b'Machining automotive materials comes with challenges.By Christopher Tate chased hours for cost savings. At the aero-space shop, we machined castings and forg-M achining operations are fundamentallyings and chased minutes. At the automotive the same across all industries. However,shop, we machined bar stock, castings, forg-machine shops and the way they operate canings and pretty much anything else that you be vastly different. For example, aerospacecan imagine, and we chased seconds. In fact, a shops generally are considered clean, sterilesignificant saving of time in the automotive in-and deliberate whereas small job shops oftendustry was frequently one or two seconds, and have a Wild West feel in which anything goes.saving those was never an easy achievement.Shops obviously differ because of the workSeconds are hard to come by because ma-they do. I have had the opportunity to work atchining operations in automotive manufac-different shops and have found automotiveturing are highly developed. Much of the ma-machining to be the most challenging. chining process has been honed over many In every industry, machining comes withyears, so the fat already has been trimmed. challenges that alone are not unique but,Takt timesthe time in which a product when combined, create unique situationsmust be completed to satisfy demandare that can be very difficult. It is the combina- very low, and it is typical to see takt times of tion of common machining challenges that30 to 40 seconds at shops making automo-makes machining in the automotive industrytive components. Machining parts with short the most difficult. takt times usually requires breaking machin-Part cost is important to all manufactur- ing operations into multiple steps across mul-ers, and cycle time influences part cost moretiple machines. It also means using tools like than any other variable. In the power genera- multistep drills that generate several pieces tion industry, we machined large forgings andof geometry at once. These activities naturally52APRIL 2023AutoMaterials.indd 52 3/16/23 1:57 PM'