The latest edition of Production Machining magazine features an article on Gent Machine and our automated CNC machining. To better serve our customers as well as help with the labor shortage, we have been looking for ways to automate a process. For one specific part, we purchased a Takamaz J-Wave which is an automated solution for turning smaller parts.

The Takamaz J-Wave has an autoloader with grippers that pick up the part off a conveyor. The gripper places the part in the main spindle collet and the machining process begins. After machining is complete the part is ejected down a chute or the gripper arm can pull the part out while placing a new part in the collet. In our specific application we chose for the gripper to remove the part from the collet while then putting a new part in the collet. Although this machine can turn, drill, bore, as a whole host of other operations we are just facing and drilling these parts.

We chose this machine because of it's small footprint, it's integration to a bowl feeder and it's fast cycle time. As you can see in the article the machine uses a smooth transition of the bowl feeder onto the loading conveyor which makes the process seamless and running nearly non-stop. This machine is truly our first solution to an automated machining process.

A link to the article can be seen below. 

https://www.productionmachining.com/articles/high-volume-machine-shop-automates-secondary-ops