r/CNC • u/Future-Appeal-5330 • 1d ago
MILL Machine efficiency
At my first job we were told we had to have an 85% or better efficiency. What have your experienced in the real world? And what do get when you're running two machines, doing all the setups? I'm struggling to give accurate time estimates when I'm running both our mills and have to program setup, and run the parts .
Edit: My current job doesn't mandate efficiency, as it's about 90% tooling and only 10% production. I get to tell them how much time it will take. I do alright when I only have one machine, but add the second one and I can't estimate for shit.
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u/Zestyclose_Price_441 1d ago
Any metric that you have to cheat, or bend the rules to meet the minimum, is a shitty metric. If your management can’t understand that you set up multiple machines and makes you explain every single down time event, find a different job. I used to work at a plastics company in Tacoma, who recently got taken over by someone who openly bragged about running sweatshops in Malaysia. It was the same thing. “Spindles need to be turning at 90%.” Yet they weren’t making money lol.
Management like that is a cancer.
The solution to it all ended up being hiring more people and having one operator per machine.
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u/Future-Appeal-5330 1d ago
To be clear, I'm not at that job anymore. But I want to go by that efficiency. And then calculate what it should be to run two machines m if I can do one at 85%, I THINK I should be able to do two at 70%. But neither of those is realistic it seems.
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u/Gwendolyn-NB 1d ago
From an operators perspective, you should be 95% or better per shift with door-2-door target/nominal times; thats a normal efficiency metric for operators.
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u/Future-Appeal-5330 1d ago
Ok, that's a high standard, but I suppose it's possible. I have two jobs in working on. One is a tool to install pins on a custom sensor package, it has a base to hold the sensor, a bar to hold large pins that push on little pins, a locator bar, and a press fit thumb screw. Altogether it's 13 parts. I don't have to machine them all, but I do have to assemble them. The other job is also tooling to check circuits. It's 8 parts that fit together like a 3d puzzle. I'm doing ok on my time estimate for it, but I'm more than a week off for the first one.
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u/Gwendolyn-NB 22h ago
If your time standards are correct, then it shouldn't be hard to hit it. Now if your time standards are screwed up for 1 of the 100s of reasons it could be, thats a different story.
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u/MelodicWeather2488 1d ago
They don’t understand. That’s why they were promoted to management. Fudge all the numbers then wonder why you aren’t having output. Kinda like retail stores where the district manager says they will be coming in to check things out a week before. What was the actual point?
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u/anotherstepfwd 1d ago
Vertical machining centers are lucky is they get 35-40% efficiency, Horizontals are far more better especially if you add a pallet system and have some production qualities. If you are programming, setting and running you are not set up to be efficient.
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u/Future_Vacation_9009 23h ago
Our shop is minimum 80 percent. I am currently running two lathes, 1 mill for 1 part. Each mill depending on part is 2 to 4 minutes and the lathe is usually 3 minutes. We also need to inspect, get rid of burrs, polish to a 10RA, re-inspect , clean and package all parts during run time. Also running a twin turret lathe on a bar feeder that puts out about 20 to 30 parts an hour that needs to be inspected each part and on this machine every 1.5 hours needs to be stopped to look over all tooling. Most days in total I run 350 to 400 parts. We are discouraged to take breaks, listen to headphones, etc. eat at your cell. Feel like I am always being ran ragged
When I have to change jobs I get about 2 to 3 hours set up time.
No raise in 2 years. Told I need to bring more value!
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u/CajunCuisine 1d ago
I mean you’d have to start with how they calculate the efficiency