant crading partner of its machine-tool in forming machine tools. dustry is the Federal Republic of Gt.:many. TARI.I: 6. THE MACHl!'iE-TOOI. INDIJSTRY IN THE GF.RMAN DEMOCRATIC Rl'Pt:BUC: PROLJlJCTIO!'i. CONSIJMPTIO!'i AND TRADE ( ...,11/um< n( dnl/art) rt'T ( ')75 5K2.2 26M.M 507.M K6.77 191.4 71.20 1976 56k.ll J65.7 446.4 7K.4ll 170.J 46.57 1977 641.4 2111.7 596.6 93.00 17.1.9 79.52 197K 69M.6 J6ll5 547.9 7K.42 217.K 59. Ill 1979 K05.M JKll 0 6f 1.6 K2. IO 24.lK 62.K4 Techno/o!Jy Second World War. pre-war production le\"els were not reached again until the late 1950s. with the The German Democratic Republic regularly de\·elopment of the automobile and electrical supplies high-quality !Jlachine tools to other CM EA domestic appliance industries. Between 1958 and members. The products range from general-pur 1963. production was quadrur;Ied. While firms pose to computer control machines. and c<:m already operating in the sector were restructuring ~iderable importance is attached to the producuon their produc~ion in accordance with the new of custom-built and SC machine tools. Most of technological requirements. many c,:!iers launched the basic research and de\·elopment work is for the first time into the production of machine conducted at the uni\·ersities of Jena. Dresden. tools. Berlin. Leipzig and at the Machine Tool Design After the crisis suffered b\" the whole Italian and Research Institute in Karl-Marx-Stadt. Re econom\" between 1964 and 1966. the year 1967 search work is also conducted in co-operation marked ·a second period of strong de\·elopment for with countries such as CzechoslO\·akia and the the machine-tool industry. again associated with a So\"iet Union. marked reco\"en· of investment in durable consumer The design excellence of machine tools pro goods. During .this period. stimulated by a sharp duced in the German Democratic Republic may rise in the cost of labour. there was a growing be attributed to the incorporation of modern tendenc\· on the part of many Italian firms to components such as recirculating ball screws. produc~ more sophisticated. automat.:d and direct-current dri\·es and electronic linear position numericallv controlled machinen·. scales. It also produces linked production lines. The Italian machine-tool i~dustry has grown The German Democratic Republic is recog steadih" since 1970. The success of the Italian nized as the leading machine-tool manufacturer in machi~e-tool industry depends on the traditional CMEA because of its pioneering work in im structure of Italian companies. Firms with less pro\·ing the machining environment. productivity than 500 employees account for 70 per cent of and accurac\". Ne\"ertheless. in certain areas the production. These firms ha\·e increased their le\"el of app.lied machine-tool technology in the investments and are planning to meet the higher German Democratic Republic falls somewhat demands of the home and export markets. short in comparison with the standards of de\·el Since United Kingdom and United States oped market economies. The country do~s not studies indicate a revival of the boom for machine build CNC systems at present, although tt can tools in 1979 and 1980. there is e\"ery likelihood of supply machines equipped with its own NC world investments in plant and machinery reach s\"stems. It also supplies machines built for Cl'llC ing over S20 billion, compared with S 15 billion in a·nd fitted with CNC systems produced by de\·el 1977. The Italian machine-tool industry hopes to oped market economies. get a share of this bulk investment. Computer techniques are employed in pro The Italian machine-tool industry has adop duction-for instance. tape p1eparation within the ted a novel method of capturing new markets by facton· is done on a minicomputer. Moreover, NC establishing training and trading centres in third machi~es are linked to a central main-frame world countries. A national agency called the computer-the German Democratic Republic Italian MJ T has been set up in Rome. The name m;;. Ices its own minicomputers-by machine ter MJ T denotes the Italian machine tools. training minals. In some of its factories, an automatic parts and trading establishment which combines train store is used in conjunction with the transport ing and irading functions. The basis for establish svstem. and studies have been undertaken on the ing this agency was a report prepared by the Data possibility of issuing all necessary tooling and Bank of Italy which is responsible '0r analysis and fixtures for a job along with the components and documentation. In the report. the number and then transporting them together round the system types of machines which were most likely to find a t<• the work station. Such an advanced production market in Latin America were worked out as well management system on the shop-floor has become as the training facilities to popularize Italian almost a necessity in \·iew of the serious shortage of machine tools. Since one usually prefers the make labour in the German Democratic Republic. of the machine on which one has been trained, the Italian machine-tool industry promoted the estab lishment of M3 T to attract new customers by llaly setting up a training institute in Rio de Janeiro. The agreement was concluded with the Brazilian The machine-tool industry in Italy was born at National Authority for Industrial Training for the the beginning of the century and devel lped during delivery of programmable machines. NC ma the vears between the two world wars. until in 1938 chines and planning aids as well as for the it w:as producing 28,000 tonnes of machines. Al training of Brazilian personnel in Italy and for though activity was resumed immediately after the deputing Italian instructors to Brazil. Financing /J Tedrnolo(1ca/ perspecm·.. 1 in tire maclr1n ..-tool 1nJu11rr anJ rlr.. rr impli.-arwn.• for J .. ufoptnt co11ntrtr'1 for this project is pro\·idcd by the financing exporters. The continuous good export perform branch of the Finanzaria Construuori Italiani ance of Italy may be attributed to the organiza Macchinc Utcnsili (Italian Machine Tool Manu tional support provided by Fcdcrcxport. a national facturers Association). The training centre at Rio organization set up by the Ministry of Industries. de Janeiro will demonstrate its capability in such The main countries from which Italy imports a manner as to provide the most comprehensive machine tools arc the Federal Republic of training by usin!- the best suited Italian equip Germany. Japan and Switzerland. ment. This centre may pro,·c to be a forerunner of Fcdcrcxport and the Italian World Trade many such centres in Latin America. Centre have concluded an agreement designed to support Italian foreign trade. The Italian World Tra<'i: Centre provides companies with a large Praduction and trade nur. er of services. Under the agreement. assist ance is provided to small units which forego The development of t•adc in machine tools possible sales because of the risk of not recovering has been helped by the establishment of a few the full sale amount from the customer. This risk specialized institutions. The Institute for External is particularly great in instalment plans. The Trac!c of Italy has been playing a major role. The problem has been largely solved by offering the Institute has been responsible for creating an companies better insurance coverage than that of awareness of the competition and the necessary fered by commercial banks and insurance com dynamism to increase foreign trade by encourag panies. ing private initiative and gaining the support of financial institutions. Technology Production. consumption and trade figures from 1975 to 1979 arc shown in table 7. NC entered Italian machine-tool production In tt:c year 1975, the Italian Machine Tool on a large scale in the 1970s. The growth of NC Manufacturers Association c.;nductcd a dctailcJ w.as most dynamic because of the flexibility of survey regarding the age of machine tools in CNC .:ontrols and miniaturization of their com stalled in !talian manufacturing industries. Ac ponents. Microprocessors have added a further cording to this survey, the average age of Italian capability. machine tools in operation in Italy is 12.8 years. In the field of development. Italy has made which is higher than that of only Japan. This important strides. In modern DNC transfer lines. clearly indicates that the industry has been success the indi"·idual NC machines arc only links in a ful in selling a considerable portion of its produc system controlled by a central computer. These tion at home. despite the adverse conditions of transfer lines arc now employed in Italy for the fresh investments. production of various types of housings of heavy A major worry of the Italian machine-tool duty vehicles. tractors and agricultural machinery. industry is the labour problem. Pressure by the On this flexible production system, gearbox hous labour force has led not only to increased wages, ings and components of agricultural machinery but also to a reduction of weekly working hours are produced. It has revolutionized the concept of to 36 or 38 hours. transfer lines. Other impressive machining systems During the 1970s Italy has had a steady are automatic welding systems and an asyn positive trade balance in respect of machine tools, chronous assembly line for various types of of which it is becoming one of the major motors. TABl.F. 7. T:'.E MACHINE-TOOi. INDUSTRY IN ITAl.Y: PRODUCTION. CONSUMPTION ANDTRADF. f\111/innt of dollart) 1::.po,u fmp<>rl1 ------··· ft'fr,fffOt' p,U,fflOt' nf nf Y""' Prndut'ftnff Cnnr11mpt1tHf Va/u, prnd11t't1nfl Val•f (n,,01mptmn 1975 R7J. I 6SJ.4 431.J 49.39 211.7 32.40 1976 750.9 541.8 365.J 4R.65 156 2 2H.H' 1977 H7R.3 629.4 436.5 49.70 IM7.7 29.R2 197R I 060.5 6511.7 596.2 S6.22 194.4 29.51 1979 I 3115.7 951.9 69R.9 S0.44 265.1 27H5 .\nurr' A''""(Olf .\lorlrut. '' fir,· .... .id1111e-tool 111Ju. tin rn Jome .,,- IN /eaJtn~ mad1111e-1ool-pr0Ju,·rnl( Je.-elopeJ 011111trre1 ,_. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In the field of controls. an Italian manu The production of NC machine tools rc facturer has produced a control with a special cci\·cd positive support from the Go\·crnmcnt lwo-!e\·cl machine-operator dialogue !'ystem. Dur of Japan and national research laboratories as ing machining. communication of data takes place early as 1958. This factor. together with con on a simplified le\·el and advanced language is stant improvements in product quality. earned used only for programme editing. Another llalian for Japan the reputation of being a supplier firm has come out with a control unit that allow~ of quality machine tools and also helped to the machine tool lo be employed as a motor erase from the minds of many the impression dri\·en measuring machine. of Japan as a supplier of cheap products which In the realm of three-dimensional co-ordinate were ;>oor imitations of those made in dc\·cloped measuring instruments. new numerically con countries with market economics. The Japanese trolled designs and models hue been produced. machine-tool industry has actively developed NC These three-dimensional automatic measuring units machine tools. This effort has not only met function al high speed and accuracy. They arc existing demand. but also helped to create new flexible and simple to programme and arc designed demand from user industries. Even abroad. lo measure mechanical construction clements. A reasonably priced NC machine tools built in system has been patented in which motion along Japan have drawn increasing attention from the axis is pro\ided by a magnetic attachment. user industries. Japanese NC machine-tool build Stoppage in the measuring position is done ers arc steadily strengthening their positions in pneumatically in order to improve rigidity. machir.c-tool markets both in Europe and the An Italian firm has produced a line of co United States. ordinate measuring machines featuring software The technical level of the Japanese machinc for automatic control by tridimcnsional inspec tool industry also continues to rise. with its tion. The inspection cycle of a component can be current efforts to develop and build high-precision programmed from an engineering drawing. Addi machine tools for use by aerospace manufac tionally. a complete inspection certificate can be turers. This challenge is stimulating some inno printed out both during and after inspection vative development in the Japanese machine-tool procedures. A display helps the worker learn industry. inspection operations and the unit has the capa bility statistically to process inspection parame ters. calculate and display the relative averages Production and trade and mean square deviations. A flexible programmable controller with 12 Japanese manufacturers continue to improve controllable axes which can be extended to 24 has their efficiency and productivity by acquiring been developed. The positioning accuracy is new equipment. They hope thereby to offset ±0.1 mm in all straight-moved axes. unavoidable cost increases for inputs such as energy and labour. In turn, machine-tool builders have stepped up development of newer and more efficient tools, with special attention being Japan given to NC tools with labour-saving features. Production and trade - gurcs from 1975 to 1979 Even though Japan has been making ma arc shown in table 8. chine tools for the last 100 years, it was neither a Exports represented only a small share of major producer nor a trend-setter until the early total production when Japan was enjoying high 1960s. Massive government assistance and dedi growth rates and strong domestic demand. In cated research and development efforts, started recent years, however, Japanese exports of machine after 1957, produced startling results by elevating tools have made impressive gains. Japan in 1972 to the fourth place in the world A major factor in the export success of Japan ranking of machine-tool-producing countries, sur is NC equipment. NC machine tools exported in passing leading nations like France, Italy and the 1977 and onwards accounted for about 31 per United Kingdom. cent of total exports. With the active entry into The machine-tool industry of Japan is cur NC fields by almost all developed machine-tool rently enjoying a complete recovery from the producing countries, competition among NC severe setback it suffered in the 1973 oil crisis, machine-tool builders has intensified considerably with a substantial increase in new orders received and led to substantial price r~ductions. during 1978. This recovery reflects the successful When NC machine tools made their appear efforts 0f the industry to meet the needs of ance, the controls accounted for roughly 50 per cent machine tool users, with increasing modernization of the price of machine tools. Now they account for and efficiency as the yen rapidly appreciates on only one third and the trend is towards continued international currency markets. falling prices. l.\81 E ~- THE '.\.IACH!-.;E-TOOL 1-.;m·sTRY '" JAPA" PRODlTT!O-.;_ co-.;Sl"'.\.IPTIOS ASD TR .\Of: }c-.zr rr ..Ju~:tltJlf <·.,,,1""'r1: •. n '"/tu' ,·1•llflltrf/'lldlf 19-5 I ONH S.:!-1.6 359.1 ~3.86 1::2'.~ 1-1.95 19-6 I 1:!6.9 !ill}.!I }9!1.S 3D"' -5_ - 9.-1.:! 19-- I Nl.:!.S I 1F4.:! 616.4 3S . .iti S7.S !I.I'." 19-s .:! 354.U I -15:!.7 I 01"'.5 -13.:!9 119.9 l<.:!5 19-9 :! 697.S I "'}9.:! I 113.ll "'1.:!!I 155.:! !1.9:! \",1ur,·t" .ftr.<1':,·Jn \l11drzn1~r Abou1 a decade ago. almost a half of Japanese Technology exports of machine 1ools went 10 the Uni1cd Slates. Howe\·cr. in rcccnl years the unprecedented eco The technological level of Japanese machine nomic growth in Eas1 Asia has 1:hangcd the pattern tools in the 1960s was judged to be at least 10 years of overseas cus1omt"rs. although the Uni1ed Slates behind that .Jf the Federal Republic of Gcrma11y. remains the largcs1 markc1 for Japanese machine the United Kingdom and the United States. But 1ools. The Republic of Korea and other countries of the Japanese have \·cry quickly bridged this gap Eas1 Asia accoun1cd for 26.4 per cent of Japanese by rapidly assimilating the modern technology exports in 1978. The second biggest customer in 1he designs of machine tools of almost all categories same year was 1he Uni1cd States. European from simple lathes to sophisticatr-d NC machining ccn1rally planned economies accounted for centres. The very fact that Japanese dependence 15.9 per ccm and European markc1 economics for on imports dropped from 57 per cent of total 12.6 per ccr.10f exports in 1978. Over 40 per cent of consumption in 1955 to barely 9.5 per cent in total Japanese production of machine tools were 1976 reveals the fact that Japan not only absorbed exported in 1979. As the dcmanJ for NC machine technology from olhcr countries but benefited by loots is mainly created in countries operating the impressive inno,·ations of its own research and well-developed metalworking indus1rics. Japanese development institutions. It is an accepted fac1 builders gi,·c special attenlion to marke1s in that Japan has established a big lead over other the United States and the EEC coumrics. countries in electronics and machinery manu Imports accounted for a large share of the fac1urc. machine tools used by Japanese industry in the The technological strength of Japan in the early post-war years. They covered 57. 7 per cent of field of machine tools becomes evident from the the domestic cons um pt ion ot machine tools in 1955 fact that NC machines accounted for 30 per cent and fell to 45.1 per cent in 1957. In line with the of total production in 1979. The Japanese ha\·c progress achieved by Japanese technology. the made impressive progress, not only in the manu share of imported machine tools gradually de facture of advanced machine tools. but also in creased over the years. introducing many innovations in 1hc realm of In 1966 Japan experienced its first trans production engineering. Japan is the firs1 country formalion when imports fell below cxpons plus to evolve unmanned operations into working domestic consumption of indigenously made reality. This has been possible because of the machine lools. Dependence on imports was dras outstanding work done by Japan on industrial tically reduced by 1976. when Japanese imports of robots capable of very high levels of judgement. machine tools. valued at 575.7 million, were Japan is leading the industrialized world in the barely 9.5 per ccn1 of total consumption. Imports use of rcibots. It is cstimatrd that 10,000 robots dwindled again in 1977 to reach 8.17 per cent of arc in use in Japan, as compared with 3,000 in the consumption, amoun1ing 10 587 8 million. More United States and 850 in the Federal Republic of than 90 per cent of domestic demand has been Germany, the three of which arc world leaders in met by domestic produc1ion. Imports of machine robot 1cchnology. tools during 1979 arc cs1ima1cd 10 have barely Every major Japanese machinc-1001 builder reached 9 per ecol of total consump1ion. The emphasizes the machining ccn1rc (MC) in devel principal suppliers of machine tools to Japan arc opment and marketing efforts. The Ministry of the Federal Republic of Germany and 1hc United International Trade and I ndus1ry indica1cd that S1atcs. the production of machining ccn1rcs totalled a record 1.377 unils in 1978. or 48.7 per cent higher the Soviet Union. bul Polish induslry has begun lhan lhe pre\'ious year. lo inslall modem equipmenl made in lhe Federal Behind lhis acli\'e produclion of machining Republic of Germany. France. haly and lhe centres is a markel lrend. Japanese machinery United Kingdom. manufaclurers are now lurning oul a wider \ariely of lypes and models of equipmenl in small balch quantities. E\'en in aulomobile manufac Producrion and rrade luring. which is noled for mass production. lhere During 1979. Poland was among the ele\·en is a mo\·ement lowards producing a broader leading countries of the world in the produclion \·ariely of cars to satisfy di\'ersified consumer of machine tools. The produclion of the Polish .1eeds. NC machining centres appropriately fill machine-lOol induslry almost doubied in lhe years lhis need. They are designed to meet \·arious 1974 to 1979. Polish production. consumption machining needs e\·en in small quamities. Besides. and lrade of machine lools from 1975 to 1979 are unmanned 0peration is facililaled by mosl of lhe shown in table 9. machining cenlre models. which results in sub slamially less dependence on hard-lo-obtain skilled workers. The Japanese machine lool induslry has Switzerland pioneered lhese ad\'ances lo ils greal ad\·antage nol only in lhe domcslic markel but in lhe export The machine-tool industry ofSwilzerla11d has markels of lhe world. established a world-wide reputation for it~ quality and precision products. Instead of manu'acturing the whole range of machine tools, Switzerland has Poland always concentrated on specific proc'uct lines. such as high-precision lathes. precisirn-grinding In Poland there are about 25 factories pro machines. gear-grinding. sliding-head Jutomalics. ducing machine lOols The f-ohsi1 machine-lOol jig-boring machines. electron-dischar'.,;e machines induslry was complete ly rebuilt after the Second with wire-cutting and fine-blanking presses. The World War. Currenl rn\·eslmenl in lhe machine Swiss machine-lOol industry has held the front tool industry of Poland is eslimated to be higher rank in these product lines. The industry consists than lhal of F ranee or Iraly. In terms of money of a large number of small and medium shops. invesled in lhe machine-loo! industry. Poland although there are a few which could be described ranks only behind countries such as lhe Federal as large-scale units. Republic of Germany. Japan. lhe Soviet Union ani! the United Slales. It has recently established bo.h technological and economic contacts with Producrion and trade lhe Federal Republic of Germany to produce high-precision machine tools. Companies i11 the About 90 per cent of the products of the Federal Republic of Germany have enlered into Swiss machine-tool industry are metal-cutting. co-operation agreements with the Polish machine and the other 10 per cent metal-forming machine lool induslry. Formerly, much of the production tools. Swiss production. consumption and trade in equipment consisted of machines from Czecho machine tools from 1975 to 1979 are shown in slovakia, lhe German Democralic Republic and table IO. TARIF 9 Tiii' ~f:\Clll:"F-TOOI. l:"l>l'STRY I?'i POl.A?'il>: PRO!WCTIOS. COSSl'.MPTIOS AS[} TRADE (.\11/linn< r1( dollar<) ftP''"' lmporff rrr((nta(f r('r1·tflfO.ff nf ('flfu11mpt1nn ~·a/ut' prnJ14(flt>ff ''"'"" (m•u1mr11nn"' l'l'5 412.H t>9H.4 125.H 29.75 401 4 57.47 1'1711 5IO.O H77.9 152 ..1 19.Ht> S20.i 59.25 1977 SH.\.4 96H.H 151.4 ~~ 95 Ht>.H 55.41 197H l\1H.H I 1112 16.1.4 24.0' 595.H 5.1'>1 1979 llH4.ll I 012.fl 190.9 27 AH 5 I H.. 1 51.22 [.• TABl.[ W. THI' \IAOllSE-TOOl. 1so1·srRY IS SWITZERl.ASD: PROIKCTIOS. COSSl'\tPTIOS ASD TRADE 1.\11l!wn.> ,,,- Jol!iznJ I' }.t'JT Pr1"1ultWlf (',1n111.Mrtrun 1".,zlu< ,-otr-.umrtr1,n"' 19'5 535.9 ~~O.:! 3Ml.S "'I.Of> 65.1 ~9.5t> 1976 5)5.6 t.l-H 455.5 85.0.S 5.p .I0.40 19'7 5ll1U l(.).ll -NJ.4 85.02 -6.9 46.95 19"ll "'68.2 2.l9.J 652.S 114.'#X 12.u 51.94 1979 7 9i.I 25'1.I f.'".5 ll5.00 IJ9.5 5J.S4 StJUTlr" ..fmarcan \ladunnl Switzerland has traditionally exported ma Union is a major importer and one of the chine tools to all the industrialized countries of foremost consumers of machine tools. The ma the world. and recently it has stepped up its chine-tool industry in the Sm·iet Union was one of exports to China_ Its exports have registered the very first to be put on a firm foundation after significant growth since 1975 and stand at above the Russian Revolution for the industrial devel 80 per cent of total production. opment of such a vast country. The machine-tool Swiss machine-tool imports are mainly from: industry was formerly concentrated in the areas France, Germany, Federal Republic of, Italy, around Moscow and Leningrad, but has now been Japan. United Kingdom, United States. Although deliberately spread throughout other areas. except imports cover about 50 per cent of consumption. for the vast expanse of Siberia. they are equivalent to less than 20 per cent of pr(}(luction. Production and trade Technology The Soviet Union has progressi\·ely increased its production of machine tools since 1974 and The Swiss machine-tool industry is supported has consistently occupied the third rank in world by ma;iy private and national institutions engaged production behind the Federal Republic of in research and development of machine tools. Germany and the United States. The production, Examples of high-technology machine tools pro consumption, export and import of machine tools duced by leading Swiss manufacturers include the together with percentages of exports and imports following: CNC jig-boring machines, CNC lathes, in relation to total production and consumption machining centres, copying lathes, CNC wire are shown in table 11. cutting machines, precision grinders, a wide range Most machine-tool exports of the Soviet of gear-hobbing machines. gear-grinding machines Union go to CMEA countries. The leading and machines for the watch and instrument customers are Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the industries. German Democratic Republic, Poland and Switzerland has produced major innovations Romania. The Soviet Union also exported size in precision machine tools needed by its horo able quantities of machine tools, largely as part of logical industry. The sliding-head automatics devel barter trade, to developed market economies. oped in Switzerland, known as Swiss automatics, The Soviet Union is also a big importer of are available in full CNC versions. machine tools. It imports mostly from: France, The Swiss machine-tool industry is moving German Democratic Republic, Germany, Federal into the areas of highest precision by an imagina Republic of, Italy, Japan, Switzerland. tive integration of the measuring function on its machine tools. This effort is supported by solid Technology innovations in mechanics and instrumentation. Thi: Soviet Union has the widest research and development base, perhaps next only to the Union of SoYiel Socialist Republics United States. The foremost research and devel opment organization, the Experimental Scientific The machine-tool industry in the Soviet Research Institute of Metal-cutting Machine Tools Union ranks third in the world. Yet the Soviet (ENIMS), located in Moscow, and machine-tool [}:,· mu,:ltuu-rool mi.l-.. Htr\ tn 1omr- ,,,- rlrr- l.:aJur.'( ma,·lr11trt·loa/-p,0Juc1n.1t Jr-,·e/opeJ countn.:J /9 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~- T ..\Bl.E I I. THE !\.tACHISl TOOL ISDl7STRY IS THE l'SIOS OF SO\"IET SOCIALIST REPl'BLICS: PRODlTTIOS. COSSl'!\.tPTIOS ASD TRADE '.\lilftotu or dol/an1 PercC"tttate.,,. tc'll" P,oJu,·twn ("01t.umplltHf rroJuctlOtt lizlue ,·on1umrt1ott l'P5 I 9s.u :? :?tlt>.6 187.ll 9.4t> 490.11 :!1.43 19"(> :? OIO.O :!489.0 :?35.0 It 69 714.ll :?ll.69 19~· :! :!01.9 :? ll:!l.4 :?l!0.5 l:?.74 900.0 31.90 197S :! 65:!J} 3 1:?3.0 33:?.0 1:?.5:? 803.0 :?5.71 19"9 : !19:?.0 3 34:?.0 350.0 l:?.IO 800.0 :?3.94 St>ur,·,- .fmt"r1can .\fddrmur institutes at \·arious universities in Moscow. Lenin mcnts of complete automatic manufacturing sys grad. Kiev and Yerevan arc actively engaged in tems. research on \·arious aspects of machine-tool The: development of new wide-range transis technology. Some of the important research work torized generators for electron-discharge machin in machine tools in the Soviet Union is in the area ing (EDM) has improved machining accuracy by of precision machine tools. Extensive research and one or two classes. increased prod .. ctivity two to development work is being done on the static three times. and resulted in a reduction of .. rigidity. dynamic stability and thermal stability of electrode consumption by a factor of IO to 15. machine tools and their effects on working ac EDM machines with table sizes up to 16.000 sq cm curacies. and standards have been evolved in this for processing large forgings and drawing dies regard. Instruments for measuring accuracy of ha\·c been developed. New methods of EDM with spindle rotation over the whole range of working oscillatory rotary copying motion for the manu speeds have been developed and put into practical facture of large moulds and dies and a method use. combining ultrasonic and electrochemical machin Means of calibrating standards of length have ing (ECM) for the machining of carbide heading been developed. Linear ruling machines. per die<> and drawing dies have been developed. mitting a line reproduction accuracy of 0.3 µm Laser-beam machines for processing dia and a ruling error of 1 pm over I m arc being mond dies have been developed and produced. produced. Linc standards arc calibrated with the Research work is in progress for the application aid of a comparator with a maximum measuring of laser-beam machining for turning hard-to-work error of under 0.2 pm. metals. A laser interferometer has been developed for Computer control is applied for production reproducing the standard of length. A very high planning. scheduling, workpiece transport and order of measuring accuracy has been achieved by location, machining, inspection. quality control. spiitting the laser beam into two half beams, one machine tool supervision, fault-finding. partial of which is used to compensate for thcm1al resetting and so on. distortion c1rors. Measurements are made pos The Soviet Union is now engaged in design sible with an accuracy of 0.02 11m. The laser ing new equipment to speed up the production of interferometers arc used in the manufacture of automatic machines using minicomputers. The ultra-high-precision measuring systems, line-stand emphasis on the production of NC and CNC ards calibration instruments and feedback trans machines is evident from the fact that the Soviet ducers for high-accuracy, closed-loop NC systems. Union is a leading producer of NC machine tools Research work is being conducted in the as shown in table 12, which compares Soviet design and construction of basic machine tools, production with the NC machine-tool production such as high-precision machines for the genera of other developed countries. tion of master helical bevel gears of the ENIMS The research emphasis is to considerably kinematic system. and a machine for gear-hob increase the output of special tools and automated bing with direct motor drives for hob and the gear lines and also to increase the use of modular blank (without gear drives). design of automated lines. The Soviet Union is One of the major areas of research and currently engaged in the large-scale production of development undertaken at ENIMS in close co automated manipulators controlled by computers. operation with the industry is the automation of The development of such robo1s obviously reflects production processes, employing NC machine Soviet interest in establishing an impressive lead tools .md industrial robots that constitute ele- in space and nuclear research. _.. ,, TABLE 1:. Sl"'.\IERICALL Y COSTROLLED '.\.IACHISE TOOLS: WORLD PRODl"CTIOS IS 197"' \Cm,,:dmrt'- \C Ull'llJ '1J" \ C \"'1/Uc" 1.U .; ''"-': l;J/Ut' fl/ m111:lt1nt'- l"iJ/Ut' pr:r,·en:iJtr_t' "' pr:rl·enl/J'(~ or ( ••:.n:r\ Ultlt• 1nu/b1J1t $1 tcJCJI Ulfll• fmtl!wn S1 11/f UlfllJ t<1t.il ,·alut' fra.ni:c 5~,,~ !10 t..i .i:o 5~0 0.90 14 (ierman'. Federal Repubhc of I !1!15 :56 911 : 619 0.74 ltah "IO~ X50 Japan 54Jb 300 147 7.11 I 5t>.i H2 :!O S.,l\tct l "nilln 6 300 : JOO 1 ·nned Kingd•>m (>l)°t~ 47 65 552 ru1 0.93 7 l · nited States 4 ::1 491 17) g 19 2 .150 1.55 21 S1u1rt"l'"J ~ .. u,•nal ~b..;hmc f,ltl( BurlJc~· ..\S.SllC'.tatUJn. llanJ!tt>ftl.:. 19-.~- -9_. ..fmt'rrcan .\fa,:ltmnl. Fcbruil~ l~MO "'hguro \.'.,•rresp.mJ hJ 19-6. The Soviet Union is also de\·eloping super Production and trade hard materals and alloys, in addition to natural and synthetic diamond tools for NC machines. United Kingdom production. consumption and trade of machine tools from 1975 to 1979 are reflected in table 13. United Kingdom of Great Britain Table 13 shows that United Kingdom ma and Northern Ireland chine-tool imports as a percentage of domestic consumption is steadily increasing when com The machine-tool industry of the United pared to those of the Federal Republic of Kingdom. after a post-war boom. started to Germany. Japan and the United States. The decline as a result of inflation and reduced major sources of United Kingdom imports are the investments in its engineering industries. The Federal Republic of Germany. Italy, Japan and ,nders recc:ived by the industry could keep fac the United States. tories going for hardly six months in 1976 and seven months in 1977, and very little improvement occurred in the following years. As a result, there Technology was a large-scale retrenchment of labour and several companies went out o. business. The The United Kingdom was one of the first industry was able to survive only because of its countries to incorporate NC technology into exports. machine tools. United Kingdom CNC machines The United Kingdom is attempting a quali have established a good reputation. The United tative change in its production instead of relying Kingdom is perhaps the first country to incor on a quantitative expansion. Some experts feel porate the advances of space science into its that if this is not done, then the elite work-force in machine-tool controls. A machine-tool producer the machine tool industry may migrate to other in the United Kingdom has incorporated a micro sectors. which would be cert:tinly harmful to the processing unit developed in the United States for economy because of the importance of the ma space exploration as the brain behind its numeri chine-tool industry. The biggest problem of the cal control system. The unit is made up of several manufacturing industry in the United Kingdom is microprocessors and possesses much higher diag the lack of ability to compete with overseas nostic characteristics than the other known CNC competitors both at home and abroad. systems. The industry is actively engaged m TABLE IJ. HIE Mt\C'HISE-TOOI. INDUSTRY IN THE lli'llTED KINGDOM PROOlJCTIO!'<. COSSl:MPTIOS ANO TRADE (,\f1fliont nf Jn/fart) ftpnr" lmpnrri - -·------Prr1n11at,. fu,·rlffOtt' nf of r ... a, l'rmlufnn11 l'mru'1rrp11mr 1·01., prnd11rt1nn Vt1/ut ,,,,,,ump11n11 1975 7.:?X ..l 61K. 5 J6lr1 49.X4 253.l 40.95 19711 645.5 5Hl5 J 19.2 49.45 257.2 44.0X 1977 5H7.9 52~.H J00.4 5110 2JH.l 45 J2 l97K X21.4 794.6 426.0 51.Hti .1'>9.2 50.24 1979 I lllti.4 212.K 4bH.1 4231 574. 5 47.17 \nUf(t' ,.,,,,,,,a,, \lorlt,,,,u f Jh· "nil. ht'" '.: :o:.fi..,:r: m \Ontc• or rhc· /,·JJ;n~ m11ch:nc·-rool-pr111 ·~ .rr.st dc·'L·c·fopt•J ,-ountrh"\ -·I ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ de\elopmg nardware and software for program Production and trade mable CLlntwllers and sophisticated industrial robots. United States production. consumption. ex ports and imports of machine tools. together with percentages of exports and imports in relation to l"nited States of America total production and consumption from 1975 to 1979 are sho·~ m table 14. The machine-tool industr~ in the United Machine-tool exports represent an important States is located predominantly in the north-east factor in the United States trade balance but are a and north-central parts of the country. In terms of small proportion of the total amount of produc numbers of employees. this branch of industry is tion. partly because the United States itself need~ relati\"ely small and characterized by many small to replace old machine tools currently used by the and medium-sized firms. although the Unired metalworking industry. In fact. the Unite~ States States has the largest machine-tool units of all was in 1979 the top consumer and importer of developed market economies. machine tools in the world. and this appears The outlook for the United States machine perhaps natural if the age and quantity of tool industry is good. Machine-:ool builders are machine tools installed in the country a:-e col' adding shifts. expanding operations and taking sidered. other measures designed to meet demand for According to statistics published in 1978. the more sophisticated equipment. However. despite United States has the lowest percentage of ma increased production. the industry faces delivery chines under 10 years old (31 per cent) and the delays and backlogs have climbed to record levels. highest percentage over 20 years old (34 per cent) In 1979. the total industry backlog was worth of the following group of developed countries: o\"er S2.5 billion. Canada. Germany, Federal Republic of. France. An ominous sign for the machine-tool in Italy. Japan and the United Kingdom. United dustry is the fact that the operating rate of the States exports as a percentage of total production metalworking industry is currently estimated at are decreasing. as may be seen from table 14. 76 per cent and decreasing. In metalworking. the However. the United States may be leading other problem is the automotive industry. \\hich is countries such as the Federal Republic of Germany operating at a little more than half of its capacity. and Japan in exporting high technology machines. But the automotive industry accounts for only United States exports of metalcutting machine 20 per cent of the output of the metalworking tools increased by 11 per cent in 1979. wich industry. The machinery. electrical machinery and notable gains registered in exports of horizontal aircraft sr,gments. which represent mor.: than one machining centres, vertical boring machines. hori- half of the total output of the metalworking 1ontal boring-drilling-milling machines. electrical industry. are still operating above 80 per cent. discharge machines. threading machines and multi This fact should more than alla~ the pessimism of station transfer machines. Metalforming mad.:-:e United States machine-tool manufacturers as a tool exports rose by 24 per ct-nt ir 1979, wit~ result of the current United States economic increases in almost all product types. recession. But in order to survive the recession. Many of the machine t:>0ls imported by the machine-tool manufacturers should proceed with United States come from Japa11 and the Federal the extensive product development that has been Republic of Germany. During 1979 Japan sup undertaken. plied over one third of total United States imports I ·\Ill I 14 1111. M·\CHISl-.-roo1. 1sr>1:SlRY IS HIE lfS!TED STATES OF AMERICA: PRODITTIOS. COSSt:MPTIOS ASD TRADE (Jf1//1ofll nf dn!lart) lmpnrf\ rr'r(('ff1'J~r' "( ,,,. .,.. .. , prn1/11(1lmt (Ofl\u,,,r11nn ---- ~ 4~ I 7 .' ~01. 7 57fi.f> 2l 15 .117.ti 14.42 ~ 11>•1 1 I 941 I 54ti.5 25. 15 .110 111.40 2 440 7 2 1K9 5 452.1 lx.52 400.9 I fl. 7K 1 IM>-1 1 _1 JW4 5MU IH.ti4 715. 1 2~_,,4 ~90 0 4 290.0 MK. H lfi.97 I 04.lK 24. 71 '""'',. ,.,,,,,.,,, ,Jlf \fiJ, lmmt f ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ of machine tools. follo·.1.·ed by the Federal Republic operation bet•..11een industry. the academic com of Germany with 19 per cent. United States munity and Go\·ernment is not as strong in the machine-tool imports were for many years lower United States as in some other countries. notably than exports. but deficits in the machine-tool the Federal Republic of Germany and Japan. trade bala,ce occurred for the first time in 1978 Lack of co-operation in the United States appears and continued in 1979. to have been due to a variety of reasons. such as anti-trust concerns. the diversity of user indus Technolngy tries. the many small specialized and diverse companies of the industry. the individualism of The machine-tool industry of the United various companies and the general adverse rela States now uses machines incorporating the latest tionship that exists between the groups. The technological features such as NC, CNC and report also notes that the United States is the DNC. and the industry is shifting its emphasis only major developed country that does not from individual machines to complete manu t>ave a machine-tool institute, which in other facturin~ systems based on computer-aided manu countries often becomes :he focal point for facture (CAM). It should be noted that NC common technology interests. '-et another rather machines accounted for 34 per cent of shipments surprising observation ;_, ~: ... t many good ideas in 1975 and the percentage is steadily increasing. come out of research laboratories in the United The United States produced as many as 5,688 NC States. but buyers are slow to adopt them machine units during 1978. because they are rel!lctant to risk us!ng a new A new array of system elements-matching technology. centre. computer-aided operations, minicompu The outstanding technological breakthrough ters. adaptive controls, automated diagnostics and in production engineering pioneered by the ma micrcprocessors-is at the service of machine-tool chine-tool industry in tht: United States has been builders. In additi01. to accelerating change in the organization of the manufacturing process modern manufacturing, they are producing a thr ~h a computer-aided system called the flex fundamental transforma~ion in the nature of ible .tanufacturing sys~em. This new method mi!.nufacturing engineering. The production of relies on the following three distinguishing charac la i>our-intensive general-purpose machine tools is teristics: potentially independent NC machines; a declining, and ::equir~ments for such machines are transport mechanism; and an overall method of being met by imports. In the coming years, the control that co-or· .inates the functions of both machine-tool industry of the United States will machine tools ana the transport system sc as to emerge as the major supplier of integrated, achieve flexibility. Within this broad scope. there flexible production plants to retain its lead in the are a number of individual approaches towards world market. The secret behind the succtss of the striking a balance between high output on the one United States machine-tool industry lies in its hand and great flexibility with cn.,comitant reduc ability speedily to convert technological inno tion in volume of output, on the other. vations into production realities. Yet another r .:volutionary change in com The industry is now growing rapidly, v puter-aided manufacturing in the United States is swift transitions in product design and applicauon the introd·iction of computer graphics, which may and revolutionary changes in both the nature of be delinetJ as a human-oriented system that uses its products and the structur-: of the industry. the capabilities of a computer to create, transform Nevertheless, there are 1me deficiencies in the and display pictorial and symbolic data. Com United States machine-tool industry, as pointed puter graphics are widely employed in the United out by the Machine Tool Task Force Report on States manufacturing industry for geometric Machine Tool Technology. 1 11 states that co- modelling, including NC ~rogramming, prepara tion of drawings, calculations, assembly studies 'Amerirarr .'.farlrmi Argentina TABLE •5. !\.IACHI-.:E-TOOL PRODlTTIO-.; A-.;D TRADE OF ARGE-.:TI!\A. l'F.t TO 1979 The machine-tool industry in Argentina was (.\f11/1on< o( dollan1 set up immediately after the Second World War. By 1971 there were 94 establishments accounting rr'ar l'roducuon c·on'fumrttim Elporr~ tmrorH for a total production of 13,000 tonnes of 197.t .io.o 53 5 7.0 20.5 machine tools. 1975 .t:!.O -o.9 9.7 .1~.I> In Argentina there are three main groups of 1971' 50.5 79.0 ((IC) .19.0 1977 M.O 102.0 15.0 s~.o machine-tool manufacturers. The first group con 197!! tiO.O IOl!.O 12.ll till.O sists of large companies with more than IOO 1979 ti2.0 125.0 12.ll -5 o workers. The seco11d category has between 5C and 100 workers. and the third consists of small-scale St•urct'· ..fma1nm .\ftJ~·hrmu. units employing less thaP 40 workers. Argentina now produc..:s r: .::iy types ..;~ general-purpose machine tools and a few NC machine tools. In addition to 12 manufacturers in Technology the large- and medium-scale production sectors. there are a number of ancillary units feeding the The machine-tool industry now produces a parent units with a variety of mechanical. elec wide range of general-purpose machine too•s and trical. hydraulic and pneumatic components. Most a few NC machines. The large manufacturers nf the machine-tool-producing units are located possess adequate technology and modern equip at Buenos Aires and Cordoba. ment. and produce machine tools such as auto matic lathes. milling and grinding machines. Because of high levels of inflation in 1978 heavy-duty presses and a variety of other types for and 1979, there was practically no investment in production and maintenance. the machine-tool industry. Capital investment in other sectors was also paralysed. The rate of inflation was 127 per cent in 1978 and 150 per cent in 1979. This helps to explain the poor rate of Brazil growth of the machine-tool industry in Argentina from 1977to 1980. The Brazilian machine-tool industry is the biggest in Latin America. In 1979 it occupied Production and trade fifteenth place in the world ranking of m:ichine tool-producing countries. Table 15 gives the statistics for production, As in all other developing countries. the consumptio,1, exports and imports of machine manufacture of machine tools was taken up in an tools from 1974to 1979. organized manner only after the Second World Most of tl1e machine tools exported by War. Most of the manufacturing units are con.:en Argentina go to other Latin American countries trated in and around Sao Paulo. but recently new under the Latin American Free Trade Association units have been established in other regions. arrangement for customs-free export~. The Brazilian machine-tool industry began to Argent1n has traditionally imported more manufacture NC machine tools in 1975. The than 50 per cent of its machine tool requirements. projected development of the metalworking in In 1979. for the first time. its imports exceeded dustry in Brazil from 1968 to 1980 is shown in domestic production. as reflected in tabie 15. table 16. :1 TABLE It> DE\"HOP~IE'.'\T OF THE ~IETAL WORKl'.'\G l'.'\Dl'STRY IS BRAZIL I BaJe: 19/J.VJ l.01.·lllh lnae1.nc- of \f.idune /rm/ l.'11'itur f>r,1Ju,·t11m 41JJr-J \llluc- .iJJeJ,a/u,- ftltou111:rJ, 1rlto11.111nJ1 .,,.lllfll'i) of M.arl..t"r11 },·.ir 1rt"r,·,·rr.z~··1 rr,_.r,·r:nt'1(r'J tpt'rcenti.l'(r'I .\frtal pmduct< 191>~ 100 !00 IOU 1•r1 1.14 l>I ::i l.l! b9.I> lb5.7 1•rs 19S 60 mu 91.6 !IS.I 19Sll (7() 59 2:;7.-! l!!.7 ~63.1 .\"on-electrical macl11nen 19M !I Ml !I Ml 100 19~1 I~ 61 14!." 70.7 15!.ll 19"'5 ~·2 59 20!.I 9!.3 198.~ 19XO !XS 56 275.! !JU 255 J Electrical macl11nen and equipment 19M 100 100 100 19"'1 IJ6 57 !J4.7 75.0 167.1 1975 19! 56 IX5.7 96.5 !OllJl 19XO !~5 56 275.! 13U !55.3 TranJport equ1pmmt .. 1%X 100 IOO 100 19"'1 137 47 137 90.9 :!:!i.3 1975 19! 4X 205 114.9 294.6 19Xll !!!5 48 JO! 147.! 36!!.0 .\our,·1· ln~tnutc for b.:on,lmu: and Social Planning ( IPF A) Production and trade The high cost of imports in recent years can be directly attributed to the purchase of advanced The production. consumption, expon and technology machines. gear grinders, special trans import statistics for Brazilian machine tools from fer lines etc. needed by Brazilian engineering 1974 to 1979 are shown in table 17. industries. The rclia'lce on imports of such sophis The 13 major Brazilian machine-tool pro ticated machines is likely to decrease as the ducers account for 90 per cent of machine tools domestic machine-tool industry starts producing exported by Brazil. Traditionally, exports have advanced technology machines. accounted for only a small share of the total production. Brazil exports mostly simple machine tools such as lathes. milling machines, grinding 1echno/ogy machines and a few power presses. The value of machine-tool imports into Brazil The Brazilian machine-tool industry launched has always been more than 50 per cent of a programme of restructuring in 1974. Under this domestic machine-tool production, as • nected in programme, many of the machine-tool manufac table 17. turing firms were expanded to produce a large number of machine tools. to raise the quality of TABLF. P MACHINE-TOOi rRO[)(;CTION AND their products, to increase productivity and to TRADF. OF BRAZIL. 1974 TO 1979 ent.:r the sophisticated field of NC machine tools. (.1,/11/wn< of dollar<) This restructuring was mainly done to enhance the technological strength of the industry. A tt•ar PrnJurtmn ("on,ump11n11 frporH lmporlf special Research Institute of Technology was 1974 11 J.J 175.H 6.0 70.5 started in the University of Sao Paulo to provide 1975 131.0 206.0 14.0 ~J.O the industry with the necessary know-how for 1976 222.5 JK6.K 10.7 175.0 designing and producing sophisticated NC machine 1977 2K2.9 441.9 11.2 170.0 tools. The Institute conducted in 1974 a survey to 197K 255..1 461.J 20. I 226.2 1979 239.K 342.H 33.0 IJ6.0 highlight the technical performance and standards of quality in manufacture. The lnstitule has been .\'n1Jrrt' A"'""""' \fochmnt responsible for making recommendations to the metalworking industry on methods of solving TABLE ll'. !\.fACHISE-TOOL PRQl,L"CTIO:-; ASD specific manufacturing problems and in matters of TRADE Of CHISA. 1974 TO 1'179 selection of machine tools for specific purposes. (\li/ltmn ,,,- Jollaf1) The Institute is now engaged in designing and building machine tool prototypes either at the }.(..ZT .,,r,,J11.,·t1'11"l (·on•umrtwn E\f'OT!\ lmror/\ request of mam1facturers or on its own initiati\·e_ 1974 1-it)_t) 17~_1) .l.O J5.0 The standards established by tl!e Institute in the 1'175 .lOO.O .l5LO .i_o 55.0 manufacture and testing of machine tools are on a 1976 Jl5.0 360.0 5.0 50.0 par with international standards. 1977 )55.0 .W5.0 llUl 50.0 19711 .itl5.0 .i50_0 20.0 f.5.0 The Government of Brazil is providing a 1979 -120.l) .i52.0 2S.ll 60.0 number of incentives for economically sound and technicallv advanced projects with a view to .'iourc~ ..fm T ·\Bl F l'I. HIE '.\.1-\Clll~E-TOOL PAR"- I~ '.\IEXICO ;~·,, L,-.- .. I /lf:f\ !o\ :it.i.r. r,·r,r·'l't.J\.",. ( r.:r,J,·,, rlr;.;n r,·rl·,·rrt.1\."r' ( l'tt!',fc·H fir.It: r('r,O:f..l\."c" ~.;.IT:-:. " ~ , ..:r' .•;.t ,• • t• • r.:l !5 tr·.:,, nf,J ,,, ro:..;! .'".< lc"'1" ir!J "' !•,t.J! '.\kt.tl"'•'rl r.11a1 15 ,,-- 1110.tl ~t\ 2!0 llHUl 205 1>"_1 llHUl Soon new plants started production of engine general-purpose machine tools like lathes. drilling lathes and milling machines of different specifi machines. knee-type milling machines. turret and cations. The country now has many enterprises :apstan lathes and a variety of shears. presses and engaged in the production of metalworking forging machines. Produc•ion. consumption. ex machine tools. including turret and automatic port and import figures for the years 1974 to 1979 lathes. surface and cylindrical grinders and drill are given in table 20. ing machines. The major types of machine tools produced in Mexico are lfo·ided into the following TABLE :o. '.\IAOll:-;E-TOOL l'RODlTTIO~ ..\:-;[) three categories: TRADE OF '.\IEXICO. 19-.i TO 19-9 f.\f1/11on< of do/Ian/ .\f,·ral-cur Engine lathes Presses Planers }·f·ur Pr.,iJu, ttorr <·o,f\~mrrro.~ r\rnrf\ lmrort, Automatic lathes Drop forges Saws Drilling machines Shearing machine, Edgers J'l".S ~-0 ~~~.O ~~~.o Grinders (guillotines) Lathes 19-5 .i.5 2.S9.o :.i.i.5 Sa"' Bending Shapers 19-(l 5.0 195.n 1'10.0 and rnlling Tenoners 19-- ti.II Xt\.O 0 ..1 .~n.11 machines Drilling 19-x U.ti ~-._i I _1 "5.n 19-'I 15.5 99.0 -~5.11 machines 15 Sour1 r· -4m,•rr.·.in \f.i,·hrrmr The industry receives strong government sup port in the form of fiscal incenti\·es and technical assistance. It has undertaken joint ventures in The modest volume of Mexican exports of rnlving firms from Czechoslovakia. the Federal machine tools is mostly exported to Latin Amer Republic of Germany. Italy. Switzerland and the ican countries under arrangements with the Latin tJnited Kingdom. American Free Trade Association. Apart from the products of joint ventures. machine tools produced in Mexico are mainly Mexico imports mostly sophisticated machine imported designs under licence from companies tools from the Federal Republic of Germany. located in countries such as France. Switzer Japan. the United Kingdom and the United land. the United Kingdom. the United States States. and Yugoslavia. The boost given to the Mexican economy by the petroleum industry will help the domestic machine-tool industry Technology to expand rapidly. A breakdown of the machine-tool park in Manufacture continues tr> develop with strong Mexico according to eMimated product age. is government support in the form of fiscal incen given in table 19. tives and technical assistance. There are many joint ventures involving firms from Czechoslo vakia. the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy. Producrion and rrade Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The Indus trial and Finance Company of the Government of The machine-tool production of Mexico is .so Mexico i.s promoting the development of the limited that most of its requirements are met by manufacturing industry. including the machine imports. Domestic production cov~rs mostly tool industry. fir, ~..:. h:r:,·-:,, .. ; :"':./~,!~~I'! u1~,· ,,, tltt· lr.·JJ!l'ft: m.il·hrn,·-tool-pr1 1 dul·1"~ Jr.·-.d1•rr.·d 4·11untrrr.·, ~~~~-~~~~~~~· Republic of Korea l.\BLI' ~I \t ..\Ull,E-TOOL PRODlTTIO' ·\") TR .\DE OF TllF RI' Pl 'Bl IC OF l\.ORL.\. 1'1-.l 10 1-i--i In 1979 rtiere were 199 machine-tool-building firms in the Republic of i-..urea. The machine-tool production of the Republic }.-.;r /'r11J~.::r11t {··''t•?.."'!t.. t:••r: l \r•·r:• !rt,.. ,,,.~\ ~- ~-~- ~--- of Korea in 1975 was so small that the country i'Ft> IO.O !00.0 ~).0 was not e\·en included in the world ranking of 1'1-- 5- II 1~5.11 1_10_0 machine-tool-producing countries. But within three 1<1-s '15.11 ~.U..11 5.0 151>.11 years. by 1978. it ranked twentieth. ahead of 1q-9 150.11 :1os_o ~~-0 l.lll.O India. Such remarkable growth may be attributed to the national plan drawn up by the Go\'ernment in 1973 to strengthen the machine-tool industry. A major industrial complex was built by the The machine-tool exports of the Republic of Go\'ernment and many foreign in\'estors were Korea ha\·c risen substantially from the almost welcomed. The machine-tool industry is now in a negligible results recorded in 1977. position to manufacture not only the full range of A number of Japanese machine-tool companies general-purpose machine tools. but also sophis have established licence production agreements ticated items like CNC lathes. machining centres with builders in the Republic of Korea. and some of and NC boring and milling units. the machines produced are exported to Japan. The industry enjoys full go\·emment support The Republic of Korea imported S90 million through \·arious funds. including the following: worth of machine tools in 1976. accounting for 90 per cent of its machine-tool requirements dur (a) People's investment funds. inrnlving sa\'ing by the people in order to promote the ing that year. However. the remarkable growth of construction of hea\·y industries: its domestic industry has gradually reduced its dependence on imports. The country imported (b) Machinery industry funds to support machine tools worth S 140 million in 1979 which promotion of the machinery industry; was about 50 per cent of the domestic consump (c) Foreign currency funds to promote the tion of machine tools. domestic production of machines; (d) Funds to support medium and small Technology compames: fa·en though the machine-tool industry of the (e) Export support funds. Republic ot Korea owes its success to foreign co The Go\'emment also grants the following operation and a large number of joint ventures, tax concessions: especially with firms in Japan and the United (a) Reduction of or exemption from taxa States. the industry is spending hea\'ily on re tion for important machinery industries: search and development. The country now manu factures a very wide range of metal-cutting and (b) Preferential tax on funds for technical metal-forming machine tools. Sophisticated NC de\'elopments: machine tools are built by many manufacturers in (c) Exemption from customs duty on ma the Republic of Korea. One firm is making chines and facilities which cannot be produced horizontal machining centres and NC lathes with domestically: technology obtained from a Japanese firm. A (d) Exemption from tax on funds for im United States firm is co-operating with a manu proving facilitits of medium and small companies. facturer in the Republic of Korea to make cylindrical grinding machines. Ariothcr manu To promote foreign investment in joint ven facturer makes ball screws and nuts for NC tures. the Government offers the following incen machines and has designed its own NC lathes. tives: investment permits: guarantee of remittance The lathe has been interfaced with a Japanese of dividends and principal; cxc•nption from im industrial robot to develop its automation and port approval laws; and guarantee of rcmittan1;c productivity. Another producer has developed its of royalties on licence contracts. own special-purpose machines 10 machine cylin der blocks, and others co-operate with Japanese Production and trade firms to make high-precision engine lathes and advanced designs of milling machines. Production figures for the period 1976- I 979 Many technical universities in the Republic of show the remarkable rise of the industry and its Korea carry out research and development wofk promise of further growth in future. The produc for the machine-tool industry. Private builders tion, consumption, export and import of machine have also invested substantiall:y in research and tools from 1976 to 1979 arc shown in table 21. development to remain competitive. IV. Case study of the machine-tool industry in India A case study of one of the developing capital goods industry systematically. providing countries which has striven hard to establish its for its growth. the essential inputs and infra own machine-tool industry over the decades may structure-both physical and fiscal? The answers serve as a useful example for those developing to these questions obviously depend upon the countries which are also il)·ing to set up or natural resources. availability of infrastructure de\·elop their own machine-tool production. The and. more importantly. the political policy deci study may reveal some ~alient aspects such as the sions of the country concerned. However. by experience in building machine tools. infrastruc considering the example of some developing tural needs. direction of growth. initial hurdles to countries that have already established a strong be overcome and. above all. the vital importance base for their own capital goods industries. of the deliberate decisions and support of the including a machine-tool industry. some justifi Government for establishing the industry. Other cation may be found for deliberate government details such as structure. technological needs, policy decisions designed to establish and develop development of local designs and production in a planned manner a domestic capital goods engineering for the sustained growth of the industry in general. and a machine-tool industry industry could serve as guidelines. in particular. as a top priority in overall planning for industrialization. As an example. the case of India is considered below. Industrial base of India Relying on the historical experience of indus trialized countries, immediately after independ If one takes the historical development of ence in 1947 many Indian economists and others industry as a whole since the beginning of the from abroad suggested that India should concen Industrial Revolution in the United Kingdom over trate first of all on consumer goocis industries and 200 years ago. one can see a distinct pattern of wait a few decades before setting up capital goods development. Whether in the United Kingdom or industries. including the machine-tool industry. any other industrialized country. the general The answer given to such advisers was that th~y pattern seems to have been to lay greater em had ignored the most vital aspects of overall phasis on the consumer goods industry. It is only development, namely that the neglect of the basic after considerable developir•nt of the consumer and capital goods iradustrial sectors would only goods and the consumer durables industries that a create a situation in which the desired increase in country usually develops a sufficiently large market the volume of consumer goods, including con for capital goods. the natural consequence of sumer durables, could not take place for lack of which is the development of the capital goods the steel, machine tools and other capital goods industry. In the United Kingdom. about seven to needed to produce them. Furthermore, it would eight decades had to elapse between the Industrial have meant delaying the development of a capital Rernlution in the textile industry and the emer goods industry by several decades. The country gence ol the engineering industry as a major and its political leaders therefore decided during component of the capital goods industrial sector. the 1950s to launch a major effort to develop The United Kingdom emerges as the workshop of basic metal industries including steel, machine the world only around 1840. tools and other capital goods industries at the beginning of the process of Indian indusrriali The case of developing countries, however. zation. appears to be somewhat different in the present The industrial situation of India in 1947 had context of their limited industrial development. the following four basic features: Can they leave their engineering and capital goods industry to market forces alone and develop them (a) There was, strictly speaking, no capital after a sufficiently large demand has been gener good~ industry, although a few engineering shops ated by their domestic consumer goods industry? had been established primarily to supply the needs Furthermore. could they afford to leave their of the Indian railways, and two steel mills capital goods industry to grow in a natural and produced approximately 1.5 million tonnes of unplanned manner. or will they have to plan the steel per annum; .'x -·~ fhJ The entire infrastructure needed for and infrastructural promotion to accelerate and industrial de\·elopment. including power. water. promote the effort to achie,·e self-reliance and transport and ,>ff-site facilities. was lacking: near self-sufficiency in the capital goods sector. As a result. except for a few items of industrial (CJ The le,·el of Indian agriculture was machinery of high precision and complexity which depressed. unit output low and the labour-land are either not economically ,·iabi:= to manufacture ratio ad,·erse. ~either was there any system of or so technologically intensi,·e as to be extremely inputs designed to achie,·e increased fertility and expensi,·e to be built in India. the country has output without the extensi,·e use of land resources: become practically self-reliant so far as concerns fdJ There were no other avenues of gainful the capital goods sector. ~mployment besides agriculture. This led to de Large im·estment has been made in the pressed le,·els of income. consumption and saving. engineering industries for diversifying production in the public and pri\·ate sectors and for securing The independent Government of India there better utilization of capacity. New machinery fore took policy decisions with the following manufacturing capacity has been created for objecti,·es: to develop the capital goods industry: ,·arious industries. to impro,·e agricu::ure: to enlarge the manu In petrochemicals. the main de,·elopment has facture of mass consumption goods and create been in capacity and production of basic inter employment opportunities in industry: and to mediates required for synthetic fibres. plastics. develop the infrastructure for rapid industrial aromatics. dyestuffs and related industries. There development. The Government. as the principal was a substantial investment in other industries instrument of social and economic change. deter like power and newspri;.t. mined development strategies designed to ensure Indian industries now produce a wide range an intersectoral balance in the allocation of of textiles of different fibres (natural and man resources. The fi,·e-year economic plans were made). leather and leather goods. rubber pro based on such an approach. ducts. drugs and pharmaceuticals. construction The concept of planning adopted by lnd;a materials. a large number of organic and in inn)l\'es the identification and classification of organic chemicals and electrical and non-electrical options in terms of relative weight. and the goods. selection of appropriate processes and sectors of The industrial capacity of India today en development. cnrnpasses the entire spectrum of manufactured One of the fundamental decisions taken by products. These range from simple engineering the Government of India at the initial stage of goods and consumer durables ~uch as bicycles. development was that the Indian economy should automobiles. refrigerators. radios. air-conditioners be structured on the mixed economy pattern. and television receivers to sophisticated machine which meant that while there would necessarily tools. industrial plant and machinery. transmis have to be a massive and progressively dominant sion towers and power-station equipment, indus share of Gm·ernment in economic development. trial machinery of a highly specialized nature for there would also be a legitimaL, definite and cement plants. textile mills. sugar factories. re significant place for private initiative. In what fineries. fertilizer plants, petrochemical plants. manner these two lines of activities could be steel mills. and also technology-intensive products synthesized at different times and at different such as aircraft. ships. nuclear equipment T-\BU: :?~ \1.-\Cl!l'o;f. TOOL PRODLTTIO'o; OF l'o;OIA. T-\BLE :?J \l.-\CHl'o;E-TOOL PRODlTTIO'o; or l'o;OIA. 19-ll·l'l511 1951-1960 Pr1kizkt:1•I'! rra.Ju,·tz.~lf rroJu,::m"l Pro,/u~ r:11r. t.1:':.oc"t1":m,.. ,,,.h 1.i!z.c· l..:/ta• .;, ..: '.;/u,·, •. rrrrr4),!J 1 .i/zu· l.;lf~· ,J\ ~ 1 n:r!f;,,,;, \:.;~.~,-, rm:l::.m' rer.. ·c"l'ffll'lt'Of fmrllr11f"l' \urrr/t,·r rmzl/um' r<'' orr.i~,. 1i• }•..:r ,,.,?J,.. ,.,.,, •'~ UPT:!t ,,. r:.r,.,.,, rmr1•r."hll:.1· }t'.:lP' .,~ rur<•"'' ofun1:1 or '"'/''C'•"'J :n:r.,rr ,..,fo,· 1'1-l! ll_S 1951 :?5.n ~ ~34 .i.- 111.9 1'1-1:? 5_- ~- .1 ll_ll 111.5 195:? :!2.l -I -ISll -1.-1 :?II.I l'l-1 ~ 5.-1 l 'l_l 11.-1 1 lll.5 1953 -'U :?%1 .i..i 1-1.I l'l-1-l 15._l :?i-tl -_s 5LO 195-1 .)S.f\ I 5-1-1 .i.- ·~-:! l'l-l5 I~.:? )(,~ IL:? 111.5 1955 5:?.9 J 1)6.S 11.S l:?.S 1'1-lh Ill _l ~ S:!1l 9.1 -19.- 1956 ~J.- J 016 111.S l:?.9 19-1- )6.~ H• l:?.5 1957 1-lh_-I -I OJJ ~:;_5 lt>.ll I """' l'l-1~ -11-l I 1191 5.5 IL1 195ll 1-l-I:? 5 -165 _1-1_1 ~).fl 1'1-l'l .i:?_n ~~..it) -I - IL:? 1959 lt.D -1-IJ-l -ILi> ~5.5 1'1511 :?-l.9 l !JO :?.9 11.6 1%0 :?09.-1 5 9SO 5S.1> :?S.ll \11ur. r· tnd1.m ~f;i~h1n~ T,hll \t..tnufacturcr' ., .. ,.~13.tl•lO. India dei:idcd 10 inter\"cne and help the industry The 1960s were a decade of rapid growth for lO establish itself on a strong footing. As a first the Indian machine-tool industry. It was largely step. it planned in 1949 to set up a modern during this period that the machine-tool-produc machine-tool factory and entered into a co ing units in the public and private sectors entered operation agreement with a leading Swiss pro into numerous co-operation agreements with manu ducer. This led lo the birth of a major public facturers of machine loots in Europe, Japan, the sector machine-tool concern in India. The Govern United Kingdom and the United States. in order ment of India also provided much financial and 1.0 widen the base of production and 10 add new fiscal assistance 10 pri\·ate-sector machine-tool products. New designs such as combination turret companies and allowed them to acquire modern lathes, single-spindle automatics, multi-spindle designs and technical know-how from reputable automatics, vertical turret lathes, gear shapers, machine-tool manufacturers abroad. The industry gear hobbers, precision copying lathes, multi-tool received special technical assistance and guidance automatic lathes, drum turrets. horizontal boring from the Director General of Technical Develop machines, broaching machines (vertical and hori ment within the Ministry of Industry. wh0 also zontal types), front chucking machines, singlc closely monitored the growth of the industry. In and special-purpose machines, transfer lines and addition. one of the important incentives that the heavy-duty hydraulic and mechanical presses were Indian machine-tool industry received from the rakcn up for production to meet the growing Government was that imports of ma..:hine tools needs of the metalworking industries. It was were restricted and imports of types produced during this period that the Indian machine-tool locally were totally banned. industry laid the foundation for the manufacture As a result of these and other measures. the of almost all types of general-purpose machine Indian machine-tool industry increased its output tools. In addition to general-purpose machine and imports began to decrease. During the first tools, the production of special-purpose machine five-year r'"\n commencing in 1950, the industry tools under licence from <> well-known firm consolidate... the production of a n•Jmber of abroad was also started to cater to the needs of general-purpose machine tools, many of them the automobile, tractor and armament industries manufactured under licence from abroad. The in particular. and other branches such as diesel product range covered various types of geared engines and electric motors. The programme of head centre and capstan lathes, milling machines. diversification within and outside the field of drilling machines, ra 191>1 '."3.3 14~.~ 315.5 ~3 and Asia. The machine-tool industry has demon 1962 lf}.'-1) 2nOA 01.1 363.J 29 strated its ability to sell in the highly competitive 19n3 llt'.X 315.0 01.0 481.ll 35 world market. In the past, exports were chan 19M 209.8 344.4 01.2 5H.O 38 nelled mainly through foreign agents and import 19"5 254.ll 349.3 01.4 602. 7 42 19"6 284.ll 429.9 06.6 708.I 40 ers. But now more interest is being shown by 196- 254.7 394.0 06. 7 1\42.0 40 reputable foreign manufacturers who arc ap 196X 206.) 362.5 18.6 550.2 Ji proaching Indian machine-tool builders to have 1969 266.8 189.9 29.5 427.2 62 machines built in India for export to overseas 19'.'I) 3'2.3 IMJ.O 27 .9 52'7.4 71 markets. In addition, leading firms have their own network of world-wide export branch offices through which they import their machine tools and distribute them to the dealers in the respective The Indian machine-tool industry continued countries. They maintain fully fledged, factory 10 make steady progress during the 1970s, achiev traincd teams of service engineers and hire mostly ing a real growth rate of 8 per cent from 1973 to local personnel to carry out the selling operation. 1979. Statistics on machine-tool production, con In addition to the export of machine-tool sumption and trade during the 1970s arc given in products, the Indian machine-tool industry has table 25. started in a modest manner to export its en During the 1970s production steadily in gineering services and management consultancy. creased and there was a comparative reduc The leading machine-tool manufacturers have tion in imports. Figure VI shows the growth in undertaken to establish turnkey machine-tool production and exports and the gradual decline in projects abroad, mainly in the Asian and African imports of machine tools from 1945 to 1979. The countries. Their expertise is also being used by percentage of domestic production rose from foreign countries in setting up machine-tool train 70 per cent to 86 per cent of consumption, as may ing centres, in-factory training of foreign man be seen from figure VII. power in skilled trades, and in engineering dis The Indian machine-tool industry currently ciplines like planning and shop supervision of exports mainly centre lathes, turret and capstan manufacturing proccs!lcs. lathes, radial drills, single-column pillar drilling The invisible export of software expertise in machines, knc -type milling machines, cylindri machine-tool technology could contribute sub cal grinders. smface grinders, tool-sharpcning ma stantially to the foreign cxchanttc earnings of the chines and power presses. Indian machine-tool industry as a whole. _:: Fi~tt \"I. Gro•lh or madaiae-tool procladioa. imports :and npcms or India 1111111 15001 - 141111'4 1300 1200 1100 - 1000 ; & ii! 900 0 ! 81111 1 100 3. ; IOll 500 ,,...... __ lmpora 400 ,, / 30ll , ...... ,,' --~ 21111 ... / / 100 _.; -·- 1115 1111 llllO !IMO llC5 111511 1156 ,. -·ll10 Snur.-< ln•enll•lR Intelligence. Sew Delhi. April. 1980. Fiptt \"II. Share or clomeslic mac:hiae-tool prod•Clioa coasamed in India 100 !Ill ID 30 20 10 1940 IM& 1llO 1116 llllO 1910 1915 1171 1111D Snuru- Invention lntelhgcne<, Ne1> Delhi. April 19KO. The Indian machine-tool indus:ry produces a Structure of the industry range of advanced-technology machine tools. It began to manufacture modern NC machine tools There arc about 125 large and medium-scale during the 1970s, and is currently in a position to establishments currently manufacturing machine offer NC and CNC turning centres, CNC vertical tools in India, with an installed capacity of machining centres with automatic tool changers approximately 17,500 machine tools per annum. and NC turret machining centres. The production In addition to the large establishments, the of NC and CNC machine tools led to the small-scale manufacture of machine tools, acces production of the software packages required for sories and allied equipment has expanded rapidly. the optimum utilization of the machines. During The small units produce knee-type milling ma the 1970s the industry also began to produce chines, planing machines and some unsophis EDM machine~ and gun-drilling and deep-hole ticated models of grinders. The name Batala lathe boring machines. has almost acquired a special connotation in the Indian context. Batala in the Punjab is the home The invisible export of software expertise in of hundreds of small units producing a variety of machine-tool technology could contribute sub machine tools which sell for a fraction of the price stantially to the foreign exchange earnings of the of machine tools produced by the larger establish Indian machine-tool industry as a whole. ments. Its success demom.trates th;.< the produc tion of machir.e tools need not be confined to capital-intensi\·e large factories but could be Research and development spread o\·er a large number of small units to produce the components and to assemble them at Although some leading machine-tool manu a central facility. The low wages and the reason facturing companies in ~.1dia had their own design abk overheads are responsible for the lower prices and de\·elopment departments by 1960. organized of the products. If modern designs. refined produc design and de\·elopment acti\"ities in the field of tion technology and quality-consciousness can be machine tools seem to ha\"e begun in 1965. Within introduced into the sector. then larger units can less then a decade, Indian research and de\·el concentrate solely on the production of sophis opment engineers and production technologists ticated machine tools and equipment and acquire were abk to design and produce general-purpose from the small sector the necessary components machine tools and to undertake the design of for modern designs. This is already happening in more sophisticated tools. the Indian macnine-tool industry. Co-operation agreements with foreign ma The development of ancillary industries to chine-tool manufacturers were necessary in the relie\"e the larger units from the responsibility of beginning to speed up the process of growth of making all required components has become the domestic machine-tool industry and as an .. established in India. Se\"eral industrial estates essential componi:nt for the training and devel ha\·e been started by the provision of essential opment of enginee;s, technicians. designers. plan infrastructure such as buildings. power and water ners. manager~ ar.J skilled operators. But the supplies to innumerable entrepreneurs by large large-scale import of technology and know-how scale manufacturing houses, state governments or in such a vital field could not continue indefi the Go\"ernment. nitely. except on a selective basis. because foreign The ancillary industries not only help the sources could not always be relied upon to re parent industry to meet the techno-economic spond positi\"ely where more modern .a:ld sophisti necessities of the competiti\·e market, but also cated export-oriented designs and producti·· '. permit the diffusion of ownership and manage technologies were concerned. ment. The importance of ancillary industries was The Indian machine-tool industry was aware first realized in India when the bicycle manu not only of the need to establish in-house research facturers of the Punjab made use of the products and development activities, but also of the useful of ancillary units and succeeded in producing role of institutionalized research and develop quality bicycles at a much lower cost than those ment, particularly for the benefit of small and made by large-scale units elsewhere in India. medium-scale units. Hence the industry attached The machine-tool industry in India estab considerable importance to institutional research lished ancillary units in the early 1960s, and the and development leading to the design, construc advar.tages accruing to the parent units were tion and testing of new models and prototypt"::. of evident from the fact that subsequently more machine tools. and to improved productior. pro ancillary units were started all over the country. cesses and engineering systems. In 1979, there were 95 industrial estates in the The Government of India took the initiative country catering to the needs of larger manu in the matter of institutional research and devel facturing units. Ancillary units currently account opment and in 1965 set up the Central Mact.ine for about 25 per cent of the machine-tool in Tool Institute at Bangalore to ac• as a nucleus for dustry. Their position will become increasingly institutional research and devel< ,imcnt. The Insti important with the growing reliability and tech tute was established by the Government of India nical ability of the units to produce complicated in co-operation with the Government of Czecho components with the rc4uircd accuracy. Already slovakia. During 15 years of its existence the signs arc evident that the development of ancillary Institute has developed several machine tools with industries will continue in future because of the domestic technology and, more importantly. unmistakable advantages of inter-dependent in trained hundreds of machine-tool designers and dustrialization which will serve the needs of not production technologists for the industry. A only the industry, but also the community in number of machine-tool manufacturers, parti terms of larger employment potential, enhanced cularly in the medium- and small-scale sectors. purchasing power and broad-based ownership have taken advantage of the expert );ervices conferred by a competitive economy. rendered by the Institute. _:-1 The acttnllcs of the Institute ha\·e growr. the software needed for computer-aided manu both in scope and content. Besides undertaking facturing (CAM). designs and de\·elopment assi~nments and con The Centre is expected to evoke conceptual ducting training courses for machine-tool de designs. up-to-date peripherals. controls and in signers. technologists and production engineers proccss gauging systems. and to build and test for the machine-tool entrepreneurs. it has widened prototypes exhaustively before the commence its facilities to carry out research in the testing of ment of serial production. A systematic modern machine tools. machining technology. metrology ization of existing machine-tout designs. bringing and numerical control systems. them up to the latest international standard<;. is An NC Centre is being established at the also one of the main activities of the Centre. Institute by the Government of India under As is common elsewhere in the developed the t:nited Nations Dc\·clopmcnt Programme countries. large manufacturers of machine tools in I UNO P) to prO\·ide assistance to the metalwork ;ndia arc continuously strengthening their in ing industry in all areas related to numerical house research and dcvelopmcn; in machine-tool control. Training personnel from user industries. design and production technology. For instance. demon~trating the technology of manufacture Hindustan Machine Tools Ltd. is putting up a using numerical control, advising on the selection separate building to house its entire research and of NC equipment. and undertaking development dcvclopmc11t department. work in the field arc some of the items on The Government of India has introduced the programme of work of the ':::-cntre. So certain new measures of importance to the in far. over 300 industry-sponsored partic.pants ha\·c dustry. A new law states that no imports of attended its courses. designs and technology by an individual manu The Centre undertakes the machining of facturing concern will be permitted unless the parts on NC machines to demonstrate quality enterprise proves r.~ .he satisfaction of the Govern consistency and the economics of machining. For ment that it nas its own strong research and this purpose the Centre is equipped with a 5-axis development base. and that the company wir .ot machining centre, a 3-axis milling machine. a only absorb and adapt the imported technology. 2-axis cylindrical grinder and two NC lathes. A but also strive to depend on its own research and minicomputer and a co-ordinate measuring development efforts for future innovations and machine have also been installed. improvements in design and technology. Many Personnel from industries can bring in their fiscal incentives ha\·e also been granted for the parts. programme them, eC:it the programme. plot promotion of research and development activities it on a co-ordinate plotter, tool up the machine, in the manufacturing industries. use the tape for actual machining and produce the In spite of t!lc impressive strides made by the parts in a limited quantity to ascertain repetitive domestic machine-tool industry. an ever-widening accuracies, manufacturing times, economics etc. technology gap is separating India from devel Companies intending to acquire NC machines oped machine-tool-producing countries. In fact. can utilize the facilities of the Centre for trial the Indian machine-tool industry is currently at a machining and decide on the <;pccifications of the crossroads, with one route leading to highly machine they intend to buy. Consultancy services productive, automated machine tools and ad arc also offered in the selection of NC machines, vanccci computer-aided manufacturing systems. control sy~tcms, part programming languages. and the other route leading to a labour-intensi\·c post processes, supporting and maintenance aids approach which, according to one view. could etc. mean stagnation for the entire industry. One way As regards development activities. a CNC of putti:; the Indian machine-tool industry on a system using a microprocessor-based computer is more modern footing could be through the high in its final stage of assembly and development. A tcchnology metalworking and capital goods in microprocessor-based tape preparation system to dustries, particularly transports, communications. punch and edit the tapes has just been introduced, power generation and armaments, which will and the first few units arc being su :lplicd to users. require even more highly sophisticated machine The Centre is also considering the Jcvelopmcnt of tools and production technology in future. Part two Prospective technological developments in the machine-tool industry in developed countries V. Background This study is designed to be pragmatic. not by far the most important form of modern theoretical. No attempt will be made to forecast technology is computer-aided manufacture (CAM). technological trends in the machine-tool industry It has already proved its ability to improve using mathematical techniques like those of Pro production possibilities more than all known ject Delphi.~ forms of production technique put together. For In order to deal with the subject compre this reason, machine-tool-based production tech hensively. the following aspects have been con nology is becoming increasingly integrated with sidered: machine-tool meci:anics and design; cut the computer. ting tool materials and tool technology; machine Machining efficiency is the crucial require tool control systems; non-conventional machining ment of a machine tool. Research on the maxi processes; metal-forming machine tools; manu mum obtainable reduction in machining time and facturing systems and production engineering; the maximum achievable accuracy and surface automation in rroduction technology. finish in machining is taking place throughout the It is interesting to compare the forecasts developed world. But the emphasis is currently on made in 1970 by Eugene Merchant, author of a the possible reduction that can be obtained in study on Project Delphi survey methods, and by preparation and operation time and in various the International Institution for Production non-machining times. Many new technologies Engineering Research with what has actually covering the fields of machine rigidity, drives and occurred over a period of 10 years. Such a controls have helped considerably to reduce both comparison is made in a report by the Technical non-cutting and preparation times, especially with Policy Board of the Institution of Production the development of new controls and positioning Engineers. United Kingdom, on current and devices. The need to reduce the operation time future trends of manufacturing management and has led to the search for better tools and designs technology in the United Kingdom. The annex of machine tools having higher speeds and power. contains an extract from this report with forecasts of trends from 1984 to 1996. The design of modern machine tools is based on the combination of several technologies. The Because machine tools are the most im design of structure, drive and control and the portant means of industrial production, the devel basic design methodology demand a close inter opment of production technology depends directly and uniquely on the development of modern action of mechanical, electrical and electronic machine tools. In this survey of the latest devel engineers, in addition to metallurgists and others opments in machine-tool technology, therefore. from a variety of specialized disciplines. The the vital link between modern machine tools and design of machine-tool structures is undergoing a the development of production technology will be quiet revolution. The requirements of high rigid considered. ity, light weight and good damping characteristics The great changes taking place in metal are forcing designers to evolve new designs using wcrking may be attributed to the rapid develop alternative materials and new configurations. The ments in machine-tool design and technology. present trenrl is towards structures using combina contra! engineering and production concepts. tions of metals and non-metals to ensure proper Developments relating to. inter a/ia, new mate thermal stability, static and dynamic stiffness and favourable wear and noise characteristics. rial~. cutting tools and a new generation of drives are not only influencing the concept of machining, The development of new cutting-tool materials but also adding a new dimension to the metho is compelling designers to devise drives of high dology of machine-tool design. speed and reliability. Noise considerations are New forms of production organization such restricting the use of gear drives at high speeds. as the concept of fully or partially flexible Silicon-<.ontrolled-rectifier DC motors are being manufacturing systems are emerging. At present, developed and bearing systems arc undergoing many changes. The requirements of high speeds, 'Proiect Delphi was the name of a s1udy sponsored by increased stiffness, high accuracy and reduced 1he 1Jni1ed S1a1es Air Force in 1he early 19S0s. h sought io noise are favouring the application of hydrostatic obtain expert opinion mamly thrnugh quesllonnaires. bearings on a much wider sca!e. .17 Modem controls are being cunstantly refined component of machine-tool design. The need to to meet the demands of higher producti\"ity. The conserve material is dictating a shift from cutting remarkable tempo of dc\elopment in m: .. ro to forming. The threat of an energy crisis is electronics and semiconductor technology is adding forcing a keener attention towards en There can be no instant transformation into unloading the job. This is an important parameter an era of noiseless machine tools with high mctal in view of the importance attached to automated rcmoval rates. ultra-precision and 100 per cent loading. This is particularly evident in the slant uptime. Instead. there arc signposts pointing to bed design of modern lathes. The search for the paths that might be taken in improving the cheaper alternatives to cast iron has spurred capabilities of mctakutting machines. This in research on the use of welded structures, concrete itself is an important contribution to the state of and even granite for use in the machine-tool the art of machining. Spectacular advances in the structure. capabilities of modern cutting tools could double cutting speeds from both roughing and finishing Fabricated steel structures and double feed rates in cutting. Taken together, these offer potential time reductions of 50 to The need for lighter and stiffer structures has 70 per cent. and a further reduction of perhaps prompted designers to evaluate fabricated welded 50 per cent is possible if roughing and finishing construction for beds and columns and also for car. be combined into single-pass machining at an modules which are used in a variety of combi incr.::oo;cd depth of cut. Depending on the appli nations. Increased stiffness offered by the welded cation. such savings could increase overall output structures used for columns and cross-beams of by 15 to 300 per cent. vertical boring machines is almost 30 per cent Each of the above possibilities, however, over that of cast iron. In addition to the ad adds to the challenge of machine-tool design, vantages of light weight and increased stiffness. requiring higher spindle revolutions per minute, these welded structures arc cheaper than cast iron. faster feed mechanisms, larger torques and forces, significantly greater horsepower and much in creased static and dynamic stiffness. Concrete In the design of a machine tool, the major elements of importance are the structure, drive, Reinforced concrete is even cheaper than guides etc. As previously indicated, the design of a welded structures. with the added advantage of machine tool should reflect the confluence of possessing excellent damping properties. Some several engineering disciplines. The latest trends manufacturers in the United States are using bear testimony to an integrated approach to the concrete to make beds of NC turning machines. design of every major element of a machine tool. These structures consist of a sheet-metal casing The design trends in structures, guideways and braced internally by steel ~ods and filled with bearing surfaces. spindle systems, feed drives, concrete to which the machine tool is permanently accuracy aspects in design and computer-aided glued. A special type of concrete which expands design, arc briefly outlined below. on curing is used. The bed of the machine is a closed box section, cast iron in which sand and core arc left behind to achieve a high coefficient Structures of structural damping. This assures a statically and dynamically stiff structure which facilitates a A century of trial and error has led to iron in high metal removal rate, high precision and an its present form, but both methods of design and excellent surface finish in NC machines. products may not be adequate for tomorrow. Even iron may be replaced. Granite The principal design parameters of the machine-tool structure are as follows: stiffncss-10- Future machine-tool beds and bases may \\ell w~ight ratio, natural frequency and damping frcm be made of stone, particularly from granite the standpoint of dynamics, dimensional stai.>ility because of its strength and easy availability. There and the long-term stability influencing the reten is a diamond-turning machine in the United States tion of accuracy of alignments. Another im in which granite is used as both the machine base portant parameter arising from ergonomic con and the mc&surcmcnt base. It is claimed to be the siderations is the accessibility for loading and first ultra-high precision lathe, having maightncss J9 errors within 0.025 11m and positional displace ir. the vcc-way across the flat ends of the rollers. ment errors within 0.013 11m at all points. th1.1s With this type of bearing. a coulomb friction of permitting turning with mirror polish in a single less than 0.003 is achieved. ensuring that e\·cn operation. Granite appears to be the most suitable under hca\·y cutting loads a heavy workpiece can material for such high-precision machines because be positioned with an accuracy of I 11m. of its low thermal expansion (7.2 x w-· per "C) and an excellent damping rate at 15 times more than that of cast iron or fabricated steel structure. In 3pite of all these advantages. the cost of Hydrostatic oil bearings processing granite for use as a machine base is still very high. The main advantages offered by hydrostatic oil bearings arc high stiffness. low friction. high \iscous damping and very high averaging effects exhibited by the all-fluid film bearings. During Guideways and bearing surfaces operation there is no metallic contact. This ensures high life and accuracy of the bearings. New design concepts are now being tri.:d to which arc used in machine tools primarily where ensure the longe\ity of machine accuracy. to very high cutting forces associated with high reduce periodic maintenance and pro\idc for metal removal arc encountered. and yet medium easily replaceable guidcway elements that do not accuracy and good finish arc required. The main require costly and time-consuming scraping. Re disadvantages of hydrostatic oil bi:aring arc their cent inno\·ations in guidcway technology have high cost due to the need for auxiliary equipment resulted in the development of glued-on and fixed such as pumps. resistors, and filters. and the need on guides. to control very precisely the clearances in the Glued-on guides are built with hardened or necessarily over-constrained bearing gaps. The nitridcd steel strips of 10-12 mm thickness which temperature rise in the bearing is directly pro arc bonded on the properly prepared base struc portional to the clearances. and in \·cry high ture by using bonding agents like epoxy resins. precision applications it is desirable to control the The fixed-on guides are designed with case temperature of the oil in the scavenging and hardened or nitridcd steel guides which arc bolted recirculation process. if necessary by refrigeration. or dowelled on to the precision-milled, ground or hand-scraped locating surface of the welded or cast-iron machine bed or base. This is likely to be the basic design approach for the guidcways and Aerosraric bearings bearing surfaces of machine tools in the future. The cost of such guidcways is much less than Application of air bearings is now prevalent. even the conventional precision-milled or hand- especially for high-precision, high-speed grinding 3craped guides. They facilitate easy replacement machines. The error-averaging effect of the air of worn-out guides, considerably reducing the film compensates for errors of circularity in the down time of the machine. The mating part may spindle and the bearing bore. By using these be of cast iron or any self-lubricating or tribo bearings, the roundness error on the finished logically compatible material. product is considerably reduced. The maximum roundness error of a spindle with air bearings so far achieved on a high-production grinding Rollinx-element guideway bearinxs machinc is 0.00025 mm. The most important advantage is that the thermal warm-up normally In high-precision machine tools and NC encountered in spindles with rolling-clement bear machines, there is a marked increase in the ings docs not exist. Air bearings u<,..:d in grinding application of rolling-clement bearings for guidc spindles afford a higher quality of form and ways. By careful grading of precision rollers (or finish. For much heavier metal removal using balls where a lighter load is to be carried), and by large formed wheels and inplungc: grinding opera careful calculation of the mean loading per tions, a combination of air and oil hydrostatic clement, a very high-precision motion can be bearings arc now successfully used to achieve a achieved by virtue of the elastic averaging effect. higher bearing stiffness and better viscous damp Some modern jig-boring machines use hollow ing under heavy loads. rollers in the vcc-nat in a semi-kinematic con An ultra-precision surface-grinding and slit figuration. l:l this case, the hollow roller serves to ting machine incorporating externally pressurized help the averaging effect, and being slightly over air bearings for both wheel and spindle, and linear square by about 50 Jim, an excellent viscous bearings for the X and Y motions of the machine, damping is achieved by the shearing of the oil film has been developed in the United Kingdom. -If Spindle systems tion while the motor is on stand-by. Because of these characteristics. they can be directly coupled The thermal energy dissipated in the machine to the load. offering a very high coupling drive spindle-head during operation leads to considerable stiffness and even zero backlash with careful thermal dilation which causes spindle drift and mechanical design. These torque motors arc highly spindle droop. These thermal problems can be reliable and durable. o\"ercome by controlling and stabilizing t .. .: operat ing temperatures of the spindle head and by keeping it cool through refrigeration. The cooling Mechanical drive elements is done in such a way that a temperature of 20" lo 25° C is maintained. Along with the direct drive DC servos and Drift and droop compensation is very im torque motors. the most commonly used mech portant in the case of boring and jig-boring anical drive elements are recirculating anti-fric machines. The modern trend is to con•pensate the tion screws and nuts. However. the hvdrostatic boring spindle assembly in such a '".tanner that ally lubricated nut and lead-screw sy;tcms have whate\"er the projection of the spindle, the tool recently found increased application in the position does not drift or droop. Such compen machine-tool field because of lower rumble. sation is now possible with hydrostatic bearing higher stiffness and low friction. Although the systems and with pressure feedback in respect of a hydrostatic nut and screw sys:cms are more built-in reference. expensive, they provide higher reliability when used in the servo-drive system along with DC torque motors and grating transducers. Feed drives Automatic and NC machines now demand Accuracy of design high acceleration or deceleration and a steady state of operations of the feed drive systems. The The design of modern machine tools is aimed innovations in semiconductor technology, servo towards a high accuracy of the machined compo dri\·es. electrohydraulic systems and high-energy nents. In this context, not only the earlier magnetic materials have led to the development of mcntioncd aspects of stilrncss of structures, suit a new breed of feed drives. Electrohydrauhc and able assembly configurations. cquired stiffness total electronic servo-drives dominate the field at and reliability of dri\·cs, sensitivity of slide motions present. although the electrohydraulic versions are and thermal stability should be achieved, but also being phased out because of their low response an integrated approach should be adopted for the time. actuation delay and associated problems of design of the machine and controls. noise. heat and cost. Modern NC and EDM In view of the enhanced performance require machines are fully equipped with electronic servo ments of modern machine tools, the design should drives. satisfy a dual purpose. A machine tool has to be ,-:-:e present generation of high-performance able accurately to machine the component and drives mcorporates one of the following: DC even take over the function of inspecting the permanent-magnet direct-drive torque motors; DC machined job. Hence the added function of permanent-magnet servo-motors; electric and measuring has necessitated the incorporation of a electrohydraulic stepper motors; AC variahle number of measuring devices• :,d systems on the frequency motors; brushless DC motors; and machine tool. Among these, the most commonly wound field DC motors. used arc the inductive scale, absolurc digital or "fhe DC permanent magnet systems arc the incremental-type shaft encoders and laser inter most commonly used because of the attainable ferometers associated with digital read-outs. band width and good performance al low speeds Although the vast majority of servo-position with added benefits of less heat, noise and low ing aids used in NC and CNC machines arc the cost. indirect type of transducers such as sh.. • en Even in Japan. where clcctrohydraulic step coders, the direct types such as :..ductivc scales per motors have hitherto been widely used, and moire fringe gratings arc finding increased because of the simplicity of electronic control, use because of their higher precision. In a new permanent-magnet DC motors arc slowly replac instrument developed in the United Kingdom, 1: : ing them. interpolation of moire fringes from optical grat The permanent torque motors arc a special ings is obtained by a scanned phc""diodc array brand of DC control motors. They have a which makes possible a very fine resolution from pancake form and develop high torque at low a transmission grating with 100 lines per milli speeds without becoming overheated. The per metre. This resolution is ck 10 that obtained by manent magnet field does not allow heat dissipa- laser intctfcromctry, but al a fraction of the cost. '.\1odular construction Conceptual design A distinct trend towards the modular con The first two aspects of design. namely struction nf machine tools is already e\"ident. This functional specification and preliminary rough trend is strengthened by the need of the metal design, may be regarded as a conceptual part of working industry to machine a wide range of the design process. It is essentially a creative parts in small and large batches. with an ability to activity that depends upon the ingenuity. inno change O\"er quickly from one part family to vative qualities and feel of a designer. based on another. This can be done best by a system which experience and creative ability. Computers ha\·e allows various configurations of machining sys considerable limitations as aids to conceptual tems to be built up from a range of standard designing. Nc\erthelcss, many computer methods modules rather than by the use of inflexible arc valuable means of expediting the design machine parts. Considerable success has been process. Computer retrieval of design information achie\"ed in using modular units for building is one of them. The designer spends a con grinders for high-rnlume production. but a wider siderable amount of time searching for informa application of the concept to embrace lathes. tion from catalogues. standards. research papers. milling machines. drilling machines etc. has yet to oil designs etc. Computer-managed data banks be established. Howc\"cr. as more industries turn arc available in certain fields to cater to the needs to group technology. it is upectcd that machinc of the designer. The designer can have access to tool builders will increasingly adopt this concept such data banks through multi-access channels, of machine building. even from a remote place through computer terminals and the telephone network. In-house, Other technical factors encouraging modular minicomputer-based information retrieval systems cunstruction include the mo\"c towards higher are also valuable in computer-aided design. speed and power. variable spindle drives, inter changeable tool turrets and direct-drive feed units. The first three factors ha\·e led NC lathe designs Cost estimates and design analysis to a concept where the drive motor, gear box and After the conceptual stage comes the stage of spindle units arc separated to limit thermal cost estimates and design analysis. This stage uses problems and to isolate sources of vibration. The the computer to the maximum extent. Calculation same considerations are seen in modular grinder of forces, deflections, stresses, variations of a designs. proposed design and cost estimates can be per Builders of machine tools also stand to gain formed with a high degree of accuracy by the by adopting a modular design concept. Short lead computer. times. flexibility in final machine configuration, At this stage the recycling of information is low inventory and larger batch quantities lead to done to alter the rough design and to rcanalysc savings of cost and time in machine-tool building. and re-estimate to arrive at a cost-effective and The builder can offer machining systems tailored optimum design. If a computer is not a\·ailablc at to meet customers' needs with a possibility of this stage, the designer usually remains satisfied adding more modules when required. \II these with one or two trials and waits for the perform considerations arc prompting a move towards ance report on the design after the prototype is modular design of machining systems. manufactured and tested. The availability of multi-axes and time sharing computers and intelligent peripherals such Computer-aided design as visual display and graphics terminals have simplified matters. The multi-access and time Engineering design involves the use of scien sharing facility allows the user to communicate tific principles, technical information and imagina directly with a distant computer. send data or tive manufacturing instructions to make an instructions through a visual display graphics engineering product from engineering drawings. terminal, and immediately receive back the output Every industry and engineering company evolves on the terminal screen in graphical form. If the its own particular design methods and procedures. designer is not satisfied with the output, then A fairly typical design method is as follows: some of the input parameters may be changed functional specification; preliminary rough design; either through the keyboard or in the form of cost estimates and design analysis; final design; graphical input by usin~ a light pen on the detail design; and drafting. In the m~ern state of graphic screen and instructing the computer to development, computers are being widely used in reprocess. The cycle can be repeared until the engineering design. This has led to the develop required result is achieved. By this method, the ment of a new discipline known as computer user and the computer can work together, modi aidcd design. fying and improving the design a-d correcting errors without hning to wait for the print-out. use of less structural material. thus reducing costs. This de\·elopment in computer technology and Many parts made today by a rough cut followed graphics represents an essential part of computer by a finished cut should be suitable for machining aided design. in one pass with a stiffer machine tool. An improved ability to understand. analyse. test and quantity structural behaviour and parameters. Computer-aided drafting both statically and dynamically. is needed. Re search and development work is therefore being Once the design parameters and shapes are carried out in the following areas: theoretical and established through the conceptual and analysis experimental analysis of structural characteristics phases. the next step is the production of engineer such as shifting weights and cutting forces: experi ing drawings. which is mainly a drafting job. The mental and computation methods for static and de\·elopment of automated drafting machines. dynamic stiffness: damping mechanisms: founda both drum and flat bed types-has made drafting tions and \ibration testing: easier. Once the \·arious design data are fed to the computer in the form of co-ordinates. the data (b) To achie\·e high spindle speeds, the can be trarsformed into an analog drawing by spindle bearings should be desigr. ...~ to handle the operating the Jra fting machines as computer expected loads and speeds. A forward-thrust peripherals. C omtJuter software is available to bearing of hydraulically pre-loaded bearing is deal with two-dimensional and three-dimensional considered necessary to pre\·ent a loaded spindle views. automatic dimensioning of part drawings from being pulled out of its housing: and assembly dra,\·ings. (c) The machine should be provided with a protecti\·e cover to safeguard the operator and other personnel on the shop-floor from flying High-speed machining chips and broken cutters: (d) All tooling should be balanced for speed Expected imprJvemems in cutting-tool mate and the tool inserts firmly anchored for protection: rials allow an increase in the limits of material removal rate, in maicimum speed (5.000-6,000 rev/ (e) The advantages of increasing the num min) and feed by an The performance of cutting-tool material in a sintered carbides yielded superior varieties of given machining ap;:ilication is mainly determined carbides hning a thin hard layer of titanium by the following three important properties: wear carbide or titanium nitride on a basic carbide resisrance necessary to enable the cutting tool •o substrate. With this development of coated in retain its edge and shape cutting efficiency; hot serts. a 50 to 80 per cent increase in the cutting hardness necessary to enable the cutting tool to speed over that of com·entional carbides was retain its cutting ability and hardness at high achieved. Many new types of coated tips with temperatures de\·eloped at the tool chip interface; multiple layer coatings are also being introduced. and toughness necessary to enable the tool to Shortage of tungsten has. however. led to the withstand forces. to absorb shocks associated with development of many non-tungsten cutting-tool interrupted cuts and to prevent the chipping of materials. Among them the most promising are the fine cutting edge. solid titanium carbide and titanium nitride. Cera Wear resistance and toughness are two inter mic tools exhibit very high hardness and abrasive .. dependent characteristics. a gain in one resulting resistance, facilitating the use of higher cutting in a loss in the other. Whereas high-speed steel speeds. However. their application has been lim starts rapi..!ly to lose its hardness at temperatures ited owing to their brittleness and lack of strength. above 40° C. carbides. ceramics and diamond A new tool material consisting of columbium, retain thei~ hardness at very high temperatures. tungsten and titanium permits a 60 per cent Several other properties such as coefficient of increase in cutting speed in comparison with thermal expansion. thermal conductivity. grind tungsten carbide. Cubic boron nitride with a ability. weldability. hardenability, dimension sta hardness second only to that of diamond permits bility and freedom from distortion after heat speeds five to eight times faster than that of treatment are important. The coefficient of ther tungsten carbide and can be used to cut hardened mal expansion determines the influence of thermal materials. Polycrystalline diamond bonded to stresses and shocks on materials. Carbides have tungsten carbide substrate i-; now successfully lower coefficients of thermal expansion than high employed for machining non-ferrous materials. speed steels and c!evelop lower thermal stresses, but they are more sensitive to thermal shocks Tool materials because of their brittleness. With increasing ther mal conductivity. the heat produced in the tool Cast alloys chip interface is rapidly dissipated. As the wear resistance of a cutting tool improves, the grind High-speed steels were unsurpassed until the ability generally decreases and the grinding costs introduction of cast cobalt-base alloys. Cast alloys are increased. arc produced with certain combinations of tung Until 1901) machining was performed by sten, chromium and cobalt having extremely t:igh using either plair. high-carbon steel or air-harden red-hardness, wear resistance and toughness. Since i11g steel. Shortly after 1900, high-speed steel was the coefficient of thermal expansion is the same introduced and it has since undergone many for both steel and these alloys, the two materials modifications. The cast cobalt-base tot)ls intro can be brazed or welded without the danger of duced around 1915 are employed for machining inducing stresses. The cast alloys bridge the gap operations at much higher cutting speeds. between high-speed steel and carbide and to some The next nctable improvement ir tool mate extent arc still being used in the metalworking rials came with the introduction of i;obalt-bonded industries. sintered tungsten carbide produced by the powder Cast alloys have properties intermediate be metallurgy technique. The addition of titanium, tween high-speed steels and cemented carbides. tantalum and niobium carbides to basic tungsten They are less tough 2.nd more wear-resistant than carbide vastly enhanced the range of application high-speed steels, and are used at surface speeds of carbides. This material used in the form of above those of high-speed steels and below those small inserts, either hrazcd or clamped to steel of carbides. Other important characteristics are shanks, proved extremely popular. Further re high red-hardness (ability to retain edge hardness search and development work in the field of up to 760° C), a low coefficient of friction, ' excellent resistanc~ to corrosion and high resis tips is also a problem becaus~ the grinding stresses tance to shock and impact. may cause cracking of the tip. The geometry and The cast alloys are used for machining cast finally the performance of the carbide tools iron and malleable iron. alloy steels. stainless depend on the skill with which brazing is done steels. non-ferrous metals. bronze. graphite and and grinding is carried out. These problems plastics. The shock and impact resistance uf cast assume greater importance when multi-point tools cobalt-base alloys allows them to perform better like milling cutters have to be sharpened and the than carbides on interrupted cuts. relati\·e positions of the cutting edges must be Cast alloys can be used in multiple tooling on accurately maintained. In addition. some of the automatic screw machines and multi-spindle bar newly developed grades of carbides arc difficult to automatics. where not all operations require the braze. Recently introduced coated carbides are surface speeds of either high-speed steels or not suitable for brazing because the subsequent carbides. Carbides are used on large diameters grinding removes the coating. and cast alloys on smaller diameters. Cast alloys The concept of the throw-away insert o\·er are also used to cut small diameter jobs. comes the disadvantages of the brazed tool and offers considerable economy. higher producti"·ity Cemented carbide and operational convenience. Elimination of re grinding and other troubles associated with poor The first major breakthrough in the devel grinding, accuracy of tool geometry and reduced opment of tool materials came in 1926 with the tool inventory are some of the advantages offered advent of cemented carbide for metal-cutting. by these tools. Since regrinding costs are com Earlier. cutting-tool materials were mostly pro pletely eliminated. they can be subjected to the duced by molten metallurgy methods and de maximum wear at higher speeds than those used pended on proper heat treatment for hardnrs.s and as brazed tips. With the use of pre-sintered chip other properties. Their performance was therefore brcaking on throw-away inserts. better chip con greatly affected by the attendant cutting tempera trol is achieved. tures. The carbides now produced by powder A shortage of tungsten has led to the metallurgy techniques display very high rcd development of many non-tungsten cutting-tool hardncss (ability to retain their cutting edge up to materials. Among them the most promising are about 100° C) and wear resistance and can be the titanium carbide and titanium nitride tool operated at very high cutting speeds when com materials. which have greater solubility in the pared with high-speed steels. bonding materials used, r.ickel and molybdenum. Initially. straight tungsten carbide with cobalt than tungsten carbide has in cobalt. This results in as the bounding material formed the basic con high strength of materials with good resistance to stituent of cemented carbide. which was well chip tool welding and reduced friction between ~uited for tt>e machining of short chipping material the chip and the tool. Because of their higher hke cast iron. Later the range of application was thermal conductivity, temperatures produced at considerably extended by the addition of carbides the cutting point are lower. They have a very low of titanium. tantalum. niobium etc. density, about one third to one half that of The extent to which carbides have spread is tungsten carbide alloys, and this leads to low heat borne out by the fact that at present in developed absorption, which is a critical factor for extended countries 300 to 400 carbide varieties arc mar tool life. They also have a transfer rupture keted by various tool manufacturers. strength comparable to that of tungsten carbide. Partly because of low tensile strength and exhibit higher hot-hardness and do nN form a high costs. carbides were originally used as small built-up edge on their rake faces, consequently tips for inserts brazed to a tougher and less costly producing a good surface finish on jobs. steel shank material. The cost of carbide has now Titanium carbides and titanium nitrides have: come down appreciably and is only a fraction of been used to bridge the gap between tungsten what it was some years ago. Still. it is invariably carbide and ceramics for finishing and preci used along with steel shanks on which it is sion machining operations at speeds as high as clamped or brazed except in the case of very small 450 m/min and with light to moderate feeds tools. Though simple and cheap, the brazing ar.J cutting depths. These could also be used on process is now disappearing since it has certain nigh-temperature alloys with poor machinability drawbacks. Brazing, even carefully done, may and on hard alloy steels. subject the carbide to internal stresses owing to The potential for major development in the different coefficient of expansion of steel and carbide cutting-tool material depends primarily carbide. These stresses alone may not be large on the availability of cobalt. The supply of this enough to damage the tips, but when coupled essential material is controlled by Governments, with normal cuuing stresses, they may cause and a cut-off would hinder development efforts in failure of the tip. Regrinding of bra1.ed carbide carbide tools. Coaced carbides uniform strength up to 1.220' C. Because of these properties. they are being used in de1.·eloped In the case of conventional cemented carbide countries for cutting tough material at high speeds grades. a compromise has been sought between and at higher temperatures as compared with wear resistance and toughness. In principle. in other tool materials. However. the relatively low creased wear resistance also means reduced le,·el transverse ruoture strength of ceramics-about of toughness and vice \·ersa. The emphasi<; in the one half to one third of carbide-is a serious de,·elopment ,- :· cemented carbides is therefore on limitation which has been restricting their wider impro\·ing wear resistance while retaining ade applications to that of uninterrupted cuts. quate toughness. This has led to the development Ceramics. having higher hot-hardness and of coated carbides in which a microscopic layer of greater resistance to wear. are employed for wear-resistant material (titanium carbide. tita increasing producti,·ity and lowering costs. Cera nium nitride) is chemically coated over a tough mics provide good surface finish and quality and carbide substance to attain a single grade of eliminate finishing operations like grinding. Cast carbide having the property of both high wear iron. noted for its abrasi\·e characteristics. can be resistance and toughness. machined to a smooth bright finish using cera Coated carbides are rapidly changing the mics. Heat-treated steel as hard as 65 Rockwell composition of cutting tools. Such tools account .. C .. can be finished by ceramic tools up to 0.5 11m for approximately 25 per cent of carbide-insert surface finish. often eliminating the grinding use. a figure may increase to 80 per cent depend operation with considerably improved tool life ing on material conditions. However. if these vis-a-\·is the carbide. High-temperature alloys tools are to be used at their optimum capacity so such as hastalloy. stellite and Monel metal can as to provide full economic return. machine also be machined using cerami.:s. Ceramics are spindle speeds. horsepower and feeds will have to usec for special turning. long tube boring. cylin be increased. That is already being done m the der r ner boring etc. designs of machine tools produced in developed Ceramic tools have the potential to increase countries. In micrograin carbide, the particle size cutt.ng speeds by a factor of 5 to 10. but their of the carbides is reduced to submicrograin level. toughne~~ will n.:ve to be increased before they It is found that mii::~·Jgrain carbides exhibit can be widely used. The wide use of ceramics significantly higher traverse rupture strength at would require some refinement in machine-tool any given hardness level than conventional car technology. During the next five years. ceramics bides. They are used for severe metal-cutting will continue to make progress. but at as ~iow a operations requiring a higher strength than those rate as that experienced during the past five years. of conventional grades of carbides. They are Ceramics and cermets have been used for recommended for applications where high-speed cutting tools t..:r the last 20 years and have steel or cast alloy tools are too fast. or where secured a definite place. within limits. in metal cutting speeds are slow for carbides. or where cutting. Many of the earlier aluminium oxide carbides fail by chipping. ceramics are no longer available. because they are Because of their high strength. coated carbide not gocd enough to compete with the more recent tools are oeing extensively used with positive rake hot-pressed. high-purity aluminium oxide inserts. angles in machining high-nickel-base alloys (suµer Of more significance. however. is the so alloys). They are also recommended for cut-off called cermet material containing 15-30 per cent tools. since the slow speed encountered towards titanium carbide in addition to aluminium oxide. the centre of the bar does not affect these tool There are a number of producers of high-quality materials. and for form tools. materials in this class that compete in the high speed cutting range. In addition to the more conventional cer Ceramics mets, there have been others in which additives. such as molybdenum and molybdenum carbide or Among the numerous ceramic tool materials tungsten carbide. have been used with aluminium available. the best results are obtained with oxide instead of titanium carbide. None of these aluminium oxide combined with small quantities has yet proved viable as a cutting tool. Extensive of various other oxides. Ceramics are hard and research is being conducted in this area by the have a high degree of compressive strength even cutting-root manufacturers. at elevated temperatures. They have a good abrasive resistance to cratering and a low fric tional co-efficient, and they are not sensitive to Diamond the higher range of temperatures encountered in practice. Ceramic tools can retain their cuuing Diamond, because of its high modulus of edge hardness up to about 1,400' C and exhibit elasticity, chemical inertness and exceptionally ----~------high hardness. is ideal for obtaining tine surface centre. softer than steel. Because of its non fini:-h and accuracy. Though the initi:il cost of homogeneity. application of the alloy is limited to diamond is high when compared with high-speed throw-away inserts. steel or carbide tools. the cost per piece machined The alloy cuts \·ery cool. It has excellent \\ith diamond is im·ariably much lower. thermal shock resistance. high hardnes~ .nd tough Diamond is chemical!~ inert and takes a high G::•~ It also exhibits excellent resistanc~ to dif polish. Be.:ause of this property . .:hips do not fusiun and adhesion wear (chip welding). It is adhere t~1 its surface \\hen machining non-ferrous claimed to gi\·e three to live times more edge life and non-metallic surfaces. Diamor.d has high hot than com·entional carbides. hardne~~ but excessi\·e heat causes it to crack. and The alloy is recommended for roughing. oxidation of diamonrl starts at about 800' C. An semi-roughing and finishing cuts in turning. facing abundant suppl~ ,1f cuuing lluids should therefore a!id boring. It operates in the speed range of 250 be used without interruption and light feeds t-> 500 m/min on steel of 200 Brinell. It is not should be employed. The diamond cutting edge is generally applied to milling. parting-off or for extremely smooth. keen and accurate. It is com operations using form tools. pletely free from sawtooth irregularities inherent in a carbide tool. and hence the modern trend is that the diamond tool is employed more for Cubic boron nitride precision application. Diamond is extremely brittle and it chips or Next to diamond. cubic boron nitride is the fractures if it is not properly handled. It should be hardest substance known. It consists of atoms of used on machines with minimum \·ibration or nitrogen and boron with a special struc" .:al chatter and protected from shock loading. configuration similar to diamond. Cubic ~oron Diamonds of various forms are used in many nitride is successfully used as a grinding wheel or. industrial applications such as grinding wheels. high-speed steel tools providing good surfac.:: dressing tools. drawing dies. hones. lapping com finish. precision and high output. and also on pounds and cold drills. As a cutting tool. diamond titanium. stainless steel and stellites. The second is mainly used for machining the following: non application includes grinding of hardeiled steel ferrous metals like aluminium. brass. copper. lead screws. splines. threads and ball and roller brnnze and other bearing materials: non-metallic bearing parts. Because cubic boron nitride cuts materials like epoxy resins. hard rubber and glass: cool. grinding defecls such as burrs and thermal and precious metals like gold. silve- and platinum. shocks are not produced. It is also used for In light-alloy pistons. nearly all surfaces are grinding the slideways of casl iron beds and diamond-turned and bored. e'peci'!!!~· where higher housing-type components. silica content is inrnlved. Sintered bearings. which cannot be machined by other tool materials. are machined by diamonds. Commutators are turned wnh diamond. t<>ols to give them a smooth surface Tool design with clean boundaries. They are generally used for finishing cuts and are not recommended for Chip hrraker f~mius materials. Polycrystalline diamond is used for machining glass. reinforced plastics. eutectic Long and unbroken chips produced while and hyper-eutectic aluminium alloys and other machining ductile materials are difficult to handle materials having hard and sofl structures which and injurious to the operalor. 'fhe sole purpose of prevent interrupted cuts. They are a•so used in 1he chip breaker is lo break chips into convenient milling. sizes for easy disposal and to protect the machine surface from rubbing againsl chips. Various chip breaker designs and configurations have been conceived lo oblain effective chip control. Co/umhium-1i1anium-111ngsren alloy Various types of chip breaker and inserts are the external chip breaker. and moulded chip insert A niirided refractory metal alloy consisting and the variable-width chip breaker. The moulded of 50 per cent columbium. 30 per cenl titanium chip breaker design evolved with the advent of and 20 per cenl 1ungs1en has been developed by a centre-lock-1ype tool holders. In chis design lhe company in the United Stales. chip breaker grooves are formed at the sintering Un1rea1ed inserts of 1he alloy having a stage. They are built in single-, double-, triple-. hardness of around 200 Brinell are niirided in a multiple- and variable-widlh configurations. The nitrogen almosphere at a very high lemperature. variable-widlh chip breaker consists of an insert The surface hardness of 1he finished insen is with a varying groove to enable 1he insert to grealer than thal of ceramic and, towards lhe handle a wider depth of cul. Tool geometry and configuration Qualijied roof holders The land angle inserts have been designed for The positioning of the cutting edge in both the use in heavy roughing and light finishing cuts. X and Y axes is especially important when using A new land geometry was first e\'ol\'ed in the automatic. copying or NC machines. Norm2lly. United States. In ,.,e design adopted the chip tool positioning error is doubled in turning be lea\'es the rake face very quickly. thus reducing cause of the tool cutting on diameters. Since many the chip-tool contact length and transferring very NC centres ha\'e a programmable resolution of little heat to the insert. This reduces the cutting 0.00~ mm. and since closer tolerances are insisted temperature and result" in impro,·ed tool life. upon in precision machining. greater attention is Another ad\·antage is that by arniding the back paid to accurate tool setting. Another critical wall of the chip groo\'e. cutting forces are reduced requirement is repeatability in positioning the tool and the metal remo\'al rate is increased. The chir in automatic tool changers. To respond to these breaks with a natural curl and facilitates im requirements. qualified tool holders are designed pro\'ed chip control at both ends of the feed where certain critical nominal dimensions are range. which helps in tasier programming of NC qualified over the specified radius of the insert machines. within about ±0.05 mm. The qualified tool hold e1 eliminate the need to size every tool in di\"idually. Roughing cuts can be taken without Wai·e-shaped insert design the need for a trial. In qualified tool holders all The single-sided negative insert in this design control dimensions are nominal for both manual and computer programming. Besides eliminating i~ provided with a wa\e-shaped edge geometry having double chip-breaking groo\"es and a mini the prtsent ::>resetting stand. the set-up time 1s chip breaker near the nose radius to compel the greatly reduced by using qualified tool holders. chip to curl against itself. This wa\"e-shaped cutting edge pro\'ides a positive angle of incli nation and reduces cutting forces. In this design Major constraints in roof design the axial and radial forces are reduced to 20 and 30 per cent respecti\"ely. and the tangential force Chip control is normally accepted if there is by about IO per cent \'is-a-vis the standard no danger to the operator and no damage to the negati\'e insert. The insert also helps to use workpiece. and if the chips are small enough to positive or negative rake for negative rake tool handle easily and safely by either manual or hulders. automatic means. These are important in the case of NC machines. where chips can cause much damage and interrupt production. The need to Tooling system bring chips under control may lead to over control when extremely tight, dark-blue chips are The inherent disadvantages of indexing throw formed. or when insert!> cause severe chatter or away inserts directly on the NC machine tool led break prematurely. This may be avoided hy a United States firm to design a new tooling achieving a lower metal removal rate, but the system. This system provides for rapid tool vestiges of over-control will still remain in the changes. with tool holders held in place by a ball design. lock mechanism. It involves the c.:>ncept of quick Increased meta! removal rates through an indexing of a cartridge-carrying insert. The com increase in feed rates appears attractive, but it is pact design of the system affords space for 12 beset with many problems. An increase in the tools on a 6-station turret, thus doubling the tool depth of cut or speed poses several problems. In capacity. the case of depth of cut there are limitations. For Another system combining a high perform example, if the depth of cut is dc-ubled, twice as ance insert with a reliable coated carbide has been much power is required at the tool point. If power developed. It has a new carbide insert geometry and rigidity are available, then an increase in and a multi-faced coating, designed for extremely depth of cut can be effective. But the wider chip tough milchining applications. Its land-angle shape may be either too difficult to break or may allows freer cutting and very high metal removal become too crowded or deformed. This will rates, and the coating allows for heavy interrupted require even more power than 0riginally anti cutting, past runout and scale. The clean rake cipated. surface presents lower resistance to chip rlow and Even though moctern machine tools cut much thereby encourages higher feed rates. It has high faster, there are some limitations to increasing chip-controlling ability along with the natural speed. Tool life deteriora1es dras1ically with speed advantages of usinr high-speed rates to reduce because of lhe !.ignificant increase ;n abrasion and unit power consumption. 1empera1ure on 1he flank. rake face and nose 51 radius of the insert. Flank wear is the most these are again limited by the imert geometry. important cause of the end of tool life_ By Designers must therefore continue the search for understanding the interrelationships between speed the ideal geometry. optimum speeds and feeds and and feed. productivity increas.! and tool life can material characteristics to meet production re be balanced. The real key is the feed rates. but quirements. VIll. Machine-tool control systems A spectacular new art of manufacturing. curiosity. It has come to occupy an important based on the changing nature of the information place in the very concept of production engineer stream that runs a manufacturing enterprise. is ing. The de\·elopment of NC. rendered possible by emerging in developed countries. In the past. the remarkable growth in semiconduct.>r tech human beings were both the translators and nology and digital science. is designed to make it transmitters of information. The operator was the an invaluable tool of production. due attention ultimate interface betwee:i the design intent as being paid to its reliability and cost. incorporated in the machine drawing or instruc A decade ago. numerical control was a means tions and the functioning of the machine tool. of automatically controlling machine movements Human beings used mental and physical abilities with the help of coded numerical instructions. to control the> machine tool. These instructions were contained in a punched However. computers are increasingly becom ape. The coded tape was the heart of NC. with ing the translators and transmitters of informa the responsibility for controlling the sequence of tion. and numerical control is perhaps the most machining operations. machine positions. spindle representative example of the kind of control that fred~ and rotational directions. as well as many plugs into a data stream with the minimum of other functions like control of the coolant pump. hu:r.an intervention. Historically. numerical con But in the last ten years. NC has change 51 53 :\II functions for controlling the operations case of the hardware of a conventional NC of :\C machine tools are synthesized by the logic system. This facilitates the inclusion of additional designer by ernl\"ing a combination of logic features by increasing the software in standard modules consisting of gates. flip-flops. counters. building-blocks. Though it may inrnl\"e a mar ~hift resistors etc.. along with the necessary ginal modification. it is less costly to make a CNC peripheral de\"ices. system compatible with the unique problems and Different approaches. using the same type of prz.ctices of any shop. Newly developed options logical elements as the basic hardware. may be can also be added after installation to upgr..de the employed to obtain the same end-results. This equipment. This facility eliminates the danger of gives rise to a non-standard system design re premature obsolescence. although rapid progress quiring for each system a large variety of spares in electronics indicates that machine-tool controls and a large inventory. It was therefore realized becom.: obsolete in three to five years. Part that efforts had to be made for standardizing the programs are stored in the computer memory and system design of the hardware. The evolution of then made nailable for machining. This feature is large-scale integrated circuit technology brought particularly helpful in repetitive production. Exe NC system designs closer to this achie\"ement. The cution of short blocks is not limited by the reader design was done around a computer capable of speed because the access time for the data stored meeting the requirements of any machine. The in the memory buffer is negligible. computers used in such NC systems are either A new part program can be acti\·ely generated minicomputers or microprocessor-based compu or an existing part program can be modified ters with a standardized hardware architecture. inside the computer memory. This simplifies Other peripheral devices are kept unchanged. but changes in geometry. feed. speed and optimization the corresponding interface circuits are modified during try-out. The time for tape-pro\"ing and to cope with the new type of hardware. The debugging is thus reduced. and production time requirements of each individual machine tool are considerably increased. met by a softwa1e program called the executive The computer and the properly designed program. which is a part of the control. It software have made increased sophistication of contains the command logic which determines CNC control possible. In conventional NC. this how the control is to perform 'ts functions such as increase in sophistication necessitates more hard operating the tape reader. translciting the program ware with a consequent rise in costs. tape and sequencing the machine tool. In other All the machine axis irregularities may be words. the controller's own logic is actually a measured and inserted in the control software so computer program instead of specialized elec that in subsequent programmed operations the tronic circuits. The hardware remains standard absolute accuracy of movement is maintained. It and fixed with the different design approaches. is thus possible to produce a part which is even But software. once successfully developed, needs more accurate than the machine itself. This no maintenance. Hence standardized system design feature facilitates programming. optimizes machin is a~hieved with a minimum of maintenance ing conditions and achieves consistent surface requirements. finish and accuracy. A computerized controller needs fewer elec To reduce the machine set-up time and tronic components and fewer circuit interconnec compensate for tool wear. the offsrt data can be tions. The tape reader, which is the most vul stored in the memory and called at any ap nerable equipment in a workshop environment, is propriate time. Use of thumb-wheel switches for removed from on-line operations during machin storing data as in hard-wired controllers is elimi ing. thus leading to improved reliability. nated. Virtually an unlimited amount of offset The number of printed circuit boards are information can be provided. reduced and the same control may be used for a In the case of tool breakage. the machining three-axis machine or a five-axis machining centre. operation can be stopped and the tool changed This reduces the inventory of spares for single or without destroying the p1ogrammed data. several CNC units, even if different machines are The prese.nt trend is to use a programmable involved. Personnel training is reduced because machine interface where a machine interface only one system has to be maintained and ladder network can be programmed in software. serviced. Rectifying a malfunctioning of the system This has helped the machine-tool builder to is much easier in the computerized system because eliminate a considerable number of relays, con of diagnostic programs. Even a less skilled person tactors and timers that are used in machine having a basic knowledge of operation can isolate electrics and magnetics. Changes in the interface a problem down to a subsystem or the card level. do not require corresponding hardware changes. Computerized control systems offer more The ladder network can be displaced on a cathode flexibility since modification of the software pro ray tube. This feature is an extremely valuable gram is simpler, quicker and cheaper than in the tool in debugging the machine interface program, enhancing the reliability of the system. Since a controls si:nnltaneously a number of NC or CNC great deal of hardware is in Cl'C systems. machines. D1'C. according to the definition cf thl' diagnostics is a \·ery important tool for correcting Electronics Industries Association. is a system the faults that appear in the course of operation in connecting a set of numerically controlled the hardware circuits of the systems. Since a machines to a common memory for part program computer used in a CNC system has the ability to or machine program storage. with a provision for perform different tasks under different programs. on-demand distribution of data to machines. The a proper program can be written to make the DNC system has provision for collection. display computer work. like a circuit tester instead of an or editing of pan programs. operator instructions NC controller_ thereby pro\·iding a diagnostic or date. related to the numerical control process. program. Though the concept of DNC is not new. it has yet to spread widely in the manufacturing sector. There are also many shortcomings that need to be Manual data input l" .1troller o\·errome in the systems. Howe\·er. the main reason for the DNC not becoming so popular is The latest trend in simplified CNC control of the initial high cost of investment. Another reason individual machines has led to the micropro is that a uni,·ersal DNC system with a wide range cessor-based manual data input (MDI) control of applications has not been created. The possi system. MDI controls go beyond digital readouts bility of using the DNC system for maximum by adding slide Jrives. while advancing micro producti\·ity has yet to be prO\·ed. electronics technology puts new skills at the DNC Ie\·el I and le\\!l II are the two schemes disposal of the machinist. Among the synonyms of DNC systems currently in use. Some firms for MDI controls are such terms as tapeless NC. offer a DNC minicomputer that stores all machine .. memory NC and operator program NC. These data post-processed for ;,t specific machine on a terms are as valid as MDI. Many MDI controls master disc file. The minicomputer sends the can be converted into conventional NC systems machine data on a real time basis to each NC by plugging in an optional tape reader. Most machine interfaced to it. In this case. no stand present-day NC systems incorporate program alone NC system for the NC machine exists. editing features that make them fully capable of There is a limitation on the number of NC accepting manually input part program'\. machines interfaced to one minicomputer as the Most of the well-known NC machine builders computer works on a r.:al-time basis. One major have brought out this type of CNC system. In the disadvantage of this system is that if there i'i a MDI system. the operator has a choice of. on the malfunction in the minicomputer. then all the NC one hand. making the program by manually machines connected to this comput.:r will be machining the first part to record the machine affected. To o\·ercome this drawback. u~e is made slide and tool movements automatically. or, on of a stand-by minicomputer that can take O\·er in the other hand. using the keyboard for input of the event of malfunctioning in the DNC mini work cycle commands from a program sheet on computer. The other remedy is to switch to the the basis of the part drawing. Since this does not DNC level II system. where each NC machine has make use of the punched tape. the tape reader its own stand-alone CNC system. These individual which is normally a source of trouble is totally CNC systems receive data from the DNC mini eliminate~. If required. the part programs located computer. Here. even if the DNC minicomputer in the system memory are transferred to a fails. the machines can be operated with the help magnetic cassette for permanent storage. One firm of their independent CNC systems. If the in provides a plug-in cartridge having random access dividual CNC systems are provided with tloppy memory with a nickel cadmium cell. An editing disc data storage. then a considerable amount of facility is also provided to mak-: any part changes data can be transferred from the DNC mini in the program. MDI systems are lowc-r in price computer to these systems. and smaller in size than the conventional CNC DNC offers several operational advanta~.:-'i. system. The only limitation of the MDI at present The tape reader. wh,..:'1 is usually the most down :s that the controls are made for machines with up time-prone component of a machine control unit, to only three axes. These controls are ideal for is bypassed. Secondly. a program in a computer adoption on machine tools built in developing storage is much easier of access for use in countries. operation. for revision or editing. or for quick and easy interaction between the programmer and the machine tool. The same computer t11at direct" the Direct numerical control operation of a machine tool can a'.so be used for auxiliary purposes such as down-time recording. Dir~ct numerical control is an extension of performance tabulation. real-time machine status the CNC concept. In DNC. a central computer and other operational items of interest to man- ------agement. :\n ad\·ance design D'.'C unit can also be the system-executi\·e software in program rea.t u•ili1ed to sense operating conditions and make only memories. Formerly. this software was on modificati At present there is no general consensus on axis machining centres are replacing three-axis \\ h.J.t the responsibilities of the systems integrator milling machines. Autom:uic tool changers with should be. or whether it is e\'en a necessary large tool magazines and chains to store up to 70 function. Its \'alue will ha\·e to be determined. tools or more are a standard feature of the howe\·er. before complex systems can be de\·el modern machining centre. The contouring table is oped and implemented. now used as the fourteenth axis of a machining Producing NC tapes through voice command centre instead of an indexing table. Pallets are is already a reality. A speed processor that used to reduce workpiece set-up time. con\'erls a prograll'mer·s analog \·oice signal into Turret lathes are now the most common !°'iC the i..;igital language of the computer permits part machines. The present trend is to h.J.ve a single programs to be generated by \'OCalizing the data. combination turret which can hold tools for both A system introduced in 1979 incorporates internal and external diameter turning. However. large custom-integrated circuits and the latest much care is required in planning the tool layout techniques in electror.ics such as high-speed micro and to ensure that there is no interference between processors and bubble memories. It is capable of the tools and the chuck while machining the operating a robot. thu~ eliminating the need for a internal and external diameters. Production cen separate 1'C system for the robot. and it uses only tres are available on which all basic m:ichining about half the parts of the system it replaces. operations like turning. boring. drilling and Another system which will reduce the number of milling can be done in one set-up. A spindle can parts still further through the use of \'ery large also be indexed and moved up and do\l·n to do scale integrated circuits is being de\'eloped. many milling jobs. Soon microprocessors will start replacing Control systems are now being built as an wheels. gears and mechanical relays in a variety of integral part of the machine tool itself. Builders of control applications. because it is more efficient to CNC systems now offer control systems in the move electrons around than mechanical parts. form of different modules. so that a machine-tool builder can buy only the modules required and Machine design accommodate them in their machine structure. By this modular concept. it is possible to eli More sophistication is now built into machine minate bulky stand-alone enclosures. to amplify tools to machine a part in a single set-up. Simple machine electrics and to arnid having long inter two-axis lathes ha\·e given way to four-axis lathes face cables. This concept has cut down the cost of and turning centres. Similarly. four-axis and foe- NC machines. IX. Non-traditional machining methods Th.: ir.creasing use of dillicult-tn-machine The application of non-traditional machining processes also influenced by the shape and size materials. such as hastelloy. 1'itralloy. \·espalloy. i~ nimonics. carbides. stainless steels and heat of the workpiece to be produced. including holes. resisting steels in the aerospace. nuclear and through holes and ca\"ities. pocketing. surfacing. communications engineering industries and for through cutting etc. the manufacture of military hardware has spurred The other parameters of comparison between the dnelopment <)f non-traditional machining con\"entional and non-traditional machining. on methods. Con\·entinnal machining procbses ha\"e the one hand. and among the non-traditional become inadequate to machine these materials machining methods. •ln the other. are. with regard acC The jet-cutter system has been successfully Plasma arc used in Europe and the United States. particularly in the aircraft industry. for the following materials: Plasma-arc machining is a material-removal leather. plastics. rubber. paper cardboard. cor process in which the material is removed by rugatec! cardboard. plywood. mineral and wood directing a high-velocity jet of high-temperature fibreboards, textiles. insulating materials. metal ( 11.000 -J0.000" Cl ionized gas on the workpiece. foils. glass and carbon fibre. reinforced plastics. The relatively narrow plasma jet melts the work ceramics and asbestos. piece material in its path. Because of the high The high pressure jet-cutter process provides a temperatures involve.;!. the proc-.:ss can be used on number of significant advantages o\·er traditional almost all malt·rials. including those which are methods. The water is completely dustless as the resistant to oxy-t .iel gas-cutting. water jet binds the ;naterial being cut. Material The obtainable cutting rates in PAM are loss is minimized. the width of cut being less than 250-1. 700 mm/min. depending upon the thickness I mm and in some instances as small as 0. I mm. and material of the workpiece. For example, a as in the case of corrugated cardboard. 25-mm-thick aluminium plate can be cut at a In some production processes. high-pressure speed of 75\J mm/min. while a 6-mm carbon-steel water-cuttine has advantages over the laser-beam sheet can be cut at 4.000 mm/min. The use of method because no heat is developed during the water injection can increase the cutting rate in cutting operation. This eliminates the danger of carbon steel to 6.000 mm/min for a 5-mm-thick fire or explosion and the proi.,[em of heat-induced plate. damage to materials. PAM is chiefly used to cut stainless steels and aluminium alloys. It is preferred to oxy In addition. high-pressure water jet systems fuel cutting because it produces comparatively enable the cutting process to be guided at close ~moother cuts and is free from contamination. tolerances in all three planes, with no formation of edges on the material and no development of side pressure when cutting curves. Ion beam The jet-cutter comprises a pump unit and a cutting unit. The pump unit develops a high Ion-beam machining or etching is generally pressure water jet that is carried through a tube to classified among the thermo-electric proc::sses the cutting station via an accumulator. The along with electrobeam. laser-beam. plasma-arc pressure may be varied from 1,000 to 4,000 bar. and electrical-discharge machining. Unlike most which enables the 'Jperator to select the optimum of these techniques. however, IBM does not rate for cutting a particular material. The cutting depend on the heating of materials to the point of involves a table C• patible with the production evaporation. Instead. it remove~ material by process, to suit the width and type of material, sputtering of ions. This sputter etching mechanism and a nozzle fitted with a diamond orifice jet of is basically simple. A stream of ions bombards the extremely small aperture. The water medium does suface of the target material. Each bombarding not require any purification and can be Down to the third quarter of the twentieth rather than use the often wasteful cutting methods. centnry. metal-cutting has dominated over metal but the high capital cost of com·entional forming forming in the metalworking industries. The share machines. dies and tooling has precluded their of production of metal-forming machines as a use for all but mass production purposes. The percentage of world machine-tool production was possibility of cheaper equipment has thus barely IO per cent"during the 1940s and 1950s. stimulated interest in high-speed method~. Howe\·er. the present concern to conserve The main customers for the heavy-duty high materials. the rising cost of energy and the need to speed presses are the automobile industry and explClre n.:w routes of production ha\·e given agricultural machinery manufacturers. including metal-forming considerable significance. Metal lawn and garden equipment manufacturers. In forming machines such as mechanical and hydrat•lic highly sophisticated sectors. the aerospace industry presses (single-column open-back inclinable types. will soon manufacture many of its sheet metal heavy-duty. straight and double-column types and components with the help of computers. Super forged types). press brakes. shears and guillotine plastic forming and diffusion bonding are some of machines represented more than 25 per cent of total the metal-formir:g manufacturing processes in the world machine-tool production during 1979. There aerospace industry. Titanium at a temperature of are signs that this share will rise to 30-33 per cent by 9000 to 950° C makes a workpiece so pliable that the end of the century. it can be formed into complex shapes at low The plastic deformation of metals takes place pressures. usually IO bar. At 140 bar bonding is in two ways: by bulk deformation and by in possible. Although the hot isostatic press is still at cremental deformation. Until 1960 metal-forming the laboratory research stage. it has a greater machines. mainly conventional forges and presses. potentiality and could be designed for the pro were built to accommodate workpieces formed by duction of several tonnes of aerospace components the bulk deformation process. However. incre per day. It has been recognized that the process of mental deformation processes are currently finding forming by means of a hot isostatic press is a fast wider application. These are to a certain ext'!ilt growing technology with an increasing potential non-traditional forming methods. Tht>v include in both the aerospace and non-aerospace fields. hdical :-oiling. ring rolling. spinning and tlow Normally. a press brake is designed with an forming. These non-traditional methods and other allowance for deflection under lo:\d. Engineers high-speed forming techniques such as fine blank frequently confronted hy press-brake application ing and NC punching powder metallurgy are in which bends are required at loads less than or partly responsible for a discernible shift from greater than normal have come up with a design cutting to forming. that permits precise bends to be made under either of these conditions. It eliminates the need for dies shimming, a lengthy and troublesomr procedure. Forming methods Develorment engineers in the United States have designed and built a stamped-steel auto lli~h-speed jorminK motive exhaust manifold that weighs 60 per cent less than its cast-iron counterpart. Weight A great d.:al of interest is now being shown in reduction, hence energy-saving, was the main various methods of forming mrtal at very high objective. but faster engine warm-up and noise speeds. Considerable development efforts on a reduction are addnional benefits. Many auto wide variety of processes have resulted in some mobile manufacturers are closely following devel high-speed forming techniques which have become opments in stamped engine components. important in industry by replacing conventional Internal combustion engines will never be methods. stamped out like wheel covers. but in eight to ten The development of new high-strength alloys years from now most of their components could combined with the need to produce parts of more be products of press-working ~hops. Moreover. complicated form has increased the problems the exhaust manifolds and piping ahead of the associated with forming on conventional presses. catalytic converter could consist of stampings Many manufacturers would prefer to form parts even sooner. rhe auwmobile industry uses a great many its axis. to enlarge the cross-section area over a pres~es which are continuously being impnn·ed in part or the whole of its length. In heading. the design. Their greater capacit\ ( 1.500-5.000 tonnes). enlargement is confined to one end of the billet suitable also for deep-draw metal-forming oper and is basic to the production of fasteners. A ations. gi\·e !:realer production and higher quality punch mo\"ing along with the die axis upsets that of pressed romponenb such as bodies. doors. part of the billet which protrudes from the die panels and bumper stamping for cars and trucks into a form determined by the geometry of the built with ad·•anced designs of safety accessories. mouth and the punch head. In general. lengths up Ho\\e\"er. more sophisticated application of form to about 2.5 billet The cold-forging of steel has attracted atten Ironing tion as a method of impro\"ing the utilization of material in the manufacture of engineering com In ironing. the product. solid or tubular. is ponents. Although the process is still not regarrt d pu-;hed through a die and its external diameter is as a mean5 of producing components difficult to reduced. Because the product is not wholly make by other methods. cold-forging is now constrained by the tooling. the reduction in receiving much more attenti0n as a result of the diameter which can be ach:eved is limited by the rising cost of material and the luw reco\"ery i;rice of onset of buckling in the solid product. tearing of swarf. In cold-forging. usually the starting billet is the base in the tubular product and by the progressively changed in shape until the final form upsetting of the product material immediately is achieved. This inrnlves different deformation ahead of the die. The process has been extensively processes combined in an arbitrary sequence. The used to produce stepped shafts used in electric hasic sub-processes in\"olved are extrusion. up motors and tubular components of large length set1ing or heading. drawing. ironing. swaging. diameter ratios. expanding. threading and form-rolling. Some of these are briefl_; descr:bed be!ow. Pre~~ equipment and tooling 1:·x truJ ion Each operation involving a change of shape oi billet material requires appropriate tooling. Extrusion is a particularly versatile manu which may be set up on a single press in batches facturing process in which the cross-sectional area or in separate presses with the ..:omponcnts pro (lf th~ bill.:t is reduced during deformation. duced on an in-line basis. If demand exists. a Symmetrical products which are variants of the series of presses may br linked for automatic basic ~hapes like rods. tubes and cans are readily feeding and transfer along the line. Alternatively. made. Material may be deformed at one end or all the forging operations may be undertak-:n in both ends of a billet, simultaneously or sequentially. a single tool c:: :-•aining the necessary stations Depending on the cond::ions. material may flow preferentially in one direction, and this flow may mounted in a sing1 press of sufficient Cdpacity to have tn be stopped after that part of the desired perfc ·m all operations in a single working stroke. sh;' pc has been achieved, so that material may In this case;, a transfer feed is provided to ..:onvey the partly formed billet from st?tion to station. fin'.I. •n the less-p eferred direction to complete Where small components or fastene1 type pro other par•s of 1he desired shape. Flow is rarely ducts are required in very large numbers, these re~trictcd in all directions because billet vnlume can be formed in multi-station, progre~sive cold (weight) may vary and excess volume may re~ult in unaccep1ably high tooling stresses or even tool heading machines which perform the above func failure. ;ions at a very high speed. The working parts of cold-forging tools comprise a punch or punch-mandrel, a container Upwtting and hl'ading consisting of a shaped insert and one or more pre stres.,ing rines and an ejector. Much more is now !n upsetting. a hille1 is subjected to com known of the stress distribution in Items of prc\Si\C deformation, generally in the direction of tooling following extensive experimental research and analytical studies. This has considerably Burrs produced b~- fine-blanking are small aided tool design and provided a better basis for and easily removed by such methods as belt assessment of tool life. sanding. disk-grinding or tumbling. Sanding is At present the manufacture of tooling items generally used for large. heavy and tlat parts. by the conventional machining of bar material especially those that are long and narrow. Such produced by powder metallurgy shows greater parts must not have any bends or projections on promise than the manufacture of individual tooling the burr side. Small fine-blanked parts. either flat items by the direct compaction and sintering of or three-dimensional. are usuallv deburred in powders. although the latter route is also being tumbling equipment pursued. Semi-piercing. in which stock is not punched through. is one of the fine-blanking practices. Fine-blanking presses Coining is a variation of semi-piercing that is also prevalent in fine-blanking work. A part made by the blanking process is essentially a finished part. A triple-action sturdily Tolerance!> built press exerts forces on equally sturdy specially designed tooling and. with precision unattainable The dimensional accuracy of a fine-blanked on conventional presses. shears a part with part depends on the quality of tooling and the smooth-edge contours from stock as thick as thickness. strength and quality of the stock. as 20 mm. The part may be pierced, counter sunk. well as on the size and configuration of the part. bent or coined. It may become flatter. Offsets may In general, tolerances could be very close to be formed in it without loss of dimensional .!:: 0.0008 mm for external dimensions and internal accuracy. Most import.mt. many if not all holes and flatness. and ± 0.0004 mm per 25 mm secondary operations that may have been required for coined parts. Closer tolerances are possible to produce it by previous conventional methods under special conditions. The figures given are for are bypassed. The real advantage of fine blanking steel. while tolerances are somewhat larger for is the time and money it saves. aluminium or brass. Tolerances in conventional The Swiss discoverec' these compelling ad press-working hy contrast are three to four times vantages in the early 1940s, when they succeeded larger. in stamping sheet metal into office machine parts The operation of fine-blanking presses involves with tooling that firmly held the stock around the three movements, the stroke. length and force of punch perimeter and had a very small punch-to which can be s.!parately controlled or preset. The die clearance, much less than in tools for con presses are built to withstand the substantial ventional stampings. Edges were sheared smooth forces-many of ihem diagonal-inherent in the throughout full stock thickness. and removal of process and to support their tooling in precise small burrs on part edges was a very minor alignment. operation. The larger presses are completely hydraulic. fhe fine-blanking process has gained rapid but the main blanking action in a line of presses acceptance in Europe, and not only in the office in the smaller tonnage range from 25 to 350 tonnes equipment field. Its cost- and energy-saving is powered primarily by mechanical means. capabilities were strong incentives in Europe. as Fine-blanking tools are usually of the single they are now for most of the world. stage compound type, although progressive tooling Fine-blanking works because punch-to-die is required for certain jobs. Providing guidance clearance 1s very small compared with that normally and positioning of the main and inner form used in conventional press-working, and the punches, the tooling is more rigid than compound forces exerted by sturd' triple-action presses tools for conventional press-working because the produce a blanking action that amounts to cold forces brought to bear on the workpiece are extrusion. Tooling is normttlly designed so that higher. the punch-to-die clearance is about I per cent Overall clearance between the punch and the stock thickness or about 0.5 per cent on each side die in fine blanking is another point of difference of the part. For some of the heavier fine-blanking between fine-blanking and conventional press operations, involving, for example, parts that are working. In the latter, it can be as large as I 0 per I0-:2 mm thick, the clearance can be as small as cent of the material thicknes:o., compared to I per 0.0004 mm. An interference fit (negative clearance) cent in fine-blanking. And since a die opening and is never used. punch sides in fine-blanking tools are not tapered, By means of fine blanking, press huilders and but are straight and remain so for their full life. tool makers have produced parts with precise part uniformity can be maintained. In fine contours and flatness. The process will not usually blanking, the press is an accessory to the tooling, flauen distorted stock, except in areas that are which is the key element in the process of coined or if the counterpunch is shaped properly. producing a clean cut through the entire thickness of stock. with no distortion except for a slight shapes and flats use NC for X-axis motion and turnon:r at the tool entry edge and a small. easily punch actuation. and some use it for tool-shifting remu\·ed burr at the exit edge. as well. None of the beam lines uses it for tool changing. howner. For such machinery. NC can go\'ern handling systems beyond the punching lnnO\·ations in punching by numerical control stations. increasing efficiency because the work pieces are often long and hea\'y. rlat metal was first punched using NC in 1955. The third category of NC punch press designed This innO\·ation had far-reaching consequences. for punching. and frequently for drilling. long leading to major changes in machinery for pro lengths of thick plates uses NC to go\'ern not only ducing holes and contoured cuts in sheet metal the X-axis motion but also the Y-axis positioning plates and structural steel members. It also of the tooling. affected the op.:ration of companies that bought On most sheet metal and plate machines. su•. , equipment. boosting their manufacturing howe\·er. NC not only governs the X- and Y-axis efficiency. positioning of the workpiece and actuation of Everyone. including manufacturers of con the punch. but also selects the correct tooling at trols. tooling and auxiliaries. benefited from the the right moment in the punching programme adoption of NC by the metal-punching industry. on presses with automatic tool changers. These just as builders and users of metal-cutting machines represent a new generation of metal machinery have reaped the fruits of NC since its working machines. introduction in developed countries. The wide All punching machines. including the NC spread acceptance of this type of punch press models. arc composed of the following basic control stimulated new press designs and improve elements: a punching mechanism, a workpiece ment on earlier designs. In recent years. it has led positioner and a structure on which they are to hybrid machines that not only punch but also mounted and operate. Beyond this fundamental cut by plasma arc or laser beam and even perform definition. however. almost all makes and models such functions as milling. differ from one to another. Computerized numerical control ( Rotary forging involves two opposed rotating. The roller-spin-ri\·eting head consists of two circular. contoured dies aligr.ed on a single axis. split rollers mounted on an axis held in ? holder. One of the dies is prnented from making an axial When the holder is rotated under vertical pressure. mO\·ement and is llffset at a fixed angle in relation the head is formed gradually. Even though this to the other die which can move easily. A circular process produces more uniform heads compared billet compressed between the two dies can be to impact riveting. the surface finish produced is indented over a limited area by means of an axial not of high quality because of the difference in the force. Subsequent rotation of the two dies in contact velocities at different radii of the rollers. conjunction with continued compression causes The tooling in this process is expensive and the plastic deformation produced by the pro tool wear rapid. The size requirements may pose gressive indentation through the billet. Once the problems in places of restricted accessibility. workpiece achieves the required shape. compres sion ceases and the· axially moving die is retracted. The resulting component reflects the shape of the Orbiral and radial rii·ering dies. and the deformation mode produces a multidirectional grain-flow-o;truccure which is not Orbital and radial methods of riveting are produced by conventional processes. similar and invoke a characteristic wobble motion of the tool. In orbital heading the tool is held in a A recent \·ariation of this technique. with a freeiy rotating spindle. the axis of which is vertical axis. is known as rocking-die forging. It positioned at an angle. usually 3° to 6° to the axis consists in its basic form of a wide-angled conical of the housing. so that the spindle axis int.:rsects upper platen. located with its apex in\·erted in the the axis of the housing at the face of the tool. The die holder. The die holder has its longitudinal axi~ rotation of the housing provides a circular orbital offset co the vertical axis by a small angle. In turn. motion to the top of the tool. With this movement the die holder is seated in a bearing and is usually and the tool in contact with the rivet head. the i.:onstrained only to rock about the vertical axis. face of the tool gets a wobbling motion without By using this process in practice. a wide any relative rotat.on. As the tool comes in contact variety of component shapes have been forged. with the workpiece. it make~ a line contact the complexity of shapes being determined by the starting from the periphery and moving towards configurations of both the dies. The components the centre. During this process. a wave of material that can be manufactured by this process are mass moves ahead of the line of contact. the mostly disc-type. such as clutch discs. pulley amount of material mass depending on the sheaves. gear-wheel blanks and inertia wheels. pressure applied. Because of very low friction. the The job thickness in this process can be as low as heat produced in this process is negligible anJ the 6 mm to as high as 200 mm. and diameters may resulting surface is free from tearing marks. As range from 25 mm co more than 1,000 mm. only a minute quantity of material is displaced The increasing emphasis on Mise limitation in each revolution. the axial pressure required is in the manufacturing field has led to the devel only about 10 per cent of that required in impact opment of various types of noiseless riveting forming of the head. processes for assembly operation~. Impact riveting The radial riveting method is similar to that has the inherent disad.,.antages of shock and of orbital riveting except that in this process, the vibrations leading to unpleasant noise le\'els rivet head is formed by the movement of the tool depending on the size. hardness and the ratio of point along a series of cylindrical loops that the spread to the diameter of the rivet. In impact overlap tangentially at the centre to produce a riveting, the rivet head is deformed beyond its rosette pattern. In the radial riveting head. the elastic limit. destroying its molecular structure. tool is not free to rotate as in the case of the The spring-back action after impact often leado; to orbital riveting head, but it makes a point contact loose assemblies. compared with the line contact in the orbital Rotary cold-forming methods of riveting. method. Consequently. the pressure needed to because of the continuous and gradual spreading form the rivet head is 10 to 20 per cent less than of the material. are practically noise-free and are that in the orbital method. Hence this process is credited with a number of advantages. Rotary specially useful for small and delicate parts. cold-forming methods may be classified as roller spin riveting. orbital riveting and radial riveting. Of thesr. orbital and radial riveting methods are Mera/ Jpinnin!-? similar to cold-form rotary forging. ex1.:ept that the o;hapes and the forces involved are compara In conventional spinning. which is basically a tively small. manual operation. a ring of the circular blank of l\Y thin-gauge material is formed to the desired preferred because it not only makes a more s!lape of the finished utensil. While there is a prudent use of material. but also has in-built change in the diameter of the blank and finished possibilities of better control o\·er material vessel. there is practically no change of thickness properties. between the formed side walls and the base. The future of forming is bright because it During the process. the flow of material follows allows reductions in machining sequences which the laws of equal surface area and equal material are otherwise ine,·itable in metal-cutting. The newly volume. Howe\·er. the process is s:ow in comparison developed high-precision die-casting and -forging with deep drawings. and for consistent operations te 'miques, precision-blanking and ~heet-metal requires highly skilled operators. This process is working methods and advances made in powder highly suited for ductile materials such as soft metallurgy, fine-blanking. NC and CNC punching. aluminium and its alloys. investment castings and cold extrusion. and explosive. electrohydraulic. electromagnetic. com pressed-gas, water-hammer and fuel-combustion Future of forming forming are offering production managers more economical routes of production. Even though Metal-forming is bound to attract greater tooling costs of metal-formmg machines are high attention in the future because of the growing at present, future research efforts may bring them concern to conserve material and restrict energy down, particularly through the use of NC and input to optimum levels. Forming i~ increasingly CNC in the manufacture of dies and tooling. XI. Technological trends in production engineering The following three major factors ha\·e com optimize the manufacturing operations. Electronic bined in the last decade to advance manufacturing control of manufacturing operations is advancing to its present stage: the increasing cost and as rapidly as de\·elopment of software will permit. shortage of skilled labour: the higher productivity Emphasis is currently on linked machines. and automation (including NC) of new machines integrated systems and computer-aided manu offered by machine-tool builders: and the a\'ail facture. The stand-alone NC machine and groups ability of reliable low-cost computers. of NC machines are now widely used for batch Average lot size has decreased in recent manufacturing. Future CAM systems will probably years. even in traditional mass production indus be formed by linking first one and then several tries such as the automobile industry. Today. the CNC machines with automatic work handling or emphasis is on high volume rather than mass robotics with overall control by means of production. The latter implies millions of identical hierarchical computer systems. The next logical parts while the former means production at the progression will be linked multiple systems of this same high rates but with the ability to adapt to type with automated assembly, which could .. customer preferences. To meet higher performance possihly be the forerunner of an unmanned standards and safety and ecological regulations. factory. manufacturing tolerances are becoming finer. All Direct numerical control of NC machines these factors have enhanced the importance of from a central computer has played a less optimization technology in manufacturing. prominent role while recent attention h.is been focused on a systems approach to batch manu facturing. namely flexible manufacturing systems Computers in manufacturing and unmanned manufacturing systems. All the integrated CAM systems are aimed at batch Computer monitoring or control of plant manufacturing, have a high level of materials operation is the most significant trend in the handling and have integrated :ontrol systems. metalworking industry. Computers are used to Hence they can be considered an extension of solve scientific and engineering problems related DNC systems with the inclusion of management to product design and production engineering, information systems, work tra1i:.port and possibly ensure the flow of parts and assemblies, control tooling transport systems. inventories and monitor production operations. In Japan, the United States and several Scheduling is computer-controlled, the objective European countries with centrally planned eco being to keep machines and production lines as nomies or developed market economies. commer fully loaded as possible in order to receive cial DNC installations and integrated work trans maximum return on company investment and port systems have been introduced. facilities. Prohably the biggest advantage of computers in metalworking plants is their ability to keep Integrated manufacturing track of what happens on a real-time basis. Alerted by computers, management is able to An integrated manufacturing system is one make decisions when they are needed and when that combines a number of hitherto separate trouble occurs. The managers are able to study manufacturing processe~ so that they can be metalworking operations in their plants in greater controlled by a single source. The chief benefits detail to find where process improvements-better are as follows: reduction in lost time caused by flows of parts and materials between machines inter-stage movement of the components being and tools, better allocation of manpower and made; improved machine tool utilization, reduc hrainpower-will pay off. tion in manpower; reduction of work in progress; Compu1er-aided design and manufacture are and greater flexibility of component batching and making it possible to transfer all the routine loading. functions in manufacturing operations to the elec At present, the majority of systems developed tronic computer. vesting in it a limited supervisory have concentrated on the machining proces~cs control and using its data-processing capabilities to involved and. in particular. the manufacture .,, fr.-11110/o_f(u-al trentb 111 production en.tinurin.t ii of prismatic parts. A truly complete integrated (creativity), and the primary output dimensions of manufacturing system would require the same which are finished components (finish-assembled. degree of co-ordination and control to be applied tested and ready for use)_ It represents a combina to other major operational areas. that is. production tion of software and hardware involving pro of rotational parts. fabrication and assembly. duction methodology, planning and control. and However. the main concern has been with the the choice of production aids inciuding machine application of this type of manufacture to small tools. It can be realized by systems engineering batch production. which represents a significant methods and offers a pos~ibility of total auto proportion of manufacturing output in almost all mation through flexible and adaptive means. The countries. h has been estimated that the difference most important aid to achieve this goal is the in cost between mass production and small batch computer. This is the basic concept guiding the production of the same components can be as development and application of computers for much as 30 to 1. and an appropriate expression of integrated production. the cost target for integrating manufacturine In other words, CAM is a conglomerate systems could be the mass production of one-offs. concept where the ability of the computer is used Integrated manufacturing systems of some at every stage of manufacture by evolving a form for machining components have been in cellular structure. Though this type of manu commercial use for about two decades in devel facturing may appe Compucer-aided manufacure Technoloaical evolution A CAM sy em is a closed-loop regulating As a result of the long-range economic and system. the primary inrut dimensions of which social factors influencing industry, a number of are demand (requirements) and product idea developed countries have drawn up plans under ., Tu·hnologfr·at perspecti.-es in the machine-tool industr.•· and th~tr implications for tkveloping coUJ1tries which priority is given to the development and the vari->us functions in the same machine tool to application of CAM systems and computer form a flexible manufacturing cell that is a optimized and automated machine tool systems. module of a flexible manufacturing system. Governments. universities and industrial establish Each flexible manufacturing cell is an auto ments arc working as a ream towards this nomous module, the functions of which arc objective. Even though the realization of fully supervised and controlled by a microprocessor computer-integrated production systems is the based computer. The various functions of the long-term plan. there is a clear awareness that the individual cells arc as follows: supply of blanks, change from present industrial methods. know tools, gauges and devices; use of damping devices how and machines is an evolutionary process. The for identification, selection, transport, orientation, applied strategy, therefore, consists in developing loading, positioning, clamping, declamping, inter and applying individual, practical and economic lock supcnision and other step-by-step operations; measures in the form of short-term research, automatic cllccution of operations such as measure development and application programmes having ment of the workpiece, adjustment of clamping the following main tharacteristics: devices, ml'tcrial handling and positioning~ and (a) The measures taken should result in automatic monitoring by sensors of interlocks, adequate gains to justify their adoption and to lubrication failure, tool breakage and other mal produce profits on the invested capital to finance functio:is. the next stage of research and development; Each cell basically caters to a particular machining process like turning and milling. The (b) Each step should be a link in the chain different cells arc connected by transport devices to achieve the final goal of fully computer into a flexible manufacturing system, and the co automatcd, optimized and integrated production. ordination of the simultaneous activity of all the cells is accomplished by the process computer Among the various programmes undertaken hierarchy so that from raw material to cnd in developed countries, the following arc note worthy: product the complete production process is automated. (a) Creation of software modules by devel An alternative concept of a flexible machining oping individual modules which can be coupled system envisages a manufacturing cell which with one another quickly at a later date to performs various machining processes like turning, produce a complete software programme suitable milling and boring as a part of one individual cell for various production applications; In this case, the material-handling functions arc (b) Development and application of pro reduced. An existing stand-by robot or integrated duction calls for hierarchical computer systems robot handles the workpiece and the mcasuremeilt and flexible production systems; device. Maximum utilization of the cutting capability (c) Comprehensive computer-controlled oper of the machine tool is ensured by an adoptive ations of machine tools and computer monitoring control. Suitable sensors to monitor process para of production processes by means of NC, meters arc incorporated in the manufacturing computer-integrated controls, DNC and hierarchi system. The CNC system integrates the whole cal computer systems; control strategy for utilization of installed capacity. (d) Studies of computer-controlled industrial reduction of idle time and monitoring the thermal robots for automatic manipulation of workpieces effects of component accuracy. and tools, and of the operation of machine tools Several manufacturing cells linked by a and production aids of various types; transport system, additional handling devices and (e) Development and application of com an automated storage and rctricvul s;-stem for the puter-controlled flexible production systems workpiece, tools etc. can lead to the concept of an evolved on the concept of automatic production automated factory. The most advanced stage of cells. optimization would involve a hierarchical organi zation in which all cells at a higher level are controlled by ;- ;cntralizcd DNC-type computer Flexible machining systems and all produc1 on groups arc linked to a mini computer, providing a basis for complete on-line Flexible manufacturing systems have three optimization of material flow, scheduling, routing distinguishing characteristics: potentially indepen and full automation of production. dent NC machine tools; a transport mechanism; C omputcr-intcgratcd flexible manufacturing and an overall method of control that co systems are thus gaining increasing acceptance ordinates the function of both machine tools and and importance in barch production. Of the the conveyor system so as to achieve flexibility. approximately 50 flexible manufacturing systems The main purpo~e of such systems is to integrate developed up to 1979. about 40 have been put Tedtnolo_r:ical ITenth 1n proJt.rction en_r:inurinK 73 into operation, nearly 70 per cent of them technology system virtually function as small intended for prismatic components. factories within the main factory. This assures Flexible manufacturing systems based on reduction in throughput time, work in progress, group technology or cell production principles inventory, setting time, work handling, jigs and using NC machines and gauging equipment arc fixtures etc. This concept improves design now being installed with robot handling devices rationalization, job satisfaction and production and palletized conveyor supply units to machine control. NC shops arc at present major areas families of parts. where group technology is employed. But with a Development is also proceeding with the shift from hard-wired NC to software-based con automation of metal-forming machine!' using mini trols like CNC, much of the essence of group computers and microprocessors. Programmable technology will trickle down to the software. turret punches, auto-controlled guillotines and shears, and manipulative equipment arc in use. Robot developments applied to metal-forming Computer control and inspection of machine tools operations will enable a considerable degree of automation in this class of piece-part manufacture. The evolution currently taking place in the It is now possible to construct metal-forming direction of computer contr.>l and inspection of production cells "ith the aid of robots that will machine tools represents the most progressive blank. pierce and bend a family of components field of development of modern machine tools. It using a common stock material. is aimed at exploiting the enormous potential of The manufacture of piece-parts, whether NC through computer-based control, DNC and forged, welded, sintered or similarly processed, is the hierarchical computer system. This potential is being automated with the use of robots. The steadily increasing in scope as a result of the automation of assembly operations remains prob advances continuously being made in the field of lematical, except for flow-line manufacture. But computer technology. robotic and computer developments will have a More and more minicomputers arc being considerable impact on these operations in the used at the work-place. Because of the linkage immediate future. between the work stations, the trend is towards a decentralized computer, which allows a partial separation between data processing and the con Group technology trol funcLion. This is especially true of computer One of the n· ~thods of solving the problem of control of machine tools. The computer has t~us conflict between productivity and flexibility in the become the most modern device for error diagnosis computer-integrated flexible manufacturing system and correction on modern machine tools. is group technology, which is a progressive The future trend will be towards the devel management concept employed in an engineering opment of methods which facilitate automatic industry within the framework of an irtegrated correction of malfunctions. The computer. as manufacturing system. The application of group soon as it detects conditions that may lead to an technology in a purposeful manner can result in error, will alter machine parameters in such a economic benefits of mass production even in manner that the error will not actually take place. large and medium batch production. In addition In case of malfunctioning, the computer will send to streamlining production through the rational a command for the replacement of the defective ization of components, it also helps to establish electrical or mechanical module. Thus it is now better co-ordination between the production wing possible to operMe machine tools without operat and other functions like design, methods and sales ing personnel. engineering. The fact that more than 80 per cent of the engineering industries of the world are Metrology and inspection engaged in medium and small batch production should give the concept of group technology a Metrology is going through a revolution new significance. brought about by the integration nr' electronics Traditionally laid-out production lines based with the science of measurement. Developments on functions such as turning, drilling and boring, in inspection and gauging equipment are aimed at lead to many production delays because of inherent matching the high production rates of modern limitations in production control. A group tech machine tools and meeting the requirements of nology-based production system organizes the finer measuring re~olution and higher accuracy. A production facilities in self-contained and self large degree of automation is also being built into regulating groups. each of which undertakes these systems for compatibility with automated complete manufacture of a family of components manufacturing systems. with similar configurations and manufacturing Major trends in gauging and inspection equip characteristics. The different cells of the group ment point towards an increase in speed and Teclrnola1e1cal perspecm·e1 in 1/re maclrine-100/ 1nJu11T.•· and 1/reir implica1ion1 for .kveloping coun1Tit"1 accuracy of measurements. Systems using opto Assembly and materials handling clectronics and electrical contact to replace electro mechanical probes have been specially developed. Assembly, w!th its high labour content. is an and there is a clear trend towards remote sensing area holding potential for profitable automation. of size using lasers and similar devices. Mass production industries in developed market A complete shift to digital display of infor economies have made considerable progress in mation in most measuring equipment, including this direction. such devices as hand-held micrometers, is now So far, automated assembly has been applied evident. only to subassemblies. ~vcn in the automobile Different devices arc being integrated with industry, automated assembly has been applied measuring centres, especially in post-process inspec only to subasscmblics like the rear-differential tion equipment. Applications of minicomputers axle and brake-drum. There is, however. a con and output devices such as plotters, printers and tinuing search for methods to extend automatic cathode ray tube displays have been developed to assembly to whole products. Modern systems enable inspection equipment to achieve rapid and integrate assembly, inspection and testing into one accurate processing and presentation of mctro automatic process. Automobile engine assembly is logicai information. one area that has seen the application of such An increase of two orders of magnitude in concepts with the process being controlled and accuracy has been obtained in the resolution of monitored by computer. measurement. With the advent of the job-shop Future design of automatic assembly equip laser, it is now possible to measure distances ment will also incorporate gauging, which will down to 0.01 µm. have a special impact on the electronics industries. Progress in measuring techniques has been so Attempts are being made to use such systems in rapid that the resolution and accuracy of gauging mechanical assembly when parts become jammed have reached limits governed by thl" inherent together or deformed without the knowledge of instability of the machine and workpiece system. the operator. The stress on machine design to achieve higher Controls for assembly machines have also final part accuracies is now greater. The drive experienced considerable development. Programm towards even higher part accuracies continues. able controllers are commanding many assembly justified on the grounds of lower rejections, machines, surpassing even computers and hard requirements of automatic assembly, longer final wired controls in 'l number of applications. product life, legislation to reduce noise levels and Substantial progress has been made in recent the needs of related technology such as integrated years in the development of fasteners. New bolts, circuits. screws, auts and rivets make assemblies easier. The development of compact and reliable faster, cheaper and adaptable to automation. The electronic probes has made possible in-process newest concept is a system which sets bolts under gauging on transfer lines and other automatic a kind of adaptive control that shuts down manufacturing systems. Systems arc being devel the fastener driving tool when a preset torque oped to use this capability in the adaptive mode -rotational angle combination-is reached. to correct job or tool setting to achieve the required Industrial adhesives are taking over many size. Automatic gauging systems arc also applied on areas now served by mechanical fasteners. Tech equipment used for automated assembly. Modular niques of adhesive bonding, originally developed automatic inspection systems have already been for aerospace applications, may produce revo developed to fit automated production lines rang lutionary changes in mechanical assembly. ing from automobile to bearing manufacture. Materials-handling systems are being integrated These modules can be combined to suit gauging increasingly with operations in the plant. Com requirements on a wide variety of parts and to puters are obvious tools for application in such incorporate devices to load, transfer, index and systems. Foundries will be a major target for unload parts and segregate them into acceptable automated computer-controlled materials-handling and rejected lots. systems in the years ahead. XII. Automation and future tren~ in the machine-tool industry Robots Having effectively eliminated the need for skilled operators for most machining operations Robots have been on the industrial scene in the 1960s and 1970s. machine-tool builders in since the early 1960s. but the first models were developed countries are trying to evolve reliable large and designed mainly for tedious. difficult unmanned machining systems capable of sub and hazardous tasks. stantially boosting machine-tool throughput. Thanks to modem micro-electronics tech ensuring strict adherence to stringent quality nology. robots have computers that enable :hem control standards, minimizing in-process inven to learn a succession of tasks and versatility that tories and guaranteeing production rate~. promises to render obsolete a good deal of what is Automation, leading to unmanned factories. currently thought of as ..,,.tomation. Robots in is technologically feasible in industry. yet its effect fact represent the latest ad,·ance in automation. on people could cause insoluble social probkms. whether programmable or fkxible. As Jistinct from The widespread use of unmanned factories may the automatic mechanism. a r0~~c generally has a therefore come about only gradually. although the multiple degree of rotary and linear freedom that scope for unmanned operations under certain can be actuated individually amt simultaneously circumstances will increase in developed countries. to give a close approximation to the physical motions of a human being performing the same tasks. Future prospects Whereas the earliest robots were controlled by programmes set with limit switches, modern In the United States, the Society of Manu robots are programmed by a minicomputer to facturing Engineers has made series of forecasts on which they are temporarily attached. Robots have the future of production technology and machine been developed which can be automatically pro tool development. The forecasts summarized grammed or taught a sequence of mo-.rements by a below seem to be of particular interest. human operator who guides the robot through the seql!ence. About 1985 Robots are at present applied in a wide range of tasks. including loading and unloading machine Assembling jobs will be integrated with the tools and presses. removing parts from die-casting other production routines making use of computer machines, the handling and transfer of materials, aided manufacturing systems. At least 25 per cent of especially in foundry and forge, welding. painting the firms representing a cross-!>ection of the and simple assembly operations. metalworking industry in developed countries will Prototype robots with rudimentary sensory apply software systems for the automation and feedback are already functioning in some coun optimization of various stages of production tries. The use of television and holographic planning, for example. machining sequence, selec techniques is having a major !m 11act on the tion of suitable machine tools, clamping devices, development of robots capable of seeing and sequence of operations, tool selection and optimal recognizing three-dimensional object:;, especially cutting conditions. when the objects are presented to th1 robot in a random orientation. About 1987 The computer program is the ~.:y to turning robots into assemblers. More advanced robots About 15 per cent of total machine-tool can be told what to do by typing the instruction production will not consist of single-purpose on a computer keybord in a language that machines, but will make up component blocks of includes about 100 English words. Eventually, flexible production systems where the manipulation the evolution of robot language will make it of workpieces between individual work stations possible to give robots more complicated instruc will be done automatically and controlled by a tions. central computer. T.-d1no/.Jv;1t·a/ pu1pecti\'t'5 rn tlrt' '"aclrrn.--100/ inJustn and 1lre1r ''"plica1ion1 for deuloprng countrit'• About 1990 final assembly of automobiles will be achieved by programmable automation and robots. The ad\'anced development of sensors will help robots attain human capabilities in final assembly sequences. Computer-aided design tech About 2000 niques will be employed for the design of 50 per cent of the newly designed production aids. Based on these forecasts. it is presumed that even before the end of the century. many changes in machine tools and production technology ""';11 take place involving computers. including computer About 1995 aidcd design. fully integrated computer-aided manufacture and automatic assembly making Almost 50 per cent of the direct work in the extensive use of modern robots. Part tliree The implications for developing countries of technological developments in the machine-tool industry XIII. The technology gap and its implicati~ Technological factors before rhe final versions are obtained. In devel oping countries the repetition of !iimilar .. xper The great progress taking place in the metal iences on a large scale cannot be expected. working and capital goods ind•.Jstries in developed Although computer-aided c!esign is catching countries may be attributed to the following: the up in some of the newly industrializing countries. evolution of modern machine-tool mechanics and it is restricted to applications such as bee! a1.d design. cutting-tool materials and tool geometry. column design calculations, gear drives and the> machine-tool controls and manufacturing systems. design of main spindles. Computers are mainly By contrast. the newly industrializing countries employed for checking the designs of machine hn.: made insignificant progress in those areas. clements and unit assemblies after the prototypes and the least developed countries. with little have been built on empirical designs. Facilities for manufacturing industry. none at all. such work are far too limited and may be available only at machine-tool research institute!' Jfachi.,e-100/ merhanics and desig11 and universities teaching machine-tool technology. It is essential to update the manufacturing In the field of machine-tool mechanics and methods employed in the metalworking industries design. de\·eloping countries lag far behind. The of de11·eloping countri:;;, so as to generate st.fficient majority of the machine tools being produced in incentive, scope and demand for modern machine those countries have been licensed from trans tool designs. particularly numerically controlled national corporations. It is ur:likcly that the machines. machining centres etc .• which could be licensed designs would in all cases be the latest integrated into modern manufacturing systems in designs. because if the latest designs are the main the metalworking industry. export items of developed counmes. the liccnsors The experience of developed countries has would not easily agree to transfer the designs and been as foliows: imprO\·ement in manufacturing know-how to build them elsewhere. Even if it systems takes place in the machine-tool-using were possible to obtain the agreement of the industries through the a\·ailability of advanced !icensors to grant manufacturing rights for some and highly productive machine tools: and the of the ad\·anced designs of machine tools, it advanced designs of machine tools are made wuuld take a large amount of resources to be available to the using industry if tnere is sufficient im.ested by the licensee in licence fees, royalties, demand for them. Hence. the technological gap produ.:tion facilities and. above all. extensive in the machine-tool indu!itry could narrow if training of technical and production personnel to moderni1.ation takes place in the production enable them to master the whole process of technology employed by !he metalworking producing the sophisticated m'.lchine designs. More industry. which i~ the main customer for mzchine important is the fact that in d, ·\·eloping countries, tools. a sufficiently large volume of demand cannot be If rneir metalworking indusrries were given e"pected for highly sophisticated machines. the corr~ct incentive to gr ad\'anced cutting tools for certain applications. and such controls are not currently produced by Transnational corporations having set up their developing countries. own factories or entered into joint \'entures in The few found there are imported and suffer de\'eloping countries arc able 10 provide advanced from the lack of adcqu:uely trained programmers. types of such tools. including -;intered carbide tools. tungsten carbide, co:'-1.ted carbide and throw Manufacturing systems away carbide tip-tools for use in conjunction with the more advanced high-powered machine tools. The absence of the lc.test computer-integrated Ceramic tools. special tools needed for machir manufacturing systems in developing countries is ing centres and high-precision diamond tools, the the result of their lagging behind in areas such as use of which is highly restricted in developing computer technology. advanced designs of machine countries. are imported where necessary. tools, including CNC or DNC machining centres. Extensi\·e use of high-speed tools. particularly mmacomputers. microprocessors and highly for machining steelwork, is a common feature of advanced curing tools usually associated \II ith metalworking industr:es in developin~ countries. sophisticated types of machine tools. Although Carbide tools are primarily used for machining the large-seal-: introduction of robots into rhe cast-iron components. However, for certain manufacturing systems of developing countries ap!Jlications; carbide tools and cutters for may be physically impossible and even undesirable machi.1ing steelwork are used. For instance. in view of the existence of a large unemployed tungste:t carbide tools and cutters are commonly labour force, robots coul I I I I I I Tlr.- rulrnolo_,_.. _,ap and ilJ implica1io11S Ill continuous-path vertical or horizontal machining particular the application. of many of the tech centres. nologies has yet to be perfected even in developed Another piece of sophisticated equipment of countries. the high-speed metal-forming indust:;· is the A survey of developments taking place in this transfer line press for automatic and progressive field in developing countries shows that only the operations on transfer line. both in forging and following processes arc employed in the metal forming. In this case, a transfer feed is provided working industries in some newly industrializing to convey the part from station to station. countries: cl'!:-tron-dischargc machining, electro Although some sheet-metal-forming tram.fer line chemical machining and electron-beam machining. presses arc manufactured in the newly indus Of these, EDM and EBM welding have found trializing countries, heavy-duty and progressive greater usage than the others. In EDM, the forge presses arc still imported. wirccut process is becoming increasingly popular mainly in the production of high-precision die and press tooling, for instance, in the horological and Non-traditional machining instrument industries. EBM welding .cchnology is receiving great.:r attention, particularly in more In the area of non-traditional machining advanced industries, such as the aircraft, aero systems, dcvclopir.g countries have made very space and atomic energy industries. However, little progress. One reason is that the mctal apart from very simple EDM and ECM machines, workir>g processes have a relatively restricted field equipment continues to be imported in small of application. Moreover, the development. and in numbers by developing countries. XIV. Economic implications It is not possible for any country. whether It h2s been estimated that in India alone, developed or developing, to become completely 10 million jobs must be created every year from self-sufficient in machine tools. h is also now to the year 2000 to cope with population unnecessary and econ "lmically undesirable. The growth and the backlog of unemployment. With 10 largest machine-tool-producing developed more than 650 million people. India has a gross countries are themselves the biggest importers of national product two fifths the size of that of the machine tools. This type of interdependence, in United Kingdom, which has only 60 million which a coun:ry imports its own requirements of people. The same is true for many developing machine tools and yet specializes in producing countries of Africa and Asia. Part of the problem certain types of high-precision items, is a special is that most developing countries depend heavily feature of the global machinc-to::>I industry. Some on agriculture, with more than half their products of the CMEA countries, which at first aimed coming from this sector which employs at least at becoming completely self-sufficient, had to two thirds of the labour force. The main object of abandon the attempt and now import large the policy-makers and Govcmmcnts of developing quantities of specialized machine tools from devel countries should be to relic' c agriculture of this oped market economies. This was necessary in heavy concentration of labour by introducing order for them to improve the quality standards mechanization and to a large extent diverting of the products of their metalworking industry labour to industric£. This is on!y possible through and compete in world markets. rapid industrialization using modem and pro It is ~ Jmctimcs argued that production tech ductive technology. nology employing a comparatively large labour force could be as efficient as highly advanced Industrialization in developing countries has labour-saving technology. However, labour pro been very uneven. Some of the middle-income ductivity in developing countries is very poor countries have made considerable advances in compared with labour productivity, that is, output industry. Several ot them have nearly one quarter (added value) per worker per annum. in developed of their workers in the manufcturing sector, which countries. is as much as some dcvr;oped countries at Furthermore, productivity improvements arc present. Other countries show little change. In not entirely the result of workers working harder many of the poorest countries, less than 5 per cent and better. Productivity improvements largely of the work-force is engaged in the manufacturing ari!>e from the efficient use of material and capital sector. It ~ould be highly misleading to present resources. In modern industry this is possible developing countries as invariably poverty-stricken. mainly through better management of resources Even among the low-income countries som~ pro employing improved ::md advanced tcct>nulogy. gress has occurred, and the newly industrializing The insufficient de,.elopment of the machinc countries have achieved remarkable growth rates. tool and manufacturing industries of developing Argentina, Brazil and Mexico have an established countries is one of the main reasons for their poor industrial base which has increased rapidly in industrial and economic growth. recent decades. The economy of Brazil, for Over 90 per cent of world manufacturing example, will at current growth rates rival in size industry is in developed countries. Unless !here is that of the Federal Republic of Germany by the a massive transfer of modern technology from year 2000. Brazil is also an important trading developed to developing countries, the tar.er will partner and thus a :;timulus to growth for other remain in a state of permanent eccnomic Wl."ak countries in the South. The Republic of Korea has ness. Such a transfer would enable developing great potential for industrial and economic growth countrieo; to develop their own .~chnological made possible through the use of 1nodern pro capability to produce a surplu!. of manufactured duction technology. Several other developing goods. machinery and engineering products which countries have also become significant centres of could compete on world exporr markets. industrial production. XV. Guidelines for the development of the machine-tool industry in the developing countries A distinction must be made between newly in quality cast-iron components such as beds, dustrializing and other developing countries when columns, arms, base plates, gear boxes, hcad considering measures designed to promote the stocks and tailstocks. In view of the large work machine-tool productio11 of developing countries. force available, the hca\y castings could be hand The guidelines presented in this chapter moulded, perhaps using sand-slingcrs. The sand concern primarily those developing countries which conditioning plant, core-blowing equipment, melt have a very limited industrial base. ing cupolas, core- and mould-drying ovens etc. In the beginning, developing countries will need to be highly automated. However, the have lO depend on imported designs, which training of floor and machine moulders, core should be simple, modern, relatively labour-inten makers. metallurgists etc. is essential for producing sive and suitable for smaller batch production. It quality castings and keeping foundry product may be possible to obtain such dc-;igns and thr rejects to a minimum. necessary manufacturing know-how mort. advan Pattt.rn shops could be a captive operation of tageously from 11ewly industrializing countries. the centralized foundries. The making of pattern During the initial period of dependence on and core boxes is a skilled job requiring specially imported designs and know-how, developing coun trained workers. tries should take steps to build up a scientific infrastructure and make use of local potential. Forge shop The establishment of machine-tool design and production technology institutes should therefore The percentage of forged parts in the pro be a top priority. The institutes could be assisted duction of machine tools is much less than cast by, or set up in co-operation with, well-known iron components and requires the establishment international machine-tool dr .ign and rescarC'h of 01.ly a few central f Jrgc units. Drop hammers institutes. A group of design experts in the and furnaces arc the main items of plant and institutes could design suitable machine tools, machinery needed in forge shops. The dies and build prototypes and carry out the necessary tests. tools may have to be procured from outside or They could then offer the design licences to from the ccr: tral tool-room service units. interested entrepreneurs. Designs could also be sponsored by entrepreneurs. With increasing Rolling mills experience, machine-tool-producing units could begin to desiga ma.:hine tools on their own. Mild steels, carbon steels, alloy steels and Governmenr-financed machine-tool design and re sheet st.:cls arc the essential raw materials required sear-;h institutes, on the other hand, could switch in the production of machine tools. The proportion over to developing -norc advanced designs to meet of steels is generally less than that of castings, the growing demands of the metalworking industry. both ferrous and non-ferrous. The latter nc. ver It may >till be necessary to require manufacturers theless remain a vital raw material for the to have their :nachine tc.ols tested exhaustively manufacture of machine tools and machinery. and perhaps even graded by machine-root design, Whether a developi01g country should develop its research 2nd production technology institutes. own iron and steel industry depends upon various fat.ors. Undoubtedly. it is advantageous for a country to deve!op its own iron and strel industry Productfon units if the necessary raw materials are available. Cast-iron foundries and pallern Jhops However, many small developing countries that have. not reached a high level of industrial Developing :ountries should give t:rionty to development and lack the necessary infrastructure selling up foundry facilities 10 pr'Jduc·: high- and essential raw materials, such as iron ore, coa! RJ TeclrntJ/tl:1~1cal per CURRENT AND Flfl1JRE TRENDS OF MANUFACTIJRING MANAGEMENT AND TECHNOLOGY The forecasts presented below were drawn from a 10. Office staff will work under some form of produc report by the Technical Policy Board of the Institution tivity scheme, though this is considered difficult to of Production Engineers, United Kingdom. The report, establish. entitled ..The Way Ahead... was based on a s.urvcy 11. Computers will be used by the majority of conducted by means of questionnaires. The methods manufacturing units, especially those with at least 2SO used derive from those of a project, known as Project employees. Most processing plans will be done by Delphi. sponsored by the United States Air Force in the computer, thus reducing management paperwork. early 1950s. The forecasts rcf.:r to the United Kingdom, unless otherwise specified. 12. About SO per cent of manufacturers will have costing and machine scheduling on computers. This information will be available to managers on request by 1984-1985 means of visual display units. 13. Minicomputers and microcomputers will be used I. Computer-aided manufacture will use a network to assist both physical movement and information in of graphics terminals to inform management on the materials handling. shc:>p floor of the situation of any produ.:t and some will convey set-up and op.:rations instructions. 14. In precision turning and grinding. in-process sensing of finish and dimensions will reduce scrap by 2. NC machine tools w!ll normally use floppy disks 2S per cent and eliminate much post-manufacture instead of paper tape. inspection. 3. The cost of part programming will be reduced by IS. It should be possible to predict and specify the one third by means of computer aids on interactive prc surface finish n~eded to give the required wear life in and post-processing and expanded data bases. Computer rotating shaflS or sliding surface. graphics will be in use for CAD and CAM by about S per cent of all companies. 16. Adaptive control strategics for metal removal by turning, rolling or grinding will be available and these 4. Computer-aided material-handling system·; inte will be adopted by 10 per cent of the industry. grated with manufacture will be used by a sm<1;1 (2 per c·nt) !:>ut growing number of companies. 17. Both paint spraying and automatic wcldini. by robots will be widespread (up to 40 pct" ctnt of the S. Smaller companies will have only I per cent of industry). 1heir work designed by computer interactive graphics. 18. Lasers will be used for in-process (non-contract) 6. About 10 per cent of all manufacturing industry control of accurary. will havt a considerable amount of au1oma1ic inspection (on line) with diminishing post-manufacture inspection. 19. The structure of most new machine tools will be This process will extend well beyond enginecrir.6 composite to avoid vibration and to give stiffness and produc1s in10 such areas as textiles. paper and box or thermal stability and reduce noise. can manufacture, and will experience conlinuous devel 20. In the United States many industries (up 10 10 per opmen1. cent by 1987) will use group technology. 7. The proponior. of companies using integrated 21 Lasers will be used for cutting and welding in both CAD and CAM for both product and tool design will the United Kingdom and the United States. be as follows: 22. Software systems will be developed 10 predict 1911-1-19115 1990 cos:s based on pan defirition only. (p,Tun1ag') (p,,un1ag') Japan IO 20 23. About 1S per cent of United States assembly Unircd V.inp:lorr s 10 systems will have automatic inspection. United Sra1es 10 2S 24. By 198S direct labour in car final assembly will be II. Mana1ers expect workin1 noun 10 be reduced to replaced by pro1rammable autor. ation (probably up 10 JS per week. 30 per cent). 9. Workers will be con~uhed in at least 30 per cent of 2S. Pan storage and retrieval in the United States will all companies en1ap:d in manufacture. be automatic. IM -In.Jet X7 1986-1987 4. There is considerable: doubt as to whether any large: proportion of NC machines will employ conver I. In 1hc: Uniled S1a1cs IO per cc:nl of all machining sational interrogation based on set menus from tt.c: will be done by group technology b~· 1987. shop floor. since: control would probably be lost in 2. Working hours "''ill be reduced to 36 per week. largr units. Some specialized small units may use: this for jobbing work. 3. The knowledge will be available to use the compu1er 10 indicate whether it is cco;iomical ~o 5. (r, the United States 20 per cent of manufacturers employ group tc.:hnology for any panicalar pan. will have: a computer model of their operation~. 4. In larger f:rms 50 per cent of all the process paper 6. About 20 per cent of mass production industry work for manufaciuring will be compu1er-genera1ed. As will use: dedicated automatic assembly robots. a result. there will be a 25 to 30 per cent reduction in 1. Central computers will control 80 per cent of in machine-tool pan programmers. and more CAM will proccss and finished parts inventory. lead to more CAD. 5. Ahout 20 per cent of all printed circuit board and eleclronic manufacturers "'ill use part classificaiicn and 1990-/99/ coding sysicms. I. It may be necessary to ra1ion energy and ccr-.ain 6. Abou1 50 per cc:m of electrical wire harnesses and raw materials. particularly metal~ automoti\·c harnesses. insofar as 1hey exist in their present form. will be designed by CAD. 2. About IO per cent of all special tools and ~xturcs will be designed by in1cractive co;:iputer graphics. 1. Automalic assembly will have penetrated inlo 20 per cent of m:o~-production companies. 3. About 2S per cent of all machined pans will be designed by interactive i;omputcr graphics in the larger 8. The Japanese predict coding of sheel me•al pans companies and IO per cent of the results will be lor classification by 20 per cent of companies. introduced through CAM. 9. A harmonized scheme of working for most of the work force will exist. There will be few hourly paid 4 About IO per cent of all machini11g operations and workers. bur flcxibk hours of work for office staff will some types of fabrication wi!I be made by group nol c~tend 10 production workers in general. technology or cell operations in the larger companies. This procedure has not always been economic for 10. There will be a considerabk ex1ension of all types foundry or fabrication. of standards as a result of EEC regula1iom and health. safety and consumer i'rotection. and also for manu S. About SO per cc:nl of process plans will be facturing reasons. computer gencra1ed in the larger companies. 11. Mos1 NC macilines will ha\·e dedicated micro 6. The: development of optical scanning of drawings computers. and digitizing will put CAM data into data bases for 12. Spark erosion will have: dev.:loped and become the either retention or subsequent processing. Some engineers question the economics of this development. dominant method for tool making. 13. Abou1 20 per cer.1 of mass-production companies 7. Classification of laser (optical) scanning of labels will be using c!edicated automatic assembly and modular for inventory control will be used by IO per cent of robots will make equipment prices competitive. with companies in materials handling. specially designed singlc-purpo,e automatic assembly 8. About 2S per cenl of set-up and operations cquipmen1. These will be in small quantity until 1990. instructiors will be conveyed on video screens from 14. In the United States SO per cent of new machine: computer graphics to the shop-floor supervisors. tools manufacturci.I "'ill have NC. 9. Seventy-five of all conventional NC equipment will have been replaced by CNC or more probably DNC equipment. 1988-1989 10. About 20 per cent of all small-batch companies I. In the field of c:lc:ctronics manufacture the industry will use programmable robots for some forms of is cxpec1cd to be a leader in the application of automatic auemblics. but usually not when 1he batch computer-aided ideas. CAD and CAM will be applied size is less than SO. by SO per cc:nt of the: industry. 11. Paper tape will be largely superseded by CNC 2. Computer programs for die-making control and vidl'..> display units with floppy discs or diskettes opumum design will exist. capable of supplying job operations. graphic~ and set 3. By 1989 about 1S per cent of all CAM systems will up data instructions to the operators. be relying on distributed corr.puling system concepts. 12. In rhe United Slates the work week is expectC'd to Only 10 lo 20 per cent of the: systems will rely on decline to 32 hours and SO per cent of the work-force control or -nain frame comr.uten. will be skilled. The percen1age breakdown of 1he different systems in use will be as follows; 13. About SO per cent of the work-force in manufactur ing will be skilled largely in computer maintenance. \'(' DNC Japan )0 30 14. In the United Kingdom and the United States 1Jni1cd Kinptom 10 IO 20 per cent of industry will have combined materials IJ Riied S1a1c:~ 20 25 and proccu planning by Ct:lmpu1er-aided control. ,•;tii 15. In Japan. the United Kingdom and the United comj)anics will use group te<:hnology for IO p.=r cent of States. by 1990 methods de\·elopment will be p.=rformed all machining operations. by computer for 33 per cent of such work. This also 4. About 20 per cent of o.11 machine tools installed applies to ·he Je\·elopment of standards and for process will ha\·e the following characteristics: control. (a) Automatic loading. unloading and 15. In the United States 75 per cent of simple transfer; program-controlled equipment will be replaced by (b) Sensing and chan!;ing tools for wear or multi-stored programs and mul!i-prucessor control. breakage; 17. About 20 per cent of the industry 11.ill use adaptive (c) Complete monitoring and recording b~· control strategies for metal re"lo\·al (turning. grinding computer. and milling). 5. In smaller firms. 50 per cent of pro;:ess planning 18. There will be a marked reduction of noise from and manufacturing pap.=rwork for part.> and assemblies machine tcols-possibly 85 dB will be mandato11-. will be done by comi;uter. an I. Robots will be installed in 50 per cent of industry 199() where CAM is used. I. About 25 per cent of machine tools will form part 2. About 25 per cent of machined parts will be of a versatile machining system with automatic part designed by computer interactive graphics even m handling between machines with. ·entral process control. firms with less than 1,000 employees. 3. Working hours will reduce to 32 but it is unlikely It is considered that ar.y re~:11ts beyond this year that a four-day week will ever be adopted. Small would be unreliable. BIBLIOGRAPHY Anderson. Ashburn. American machinist I Ne"' York) ____ L'se of group cechnology in the industries :~larch 1976 io No\·ember 1980. of •·arious countr:;3. C/.R.P. a11r.a/J (Berne) Arndt. G. :\ sun·ey and some basicconsideracions of the 21:2:209-214. 1972. la~·oul of llexible manufacturing syslems. Paper Larsen. Rnmond J. Where machines leave off. pcu;'le prepared for cite lnlernacional Conference en Manu take 0°\·er. Iron age (Radnor. Philadelphia) 19 May faccuring Engin-:ering. MClbourne. 25-27 Augusl 1980. 1980. Lindsay. R. P. and N. P. Na\apro. Principles ofgri:iding :\eke~. Martin. Edge on inse: ts gi\·: milling a no::w face. wich cubic boron r.itride wheels . .Hacl1inery and .\frta/i.orking p•oducti· 1 (London) 118: I0:9 I. 1974. production engineering (Brighton) 124:3191:74-81. 23 January 197 ... Bell. D. Coming of pose-industrial soci.:1y: a \·en!Ure in social forecasling. New York. Basic Books. 1973. Machine Tool Task Force reporc on machine t<>ol lechnology. 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Part 2-Numer;c;d control system. Metal working resear~h today. American machiniH Amaican machini.st (New York) ~pecial Report (New Yo1k) Special Report No. 651!. 69-76, 9 July No. 659. 119-142, September 1973. 1973. Heaton, James W. Insight into an insert. Carbide journal New comprtir.irs in ma1::hine tool ma,kct. lnduJtria/ ( Bridge\'illc) July/ August 1975. i.or/c/(New \ork) 205:1:11!-2:1. 1980. Impact of technological progre~s of society as a g·Jide for North-South: a programme for sunival. The report of 1he orientation of research in C.l.R.P. C.l.R.P. the Independent Commission on International rtnna/.s (Berne) 21: 2:239-245. 1972. De11elopmen1 (~sues under the chairmanship of King. Alan G. and W. M. \\'heildon. Jr. c~ramics in Willy Brandt. London. Pan Booh, 19110. 304 pp. machining processes. fl>c:w York. A<'ademy Press, Only know-how sells engineering. Machininf( toa/ rrviei.· 1966. (Co11entry. United Kingdom) January/Fehrnary Ko:nigsherger. F. Trends in the design of metalcutting 1975. machir.e tools. C.l.R.P. annal.s CRerne) 24. pan 2, Pe1er~. J. Whar we: do hy "true value in measurements". 1974. C.l.R.P. nnn'1/.11Rerne) 21:2:205-208, 1972. !If) 90 Tul11tological pt!npectivt!s in tltt! mach1.11t!-too/ industr.v and tltt!ir impftcatio1ts for dt!~t!loping countrit!s Polycrystalline diamond tooling. American machinist Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Technical report: (!"lew York) 118:24:61. 1974. MRR-79-01-1979. Dearborn. Michigan. Powder HSS production mo\·es into top gear. Mera/ Technical Policy Boa•d. Current and future trends of "·orking production (London) 118: 11:85-90. 1974. manufacturing management and technology i.1 Production t!nginur (London) October ;:nd December the UK ...The way ahead ... London. The Ins1i- 1979. April and June 1980. 1u1ion of Production Engineers. 1980. Journal of the Institution of Production Engineers. United Kingdom. The future of the world economy: a United Nations study. B.~· Wassily Leontieff and othns. New York. Recent research and Jevelopment in grinding. By Oxford University Press. 1977. B. Coding and others. C l.R.P. annals (Berne) 21:2:157-166. 1972. TIC coating concept. Carbide journal (&ridgcville) Robot revolution. Time (New York) 8 December 1980. September/October 1973. Rot •IS join the lab 1ur force. Business week (New York) Uttal. Bro. Europe's wild swing at the silicon giants. 9 June 1980. Fortune (New York) 28 July 1980. The UNIDO Dev.?lopment and Transfer of Technology Series •No. National Approaches to the Acquisition of Technology (ID/187). Sales No. E.78.11.8.7. Price: SUS 8.00 No. 2 UNIDO Abstracts on Technology Transfer (ID/189~ •No. 3 The Manufacture of Low-cost Vehicles in DevelClpih~ Countries (ID/193). Sales No. E.78.11.B.8. Price: SUS 3.00 No. 4 Manual on Instrumentation and Quality Control m the Textile Industry (ID/200) •No. 5 Technology for Solar Energy Utilization (ID/202). Sales No. E.78.11.B.6. 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