….And Then We Decided To Automate, Part II

  We chose a CNC machine for our shop! Now what?
  After writing a really big check, we started getting a little stressed out. Doubts about our decision to spend a quarter-of-a-million dollars reverberated long after Northwood Stoneworks deposited the down payment.
  Once the mad production season we had experienced in December ebbed (this rush of work led us to purchase the machine), we were wondering if we really needed all the overhead that would come with the new CNC.
  Too late for that, though – CNC school in Kentucky was four weeks away, and we had plenty of physical preparations to make for our new machine.
  Water was the first issue. Once we studied the specs, we realized we would need to get a bigger pump for our recycling pond. (Our shop uses two very large concrete ponds for recycling.) CNCs use gallons upon gallons per minute of coolant.
  Then we figured out that we would have to run recycled water to our saw, since we didn’t have enough line pressure for the new CNC for fresh water going through the spindle. We plumbed like mad for several days, which disrupted our production schedule and was the beginning of what was to be several weeks of stress and down time in our shop.
  Then came the electrical fiasco. Our shop only has 400 amps of service at 230 volts three-phase. We had to purchase a transformer that, once hooked up, left our shop with only 220 amps to run everything else. We were able to make it work, but we are at the point if we plug in a hair dryer, the shop will explode. The next time we purchase a machine, we’ll need to upgrade our service to 480 volts.
  We were within 40 amps of having to either disconnect the AC in our office, or spend and additional $20,000 upgrading our service. Make sure you have the power or the resources to upgrade before you buy a large machine.
  We had to run air to the location where the machine was going to be set up. We installed phone lines and Internet connectivity. We had to jump power to where the overhead laser would be located.
  We decided to build a “clean” room for digitizing and doing our programming. This little project went over budget, and was still not completed the day the machine showed up.
  I have to tell you I felt like I was chained to a railroad crossing and had a freight train bearing down on me as we prepared for the machine and tried to keep running the shop – and actually make money to pay for some of the “hidden” costs that kept cropping up.
  While all of this chaos was taking place, my operations manager and I flew to Kentucky to begin CNC training.
  I am a little computer savvy … but, having said that, I was ill-prepared for the week of drawing and programming classes. I don’t think there was anything I could have done ahead of time that would of helped, and I’m certain that – no matter what kind of CNC machine you decide to purchase – you’ll find the process a little challenging.
  I’ve been a Macintosh user all my life, and simply getting used to a mouse with buttons was slowly blowing my mind. I sat in the classroom, trying to absorb volumes of information, and had short bouts of panic wondering if I had just made the biggest mistake of my life.
  By the third day, I was honestly starting to freak out on the inside. There were only two days of training left, and we went out to a real machine and started going through procedures.
  I couldn’t remember a damn thing! The control panel looked like the cockpit of a space shuttle. Acronyms and words were printed on a myriad of buttons that my little brain could not recall the meaning of why they were there and what they did.
  I just kept thinking to myself; “Mark, you just burned a quarter-million dollars, and the family is going to starve when I go out of business.”
  By day five, I felt a little better … but not much. The classroom is not the real world, and I was concerned that it was going to get worse, not better. I arrived home on Saturday, and our machine was due to show up in less than 10 days.
  That Monday, I walked into my shop and realized that my main door might be too small for the machine to fit through. I called Northwood and was assured it would fit. Then the rigger showed up to examine our shop and figure out a plan to get the machine in.
  He said, “No problems, man. Relax. We will show up on Friday and have it in place by noon.” I could not wrap my brain around how they were going to get this huge machine into the shop.
  On Friday morning, the shrink-wrapped CNC machine showed up on a huge semi. I was excited and stressed out at the same time. This was a pretty big deal to us.
  It was an incredible process watching these guys unload it. They brought the biggest forklift I’d ever seen, picked the machine up and set it down on skates, and pushed it in with the forklift. It probably took less than two hours from start to finish.
  That evening, after everyone left the shop, I sat there for a long time and still wondered if I had made the right choice. The Northwood 138 is a huge machine. It made my bridge saw look like a toy.
  On Monday, the installation team showed up. By noon, they had the CNC powered it up. The install tech started leveling and testing, while the other tech got the software set up and started training me all over again. I started digitizing templates and writing programs for real kitchens.
  Things were starting to click; the original classroom training started making more sense. For some reason, I was more comfortable and confident.
  By Wednesday morning we had finished tool setup; this is a complicated process when you do it for the first time. That afternoon, we started making parts. I will never forget the first part we made.
  Then, we had some malfunctions. It turned out I didn’t have enough compressed air when four Alpha Professional Tools® polishers ran at the same time as the CNC. We wound up buying a stand-alone compressor for the CNC.
  By Friday, we’d made two kitchens, and I was still a little shaky on actually running the thing without a tech standing there. I said to Bob as he packed his tools and manuals; “I feel like I am being thrown under the bus here! You can’t leave yet!”
  He looked me in the eye and said; “Mark, you need to relax. You understand this machine, and you will be fine. If you have any problems, call me; I will fly back out for another week.”
  I replied that I would hold him to his word.
  On Saturday, I went back to the shop by myself and wrote programs and ran simulations all day long. No distractions, no phones, no techs. Just the machine and me.
  The next Monday, I started building kitchens and haven’t looked back.
  I have no regrets. The addition of this technology eliminated two employees and almost all of my shop overtime. We are able to make shapes and edges that were a nightmare in the past with the simple click of a mouse. We are making more money, and quality of life for myself and my remaining workers has improved.
  Next month I will share with you some things we have learned about running the CNC, and how the technology has changed the way we do business.
  If you would like to see more pictures of our CNC being made, set up and operating, visit the photo gallery at www.stoneadvice.com. If you have a question post it in the forum and our panel of moderators will try to answer your query.
  ‘Til next time … Mark Lauzon, stonecutter.
  Mark Lauzon is a fabricator in Oregon and the administrator of www.stoneadvice.com, a Website dedicated to slab fabrication.

This article first appeared in the October 2005 print edition of Stone Business. ©2005 Western Business Media Inc.