b'Each spindle has its own signaturelike a signal fingerprintand no two are alike.With this information, part man- move forward, Miller said. Werebust and adaptable so it works for ufacturers can schedule spindlealso making the algorithm more ro- all their different machines.CTEmaintenance or replacement to prevent unplanned failure-related downtime.On the downside, Sanders said, the system in its current form can-not get high-quality data on high-torque spindles and those built for low-rpm operations. But Mazak is investigating to see if the system can be made suitable for these spin-dles as well.While third-party sensor-based systems could be employed for spindle monitoring, he contends that their usefulness would be lim-ited for Mazak machines because information about how the compa-nys spindles are built is proprietary. Without this information, he said, a third-party monitoring system could not determine exactly what is wrong with a Mazak spindle.At present, Sanders said, Mazak is equipping only horizontal ma-chining center spindles with the system. The plan, however, is even-tually to incorporate the system into the companys entire line.Mazak developed the system in conjunction with the University of Cin-cinnatis Center for Intelligent Main-tenance Systems. The center cre-ated the AI algorithm that monitors spindle health and determined which sensor locations would yield the best readings, said Marcella Miller, a grad-uate researcher at the center.Although the system has been rolled out, the center continues to collaborate with Mazak.While Mazak works on selling the system to their customers, we are supporting them by (dealing with) any bugs they may find as they ctemag.com/cteguide.com15MachineTech.indd 15 2/14/20 12:22 PM'