Manufacturers can ramp up product.
There will be more than one new machine introduced at IMTS 2006 that will be billed as a China beater, or as an India and rest-of-Asia beater, for that matter.
U.S. manufacturers ranging from entrepreneurial job shops to Tier suppliers and general engineering manufacturers will have a chance to hone their competitiveness with the latest advanced technology. The usual ways to sharpen that edge are to reduce labor content and cycle times, extend untended manufacturing capability, and deliver parts machined complete in one setup to required precision-finish quality.
Twin-Spindle Machine
Xi-Mill in 3 x 3 MM configuration is a twin carriage dual-spindle high-speed machining center for higher volume single and/or dual workzone machining. The X-Mill features two independently operating three-axis spindle modules. Two spindles are always machining either the same or two different parts. The X-Mill modules traverse at 2363 ipm (60 m/min), feed to 1181 ipm (30 m/min), accelerate at 0.5 g and have two 30 hp (22-kW), 15,000-rpm spindles.
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This article first appeared in Society of Manufacturing Engineers.Tags : 2 machines in one, 2 spindles, 240 inch and larger working envelope, 6 meter, 6m, dual spindle, dual work zone, long x travel