100% Utilization: The Cutting-Tool Conundrum

THOMAS RAUN: Hi. Welcome to 100% Utilization-- The Cutting Tool Conundrum. My name is Thomas Raun. I'm the chief technical officer for ISCAR USA, and I'll be speaking with you a little bit today about cutting tools impact on productivity, and the things, or some things that we can do or be mindful of when we're trying to improve productivity of a machining process, and overall manufacturing processes.

Just a real quick comment on this safe harbor statement. I'm here today with Autodesk, and we're looking at things that we can do together to try to be more productive in programming. We'll be talking about some things that we hope to develop together, but obviously things change, initiatives change. But I think you'll see some good things from the two companies working together in the future. But just take today's presentation as a look to the future on some of the aspects that I'll touch base on, and we'll look forward to bringing some innovative, productive solutions to you in the market in the near future.

So, 100% Utilization-- Cutting Tool Conundrum. We'll talk about three areas-- overall equipment effectiveness, the cutting tool productivity aspect, and looking at that, the cutting tool from the equipment effectiveness perspective. And then we'll look quickly at sustainability in terms of cutting tools, and just try to give you some thoughts on things that can be done to be better stewards of the environment, and to better utilize the technologies that you're investing in.

So overall equipment effectiveness, or OEE, it's about measuring productivity. A lot of times, the main focus is about measuring the productivity of machine tools. Companies look at the machine tool as the hub of the manufacturing process, for the most part. So it makes sense to measure how these machine tools are performing.

And to do this, they're looking at how much time is available-- and we all have the same amount of time available-- how those machines are performing within that given amount of time, and then they're looking at the quality aspects of the parts that are coming off the machine. And so you take all of that into consideration, and you come up with a percentage.

And, just food for thought, world class performance in this area is considered 85%, and most companies are not at that level. They use that as a goal to try to achieve in their measuring processes, and trying to improve. But 85% being world class, we wanted to take a look and see how that goes when it comes to the cutting tool, and measuring cutting tool productivity in terms of that piece of equipment, and its effectiveness, and how it can impact the overall productivity of that machine tool.

So when you look at a machine tool, and programming the machine tool, machine tools carry a lot of cutting tools, and the cutting tools are-- they have different design, different attributes that allow them to be more productive than others. But the main person in control of that is that picture towards the bottom left with those people in front of the computer screen, maybe on a CAM system. They're the ones that are making the choices, looking up the information, and they're the ones that are really driving what goes on with that cutting tool in that machine tool.

So when we look at what they have to do, they have to take into consideration what I like to refer to as the metalworking universe. And what is their metalworking universe? So when you look at what they're taking into consideration when they program a cutting tool, it's the machine. It's the fixtures, the material, the coolant, considering-- and there's many others that they have to consider. These are the main factors in what they're considering on how they program a tool.

But if you look up at the top left, my estimation, and many in the industry-- the cutting tool industry's estimation is that, do you ever take a little bit-- there's about 50% utilization on a cutting tool. And that sounds really poor, and it is because cutting tools are perishable, and they wear out fairly quickly in terms of all the other manufacturing technologies that are in play in a given process.

So to really get full utilization out of the tools, and use the carbide, or whatever the composition of the cutting tool is wisely, it makes a lot of sense because you're paying for it, and they're wearing out quickly. So we want to do as much as we can to make sure we're as productive and increasing utilization to maximum levels.

So what is the utilization conundrum that I speak of? There's misutilization and there's underutilization. A lot of times, day-in and day-out, week-in and week-out, as someone who's been focused on cutting tools for many years-- over 20 years now with ISCAR-- we see misutilization and underutilization so much. And let me just briefly give a definition of what that is.

So misutilization, it seems fairly obvious, but some of the things that we're talking about is using the incorrect tool for an incorrect material, or choosing a tool just because it's the tool that's available, and maybe not the best suited for the application. It sees obvious low-lying fruit type opportunities, where if we just took a step back, took some time to think about it, would we really use that tool? I'll use a kind of a prime example of this.

Maybe you're a company that machines aluminum, and also ferrous materials. So you have a lot of cutting tools that you use to machine aluminum productive, and you get a job in that's for ferrous materials, and you think, I'll just use those same tools, or a lot of those same tools to machine your ferrous materials that you're using in aluminum. And they don't hold up as well, and you have to pull back on your cutting parameters. And the next thing you know, you've utilized or used a lot more tools than you think you would have used.

And conversely, if you're in a shop that does a lot of ferrous materials, but then you get that oddball aluminum material job, and you try to take that same end mill or drill that works well in the steel, and then you apply it in aluminum, and the next thing you know, it didn't work, maybe not even for a few seconds, and maybe the material galled up in the flutes or the gullets of the tool. And then, when that happens, it's game over, usually. The tool breaks. So that misutilization, it's very common, and we're trying to find the right tool for the right application, and help you do that in a productive way.

Now, underutilization, that's also a big problem because if you're underutilizing something-- I don't care what it is. Anything that you purchase, if you underutilize it, you didn't realize the full value that you were hoping to achieve. There's been some famous statements out there about price is what you pay, and value, or the overall value, is what you get. So underutilization is probably the most common.

And I'm going to go ahead and talk a little bit about some of these things in different applications, and I'm going to do it from the perspective of a formula that I learned when I was learning about Six Sigma and Lean. There was a formula here called efficiency times effectiveness equals productivity, and this is a formula that you can apply to many different aspects of manufacturing, as well as other things. But I found it to be very interesting, and a very good way to look at what I'm doing with the cutting tool, and how I'm applying it.

So when you look at efficiency, another way to look at it is that you're doing the right things. And I kind of mentioned the right tool. So, do you have the right tool? When I look at effectiveness, it's doing things right. And then from the productivity side, we're always trying to increase or improve productivity.

So let's take a look at, from the cutting tool perspective-- I kind of jumped ahead of myself there a little bit ago, but let's just say, from a cutting tool perspective, efficiency is getting that right cutting tool. Effectiveness is the right approach, or the right parameters in applying that tool. And, of course, the other thing I like to do is I like to change the efficiency aspect and say utilization. So this is my formula that I use to qualify what I'm doing when I apply a tool, or if I'm looking at contrasting maybe an incumbent tool versus a new tool, and what that tool might be able to do for me.

So let's take a look at this in the three common machining applications, and we'll start off with hole making. With hole making, there's a lot of different types of tools. There's solid carbide drills. There's indexable drills. There's deep hole drills. So there's a lot of different areas to-- that a programmer has to think about when they're choosing a drill.

So not only is that a decision that takes some time-- make sure you're grabbing that right drill, or choosing that right drill-- then you got to look at the utilization of it. And this is easy for hole making because you're using the end of the tool, and when you're drilling, 99.9% of the time, that drill is 100% utilized on the diameter. Sometimes you're coring out a hole, but that's an outlier application.

So we have 100% utilization, which is a good thing. We're fully utilizing that drill or that tool that we invested in. But now we got to take a look at effectiveness. And when I say effectiveness, now we're talking about the cutting parameters. And for a drill, there's a few-- only a few variables that you have to keep in mind.

We're looking to calculate the overall velocity of the feed, the Vf-- so the overall feed in inches per minute when you program, as a CAM programmer-- and that value is derived from your feed per revolution, or fn for hole making, times your RPM. Or, in this case, n represents RPM.

So if I look at that, and I say, OK, what do I have to work with in to calculate those values, now, a common thing for a programmer to do is to have to go back through, and either use an electronic catalog or a paper catalog, and they get to a portion where they've-- of the tool they've selected. The manufacturer will have provided these recommendations, and in hole making, when it comes to calculating speed, will give you different speed values for different materials.

So that's a big factor to keep in mind because material and material hardness is the main factor for determining the speed at which you can run the tool. So it's very important to keep this in mind. And then for a drill, the typical feed parameters are by diameter. So, to be obvious, the smaller diameter drills will have lower feed recommendations. And then, when you get to the larger diameter drills, they're more robust. They're going to have higher feed recommendations.

So in this case, we want to take and look at an example where we have a 1/2 inch tool. And you can see here, I highlighted the parameters for a given material. And if I look up at the top right-hand portion of the screen here, I've selected a 1/2 inch diameter for my tool, my material's 4340, and I've selected the parameters that would apply to that 1/2 inch tool in that material group.

So we want to pull those parameters down, and take a quick look at them. So we have our feed recommendation range, which is from 6 thousandths to 13 thousandths feed per revolution, and then we have our RPM range recommended from 1757 to 2750. So a little better way of looking at this, a little easier visual-- let me jump back for a second.

You could take this, and I'm going to I'm going to set my benchmark at the mean operating parameters-- those ones marked in red where I've got 9 thousandths feed, and 2292 RPMs. Based on our knowledge of our tooling, our carbide grades, how the tools are designed to perform, we're right in the middle of the operating parameters. I'm setting that as my benchmark.

So if I look at my formula for effectiveness up top, I've got fn times n. So I've got my feed per revolution of 9 thousandths times my RPM. That gives me my Vf of 20.63, and that's my-- I'm 100% utilizing that tool, and I feel good about that. Now, this is my benchmark.

If I'm comparing to a given tool that's already running, I'm going to take those parameters that you're using, and we'll use that as our benchmark to compare ourselves against. But that's a variable that, obviously, we can't account for here today, and it'll be different for everyone out there who's programming, and putting in values, and trying to get to a good, productive set of cutting parameters.

So let's look at the lower set of values. If I was programming at the lower feed rate and speed, could see there, I've got 51% highlighted if I were to do that. So I'd have 100% utilization times 51%. Well, that's easy math, and that's why we picked the tooling that we did. So we're at 51% productivity compared to somebody who's running at the mean operating parameters.

And if I'm in a situation where I know I've got good, rigid scenarios, I've got-- maybe I've got high-pressure coolant to help flush the chips out from the drilled hole as the drill's penetrating into the material-- you know, I might be this person, if I've got a rigid scenario, who can actually push beyond the 100% benchmark. And if I'm running at the top operating parameters recommended, I'm at 35.75. I'm 73% higher than the benchmark.

So another way to visualize this is to say, I've got this operating range, this chart here. And you can see I've got my feed per revolution on the vertical axis, I've got my RPM here on the horizontal. And you can kind of just take a peek at, hey, this is the operating range that I'm supposed to be running these tools in.

You would be surprised. When I talked about misutilization or underutilization, you'd be surprised how many times we find-- even though this information is published, it's readily available, you'll be surprised how many times we find customers who are running outside of this-- outside of this box. And we I know we talk about in manufacturing, a lot of times, getting outside the box as a good thing.

But usually, when you're talking about cutting tool parameters, and cutting tool design, they're designed to run in a specific range. If you're getting outside the box, in terms of your effectiveness and your cutting parameters, not always a good thing. Not that it can't be done under certain circumstances, but it's a case-by-case basis, for certain.

So, as I mentioned, I can look at my formula here. I've calculated this out, and at the mean parameters, I'm at 100% productivity. Another way of checking your math, and just kind of seeing the visual of what you're doing is that, if I look at a bar chart that has the minimum, the mean, and the max parameters, and I look at volume of material removal, which is very easy to calculate in a hole making process, I'm averaging 2.06 cubic inches of material removal per minute with that drill at the minimum parameters. The mean parameters are 4.05.

And if I'm that person that can push the limits because I've got a rigid robust scenario, and I've got some better technologies in play, I'm going to be that-- like I said, that 73% more material removal rate over somebody who's forced to run at the mean parameters. Just another way of taking a look at that.

Let's look at milling. Milling, it actually gets more complicated with milling. As someone who oversees some specialists in each area, I'm always teasing the milling or the homemaking specialists that their job is much easier than the milling guys. I hope I'm not offending anybody out there that focuses on homemaking applications, but the proof is in the number of variables that you have to deal with.

So when we look at milling cutters, you can see, now I've got to take into consideration not only the end of the tool, I've got to take into consideration how I'm applying the tool both on depth of cut, and width of cut. And then my utilization gets more complicated. But I'm not going to go through an in-depth step-by-step process with this particular example. I just want to show really quick how the utilization aspect, and how you're applying the tool, can quickly reduce your overall productivity of the tool.

So let's just say I'm looking at the average 1/2 inch end mill. And 1/2 inch end mill, typically a standard end mill might be two times diameter in cutting length on the flute. So I've got 1 inch flute length. So if I'm at a 1/2 inch diameter on my width of cut, and 1 inch on my depth of cut, I'm fully utilizing that tool.

But let's take a look at what typically, or what really happens. In the real world, we see this all the time, where people are-- they only need to take a small depth of cut. So they might only be engaging 200 thousandths on the very end of that tool. So now you're wearing out the end of the tool, nothing's going on up here. You're not utilizing that tool as it was designed to be used, or you're over-utilizing it in terms of I don't need that much, but that was the tool I had available, so that's what I picked.

But as you start to look at your utilization, you say, OK, it's very easy. If you're at 200 thousandths depth of cut, and you divide that by your 1 inch-- what we call APMX, or your maximum depth of cut that you have-- you're 20%. You can put a formula to that really quick. And if you're starting off with only 20% utilization on the carbide that you've used, then I could do the rest of this formula just the way that I did it in my previous slides on the homemaking, and I'm not going to be very productive at the end if I'm starting off with only 20% utilization.

So when we look at this, real world things that we can be looking to do, there's interchangeable-- there's modular systems that-- they're designed to optimize the carbide because, if you don't need it, you don't need to buy it, let's put something in there that uses less natural resources, and still is effective at getting the job done. So this is just another example of looking at that from that utilization perspective.

And then, finally, real quickly, I'll touch base on turning. The number one, in terms of volume, purchased cutting tool is a CNMG Insert for turning applications. And when you look at how many of these inserts are out there, they're not very expensive, but we're still using natural resources, and we're still pressing these inserts by the millions.

So why wouldn't we want to fully utilize them? But if you take a look at the standard 432 or 4 series CNMG insert, the inserts designed for roughing applications, they might have recommendations on 200 thousandths, or a little more than 200 thousandths depth of cut on a 4 series.

But how many times do you see somebody in a lathe, especially in today's world, where it seems like the machine tools are getting smaller, less powerful, more capable in terms of speed? How many times do you see somebody taking 200 thousandths per side in a lathe? Not that often.

I would say it's-- the vast majority is maybe 100 thousandths or less. So if I throw that in there, and I say, OK, my utilization is my 100 thousandths depth of cut on an insert that's capable of 200 thousandths, why did I buy that 4 series insert? Why didn't I look at something that was less carbide, that was capable of the 100 thousandths, or maybe a little more-- maybe I need some freedom in there. But I'm all-- that's easy math.

0.1 time-- divided by 0.2, I have a 50% utilization factor before I ever start doing any of the other calculations for how effective I'll run the tool, in terms of speed and feed per revolution. And then, looking at it from an overall productivity, if I started out at a 50% utilization, I'm not going to be very good at my overall value.

So this utilization conundrum, let's face it. Why is this happening? Programmers have to keep a lot of things in mind. They're making hundreds of decisions a day. Think about a part that might have-- if you're on a multitasking machine, it could have all three aspects of machining-- turning, hole making, milling, and any of the operations that are within each one of those areas. So you see that, with every tool program, there's two, four, three variables to-- that those programmers have to look up, enter into a CAM environment, verify.

It takes a lot of time, and I think time is the reason why we have this 50% utilization, give or take. And this decision-making process, it takes time. And, let's face it, when we are on the shop floor, we want to see machines running. If people are looking at the machine monitors where they have the flashing lights up top, or the red, yellow, green lights, and that thing's not green, the person walking through the shop who's maybe the manager, or the shop owner, or the shop foreman, they're usually putting pressure on programmers to get these machines running, if they're not running.

And so that's why. You used to have more people running a given amount of machines, and they had so much time to get these parts out the door. And today's world, it's less people running more machines. And one of the things that we can do until things get automated enough that it helps these people out is we can try to look to how are these programmers able to access information, the power of the cloud, and to be able to make these decisions maybe inside the CAM environment, where it takes less time to-- once you've programmed the tool, you have it resident on your computer.

Or maybe there'll be tools in the future where the CAM company-- in this case, referring to Autodesk Fusion 360-- and a cutting tool supplier, like an ISCAR, are saying, hey, we're pooling our knowledge, all of our resources, Autodesk's knowledge of how to drive cutting tools, and how to drive machine tools effectively, and ISCAR's knowledge, decades' worth of imperial information on cutting tools, and design, and different materials, and in different scenarios for different applications.

And to do that, if we do that, and if we pay attention to these things, I feel like to get to the 80%, or even up to 100% utilization on the tool is an achievable goal that we can start looking at. And it's a goal that we should be looking at even in today's world, is can we increase the utilization on the things that we're purchasing for that production environment.

And so, one of the things that we can do now-- and I hope that a future state is where these things are merged together, and working seamlessly. But one of the things that we can do now is we can look to leverage the resources that we have.

And in today's world, with the digital information that's available-- electronic catalogs, cutting tool advisors, just different pieces of information that are at our fingertips because of our phones, or our access on the web, it's-- that is the conundrum to me, is that, other than the time constraints, the information is there for people to go out and seek it, and to make sure that they're operating cutting tools at that effective level, or that higher utilization that we're seeking to gain.

And for ISCAR, one of those tools is what we call NEO ITA. It's our ISCAR Tooling Advisor. This is decades' worth of imperial information, and it's a-- when you talk about AI being a large language, NEO ITA is ISCAR's large language for cutting tool recommendations. We've taken just massive amounts of data, and put it into an area that, with a few clicks, gives somebody an output that they can use, and they can make sure that the utilization of their tool is what they need it to be to increase, and make better decisions, and be more productive in that machining cell.

So there's going to be a video coming up where we'll just quickly introduce NEO ITA, and give you an idea of what that looks like, and how you might be able to utilize it in your environment.

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So with NEO ITA, right now it is a very quick, effective solution to get your cutting tool data that you need. Being a past programmer myself, I envision a world where, yes, it's great right now that I can be in my CAM environment, I can be programming my parts, and maybe I've downloaded my models from an electronic catalog. And I have my 3D assembly of my cutting tool model. It's in my CAM environment for my verification and collision checking purposes.

But now I still need to bring in all those cutting parameters for each tool-- speed, feed, depth of cut, width of cut-- and make sure that they're in those-- well, if you're bringing it in from a NEO ITA, you're getting good values to enter, but each one of those values is manually entered. And so there's an area of improvement, both from the speed of programming, but also the accuracy of programming.

We all know that, when we're punching keys on a keyboard, and entering information, there's always that threat of having a decimal place in the wrong place, or a wrong number. And then when you post out that code, and that value's there, it's there, and when-- and, a lot of times, it can be catastrophic.

So that's the world that I envision for us in the future, where there's these merging of technologies, like from a tool advisor, where, at the click of a button, your cutting recommendations are all mapped, so to speak, and they go to where they need to go. And hopefully, that'll really improve upon the speed and the accuracy of what you're programming.

So before I finish up, just a quick word on sustainability in a cutting tool perspective. Now, a few of the examples I've shown earlier we're making comparisons on certain types of tools, and I've kept it consistent, just so you can see, from a sustainability standpoint, what making one decision in the beginning-- a programmer making that decision-- can mean in terms of sustainability.

So we had an example earlier where I was talking about a 1/2 inch diameter end mill, and talking about the utilization factor, right from the get-go, of if you're not taking the full depth of cut, or you don't need the full width of cut, what that does for utilization. But think about it-- thinking about it from a natural resources perspective-- so each one of these tools is uses up a certain amount of natural resources to be produced.

This solid carbide tool starts out as-- well, obviously, it starts out as natural resources. But these natural resources are brought together, they're pressed, and they're pressed into a rod. And then that rod is ground. But, in general, a 1/2 inch tool that's a standard length tool is going to be about almost a half a cubic inch of carbide volume or material.

Now, modular tooling, interchangeable tooling, systems like ISCAR's MULTI-MASTER, or tooling that is indexable-- and I've shown an example here that combines both the MULTI-MASTER modular connection with an indexable tool on the far left. You can see the difference in the volume of carbide that's used.

So when you think about that, and you look at, OK, but these tools are designed for different applications-- and I took the maximum engagement of each of these tools, and said, OK, if you're running in a ISO P material like a 4340-- and I've already done the math, and said, OK, here's my speed, and my feed that these tools will be recommended to run at. You're looking at a tool that's capable of 2.7 cubic inches over here on the left. The one in the middle, the solid carbide interchangeable, will be about 9.9.

And then the solid carbide tool, if you were running it full slot, on a rigid scenario, you'd be able to get 26.4 cubic inches of material per minute. But as I mentioned in my earlier example, the reality is that a lot of times we're using just the end of the tool, even for a solid carbide tool. So if you start looking at the design differences-- and you can get into the minutia of this, but it's so close. When you look at the design differences, there'll be a little bit of difference between the indexable and the solid carbide versions.

But 2.7 to 3.6 cubic inches a minute, it may or may not be a make-or-break, depending on what you're doing-- super high production, maybe that would make a difference. But think about, you're almost able to do the same thing with either 74% less or 99% less carbide. That's huge, in terms of sustainability. You think about that over the thousands upon thousands, probably millions of 1/2 inch diameter tools that are used in the market every year, to use that much less carbide would be a big impact.

And then let's look at the 1/2 inch diameter drill example that we were talking about earlier. If I were to look at what I call-- or what is called SUMOCHAM from ISCAR, which is the interchangeable or replaceable head system, versus a solid carbide tool, like on the right, once again, the solid carbide tool starts out from solid rod, most likely. And the carbide volume used in the production of that standard-length tool would be about almost 3/4 of the cubic inch of carbide.

Now, the SUMOCHAM head is nowhere near that. It's 0.022 cubic inches of carbide volume to produce that head. So I look at the design differences, and I say, yes, the interchangeable or replaceable head end system will not-- I mean, it's so close, but not quite. You won't be able to push it quite as hard, but it's very, very close. And also, dependent upon applications, actually, there's times when you can push the interchangeable system harder than you can the solid carbide. And there's reasons for using solid carbide.

But let's take a look just between 2.9 cubic inches in an ISO P material that I selected and did all the parameter-- did all the calculations on-- to 3.4. Yes, the solid carbide, as I mentioned, will be a little bit better, or a little bit increased in the overall productivity, in terms of metal removal. But if you're not pushing it to the maximum limits, you're probably not seeing that difference anyway. And if you can drill those holes with the SUMOCHAM, you're using 97% less carbide.

And this doesn't even go into all the other reasons why an interchangeable or a modular system can be a better solution overall. Because of the versatility to change to different head geometries for different materials, I mean, the options are endless. That SUMOCHAM tool right there will have 50 different drill heads you can put in it with the variables between diameter, and different materials, and different geometries, self-centering, double margin for accuracy, all the different heads-- 50 choices compared to one solid carbide drill.

You'll have a hard time keeping up with the productivity. If you're taking the time to make sure you grabbed the right head, and do the right things with the SUMOCHAM system, you will not beat the production. But the main thing to say here is that, from a sustainability standpoint, 97% less carbide for each head-to-drill comparison. That's huge.

OK, so just want to close by saying, thank you for taking the time to watch this. And if you saw anything that was interesting, please reach out to ISCAR, to our main customer service web page. They'll get you in contact with specialists, and with individuals in your area who can help you, or can help you achieve these goals of increasing utilization with your cutting tools, and your processes. And thanks to Autodesk for including ISCAR in this wonderful event, and for having the opportunity to present to you today. Thank you.