Production manager Karl-Richard Curdt works on the new multi-task machine.

In early 2009 German manufacturer Mayer Feintechnik installed a new multi-task machine. Now the huge investment has paid off with doubled productivity. “Automation is the only way to survive global competition and to continue to grow,” says CEO and part-owner Frank Neuschulz.

Achim Ludewig is German manufacturer Mayer Feintechnik’s best turner. The spiky-haired veteran works at the far end of the factory with the new Mori Seiki NT 4250 multi-task machine.

The machine, installed in early 2009, integrates turning and milling without having to set up the workpiece. “It’s a challenge,” Ludewig says with a cheeky smile as he pats the machine. “There are a thousand and one ways to program it. Sometimes I think of a solution at home in the bathroom while I’m in the middle of shaving.”

“The machine is worth every single euro we paid for it,” says CEO and part-owner Frank Neuschulz. “But you have to have employees like Achim Ludewig who like to solve problems and are interested in it and who are also doing extra training alongside their normal work hours.

“You also need a partner who helps to get it right from the start so that you avoid having to improvise and make improvements afterward,” he says.

Mayer Feintechnik is a manufacturing company with 45 employees situated in Göttingen, Germany. It was founded in 1951 by Willy Mayer, who in the early years manufactured interior fittings for model trains.

Mayer Feintechnik’s latest investment is a Mori Seiki NT 4250 multi-task machine.

Almost a third of its sales today come from medical technology, an industry that in Germany alone has revenues of $25 billion.

The rest is divided between the areas of laser technology, measurement technology and instruments for the optical industry. Practically all its customers are among the top five world leaders in their markets.

“They are discriminating customers who demand high quality, great flexibility and the ability to develop at the same rate they do themselves,” says Neuschulz. In 2004 he took on a 50 percent share in Mayer Feintechnik.

The company was then already out in front. When Mayer Feintechnik introduced Japanese CNC machines in the 1970s, many competitors hadn’t yet discovered the potential of CNC technology. Since Neuschulz came into the company the rate of modernization has been further increased by annual investments of around $1.4 million. The goal is to reduce the cost of staff from 35 percent of sales to 25 percent. In the next stage, a seven-day week will be introduced at the new machine.

“In a downturn many companies try to reduce their level of investment,” says Neuschulz. “For us that is not an option. A crisis is an opportunity. We continue to invest and to raise productivity permanently. At the same time we are turning over every stone to make us more productive and more flexible.”

Neuschulz says he didn’t expect that the economic crisis would be as deep as it has been, or the price war as brutal. Instead of the expected drop of 20 to 25 percent in sales, demand has dropped by about 50 percent compared with the spring of 2009. At the same time, global price competition has increased. But Mayer Feintechnik has still succeeded in gaining orders for new products by using new technology.

“When it comes to products we were already manufacturing, we have been able to reduce manufacturing time with help from the likes of Sandvik Coromant,” he says.

The new machine has reduced production time by around 50 percent.

But it’s been difficult, Neuschulz says, as he holds up a complex turned part made from high alloy special steel. “This pressure sensor is something we have been manufacturing for many years,” he explains. “One day a customer rang and said the price in the new contract could only be half what it was.”

Thanks to an investment in a machine with three turrets and three machine shifts, Mayer Feintechnik was able to accept orders of 5,000 units each year. The company then succeeded in reducing the production time from nine minutes and 52 seconds to six minutes and 17 seconds.

But the company’s latest investment is the multi-task machine NT 4250. It was acquired in September 2008 and delivered in March 2009. From the start it has exceeded all expectations.

“One of the critical reasons for the success,” says production manager Karl-Richard Curdt, “was that, working with Sandvik Coromant and experts at the machine and tooling distributor PWK Knöbber, we made sure it was right from the start.”

Neuschulz explains: “You can’t buy a Porsche and put rims on it that can only cope with going 100 kilometers [about 60 miles] an hour. That’s why we chose Coromant Capto. It isn’t the cheapest on the market, but it is definitely one of the very best.”

One of Mayer Feintechnik’s most important products is a fixed-angle rotor for laboratory centrifuges. The rotor works with up to 25,000 revolutions per minute and is subjected to enormous centrifugal forces. Thus the part must be perfectly counterbalanced, a factor that mainly depends on its roundness.

Rüdiger Volle (left) and Achim Ludewig (right), machine operators, change a drill head on the new machine.

With the old technology there were five work stages. The workpiece needed to be turned four times and drilled once. Each time it had to be set up again and moved between different machines.

The tolerance achieved of 2/100ths of a millimeter (0.0008 inch) was high, but not good enough for future challenges, and the customer had to counterbalance the rotor after each use.

With the new hybrid machine, everything happens in a single process, cutting production and setup time in half. Besides the time savings, however, the tolerance can now be reduced to less than 1/100th of a millimeter (0.0004), which will save the customer a complete machining stage.

“As well as the shorter manufacturing times, above all the machine has the ability to improve quality,” Neuschulz says. “In the future we are planning to offer our customers finished products with certificates of quality. The customer will no longer have to carry out its own quality controls for the part and can sell its finished product immediately.”

Flexibility is also critical. “The big manufacturers today are cutting back on the number of subcontractors by up to 70 percent and at the same time still making them compete on price,” Neuschulz says. “It is even more important that every investment is planned correctly. No one can afford to invest wrongly today.”

Torsten Neumann at tool distributor PWK Knöbber agrees. “Many customers buy expensive machines, but they invest too little in preparation,” he says. “Others use tools that are less than optimal. Then they complain when the tools don’t work the way they thought they would. And then it is much more difficult to correct the faults.”

“In the future,” says Neuschulz, “we will generate growth only if we have strong partners and can carry out continuous improvements. For us Sandvik Coromant is one of these strategic partners.”

Learn more about Machine Investment fromSandvik Coromant.

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Technical Insights

The challenge: To halve manufacturing and setup times, raise quality and build more flexibility into production.

The solution: Invest in an integrated turning and milling machine, NT 4250 DCG/1500 SZ, from Japanese manufacturer Mori Seiki equipped with the tool holder system Coromant Capto.

Frank Neuschulz, CEO and part-owner, shows the fixed-angle rotor for laboratory centrifuges.

Mayer Feintechnik makes precision instruments, specializing in parts for the medical technology industry and for companies in measurement and laser technology. Instruments include a fixed angle rotor for laboratory centrifuges with extremely high demands on roundness. Centrifuges today can reach speeds of up to 25,000 revolutions per minute. But the trend is for speeds of closer to 100,000 rpm. Suppliers who want to compete in this market have to invest in new machines.

The machine that Mayer Feintechnik purchased in March 2009 is an integrated horizontal milling center with speeds of up to 12,000 rpm and a turning center with 4,000 rpm. It is fed by a portal robot and a rod loader and stands on a special base that prevents vibrations from disturbing the sensitive measurement instrument.

It can machine workpieces with diameters of up to 3.15 inches and lengths of up to 59 inches. According to Mayer Feintechnik’s CEO and part-owner Frank Neuschulz, the reason Mayer Feintechnik chose Coromant Capto is that it is one of the only modular tooling systems that can be used for both turning and milling tasks with a precision of 0.002 millimeters (0.000,079 inch).

Manufacturing of the fixed-angle rotor. With the new multi-task machine, the rotor can be machined in one setup instead of five!

Preparation for the investment was undertaken at machine and tool distributor PWK Knöbber’s training center in Kassel, Germany. Machine operators and production managers from Mayer Feintechnik, along with Sandvik Coromant and PWK Knöbber, ran through all the tool and application possibilities long before the machine was delivered.

“The advantage of this was that Mayer Feintechnik never needed to experiment but instead could get started as soon as the machine was in place,” explains Alexander Duschek, sales engineer for Sandvik Coromant.

Says Neuschulz: “Making the most of the multi-task machine also requires stable, high-performance tools, and here nothing beats Sandvik Coromant, which has such a comprehensive range of turning and milling tools. Using Sandvik Coromant’s high-pressure coolant tools improved both the volume of chips and the cutting data.”

Learn more about Turning and Milling Solutions from Sandvik Coromant.

Originally published in Metalworking World 1.2010, a business magazine published by Sandvik Coromant.