(l-r) Arnot Heller and brother Matt Heller beside the Doosan MV 5025/50 50-taper 4-axis VMC, holding a truck bushing machined in the automated MV 5025/50.
Robot removing blanks from the automatic loading station (right) and removing a finished bushing and replacing it with the blank. Finished bushing is dropped into parts bin.
Finished truck bushings in the parts bin at the Doosan MV5025/50.
The automatic loading station on the Doosan MV 5025/50 4-axis VMC. Here the bushing blanks await robot picking.
Arnot Heller and his brother Matt own Central Screw Products (CSP), a small machine shop in the suburbs of Detroit, MI, which their father had purchased from his father in the early 1970's. Initially CSP focused on production turning, for customers like Stanley Tool.
Since taking over from their father, Arnot and Matt have made it their goal to venture out into more complex jobs. "That was one of our problems," said Arnot. "Customers tend to put you into a box, and they like to keep you there. They come to associate your name with certain types of parts and capabilities - whether you have exceeded those capabilities or not."
Currently, CSP employs 12 in a 15,000 sq. ft. facility with six machine tools - two 3-axis mills, one Doosan MV 5025/50 50-taper 4-axis vertical machining center (VMC) equipped with automated part loading and robotic part handling and two milling machines with 5-axis trunnion tables that allow 3+2 positioning, and a Doosan Puma MX 1600ST turn-mill multitasking machine with nine full axes. Common materials include aluminum, carbon steel, stainless and tool steel. Major markets are heavy truck - in particular suspension components - and auto racing. Tolerances are typically 0.001" to 0.0002" when hard turning.
"We had a light duty VMC doing critical taps on a heavy truck bushing, and the machine had enough power and torque to drive one of the critical taps, but it could not drive the other," said Arnot. "So, we started thinking about buying another VMC, with more torque and more rigidity. About this time I had been talking to an industry peer who had successfully replaced a lot of their VMC's with heavy-duty machines from Doosan."
Arnot researched the specifications for the Doosan range of VMCs and found that he could get a VMC for a competitive price and quick delivery from Doosan with the high performance specifications Arnot required. The Doosan MV Series features box guideways, which provides rigidity, and could be ordered with a 50-taper spindle, which is capable of taking deep cuts. So, in 2009 Doosan had an MV 5025/50 on its floor and CSP bought it.
Once the VMC arrived at CSP, the first order of business was to automate it. "My brother and I took automation classes in high school before getting our engineering degrees," Arnot explained, "so we knew about automation and how automation should work. We called the robot manufacturer and told them that we wanted to buy a robot, and they told us to go through an approved integrator. We told him we did not want to go through an integrator, we wanted to install the robot ourselves. The robot manufacturer asked how we knew about the robots. We told them we had used the robots in high school. Once they heard that, they said we could buy a robot from them. We picked up our first robot with my Dad's Suburban. We did the integration ourselves, with some software help from Doosan's team in New Jersey."
The next thing they did was design and build a part loading system, so the robot could pick up a new part from the loading station, take it to the Doosan VMC, pick up the finished part from the VMC and load the new part into the VMC and then drop the finished part into a parts bin.
"When we ran that job manually, we would get 500 pieces a day. Then with the previous machine aided by a Bardons and Oliver lathe doing the finish tapping, and we would produce about 1,200 pieces per day. When we changed to the Doosan VMC integrated with a robot and the new loading system, we could produce about 1,800 pieces per day. Lately, we have had someone come in at night and load the machine up, and now we are producing 2,600 pieces per day. This is a five-fold increase in throughput," said Arnot. "We run roughly half a million cycles a year on our Doosan vertical machining center. And the beautiful thing about the MV 5025/50 is that it is constantly running."
For more information contact:
Arnot Heller, III
Central Screw Products
1070 Maplelawn Dr.
Troy, MI 48084
313-893-9100
www.centralscrewproducts.com
Dave Barber
General Manager of Marketing
Doosan Infracore Machine Tools
19A Chapin Road
Pine Brook, NJ 07058
973-618-2500
dbarber@doosan.com
www.doosanmachinetoolsusa.com
Southwest
S. TX
Jack Butts
AmTTech
10010 Houston Oaks Drive
Houston, TX 77064
832-912-2000
sales@amttech.net
www.amttech.net
N. TX
AmTTech
3301 Pleasant Valley Lane
Arlington, TX 76015
832-912-2000
sales@amttech.net
www.amttech.net
OK
Jack DeLaughter
Machine Tool Specialties, Inc.
5280 S. 100th East Avenue
Tulsa, OK 74146
918-622-0018
jackde@machinetoolspecialties.com
www.machinetoolspecialties.com
LA
H&S Machinery Corp.
1941 Industrial Blvd.
Harvey, LA 70058
504-347-5707
sales@hsmachinery.com
www.hsmachinery.com
S. NM, El Paso, TX
Dick Short
Adams Machinery
215 S. Rockford Dr. #101
Tempe, AZ 85281
480-968-3711
Dick@adamsmachineryaz.com
www.adamsmachineryaz.com
AR
Rick Boedeker
Technical Machinery
133 Kelly Drive
Rogers, AR 72756
479-636-1884
boedeker@techmach.net
N. NM
Rick Samuelson
Foothills Machinery Sales
6855 West 116th Avenue
Broomfield, CO 80020
303-466-3777
rick@foothillsmachinery.com
www.foothillsmachinery.com
Southeast
AL, MS, FL Panhandle, TN
Steve Wherry
Cardinal Machinery
7535 Appling Center Drive
Memphis, TN 38133
901-377-3107
info@cardinalmachinery.com
www.cardinalmachinery.com
NC, SC, GA
Carl Amick
Machinery Solutions, Inc.
1681 Two Notch Road
Lexington, SC 29073
803-359-7000
info@machinerysolutions.com
www.machinerysolutions.com
VA
Don Deakyne
Production Machinery Assoc., Inc.
475 McLaws Circle, Suite 3-A
Williamsburg, VA 23185
757-258-5800
drd@productionmachinery.net
www.productionmachinery.net
FL
Kevin McCarthy
APT Machine Tools
4250 St. Johns Parkway
Sanford, FL 32771
321-280-2481
machinesalesapt@aptmtools.com
www.aptmtools.com
Northeast
NY
David Barclay
Syracuse Supply Machine Tools
43 Co. Rte. 59
Phoenix, NY 13135
315-695-2008
Kevin McCarthy
Syracuse Supply Machine Tools
575 Ludwig Avenue
Cheektowaga, NY 14227
716-893-3643
sales@syracuse-supply.com
www.Syracuse-Supply.com
CT, ME, MA, NH, RI, VT
Alan Lockery
ABLE Machine Tools Sales, Inc.
800 Silver Street
Agawam, MA 01001
413-786-4662
www.ablemts.com
W. PA, WV
Bruce R. Yeager
Allegheny Machine Tool Systems, Inc.
632 E. McMurray Road
McMurray, PA 15317
800-269-4090
724-942-4451
www.allegmach.com
E. PA
Randy Heck
Precision Machine Tool Solutions
571 Mountain Home Road
Sinking Spring, PA 19608
610-670-6780
rheck@pmtscnc.com
www.pmtscnc.com
MD, DE, DC
Mike DeMarti
MD Machinery Inc.
1994 Conan Doyle Way
Eldersburg, MD 21784
410-795-4694
mdmachinery@comcast.net
Metro NY, NJ
Angelo Pennetti
21st Century Machine Tools
1140 Bloomfield Ave. Ste. 228
West Caldwell, NJ 07006
973-808-2220
kim@21stcmt.com
Midwest
N. & Central IL, N.W. IN
John Schneider
520 Machinery Sales
620 Estes Ave.
Schaumburg, IL 60193
888-520-1768
John@520machinery.com
www.520Machinery.com
S. IL, E. MO
Technical Machinery
11 Harvest Point
Collinsville, IL 62234
618-346-4346
S. & E. IN
Technical Equipment Sales Co.
4501 Earhart Lane, Ste A
Fort Wayne, IN 46809
800-852-0582
mschlater@techequip.com
info@techquip.com
www.techequip.com
IA
Mark Gehl
Hales Machine Tool, Inc.
809 6th Ave. N.W.
Cascade, IA 52033
563-852-3595
www.halesmachinetool.com
KS, W. MO
Dennis Daugherty
Professional Sales Services, Inc.
2661 W. Esthner
Wichita, KS 67213
316-941-4542
dennied@pss.kscoxmail.com
KY, S. OH
Lou Olson
Technical Equipment Sales Co.
10165 International Blvd.
Cincinnati, OH 45246
513-874-0160
info@techequip.com
www.techequip.com
N. OH
Technical Equipment
6900 Southpointe Pkwy., Ste. A
Brecksville, OH 44141
800-852-0582
MI
Pete DeSilva
Phoenix Machine Tools
45130 Polaris Court
Plymouth, MI 48170
734-455-9122
MN, ND, SD
Tim Hales
Hales Machine Tools, Inc.
2730 Niagara Lane N.
Minneapolis, MN 55447
763-553-1711
www.halesmachinetool.com
WI
Midland Machinery, Inc.
395 Forest Grove
PO Box 5
Pewaukee, WI 53072
262-691-5700
office@midlandmachinery.net
www.midlandmachinery.net
West
Southern CA
Angelo Ariondo
Protek CNC Sales Corp.
65 West Easy Street #104
Simi Valley, CA 93065
805-579-9995
protekm@pacbell.net
sg.protekm@pacbell.net
www.protekcnc.com
Northern CA, NV
Jim Selway
CNC Solutions
1610 Centre Pointe
Milpitas, CA 95035
408-586-8236
WA, OR
Mark Harris
CNC Machine Services, Inc.
7808 184th St. SE
Snohomish, WA 98296
866-788-4500
info@cncmachineservice.com
www.cncmachineservice.com
MT, ID, UT, W. WY
Jim Grisley
J.M. Grisley Machine Tools, Inc.
1485 South 300 West
Salt Lake City, UT 84115
801-486-7519
sales@jmgrisley.com
www.jmgrisleymachine.com
N. NM, CO, E. WY
Rick Samuelson
Foothills Machinery Sales
6855 West 116th Avenue
Broomfield, CO 80020
303-466-3777
rick@foothillsmachinery.com
www.foothillsmachinery.com
AZ
Dick Short
Adams Machinery
215 S. Rockford Dr. #101
Tempe, AZ 85281
480-968-3711
Dick@adamsmachineryaz.com
www.adamsmachineryaz.com