EDM IN MEDICAL MANUFACTURING

摘要

Machine makers are expanding what medical manufacturers can do with electrical discharge machining while refining the process itself. That's what Makino EDM product line manager Brian Pfluger was told - loudly - by a medical-industry customer after Pfluger recommended he use coated wire to make a custom housing for cancer treatment machines. Coated wire costs twice as much as uncoated, standard brass wire, so its use in the client's application would increase manufacturing costs by about $100. But, as Pfluger demonstrated to the red-faced client, the coated wire used in conjunction with Makino's (Auburn Hills, MI) high-energy applied technology - or HEAT - would make a 60-hour job into a 34-hour task: A cost-benefit analysis revealed the client would save money, not waste it unnecessarily, because the 26 hours saved on the custom housing job would allow the client to earn $1300-$3900 in machine time for another piece, based on shop-time estimates of $50-$150 per hour. "What's more valuable to your operations," Pfluger asked his client, "saving $100 in manufacturing costs, or gaining 26 additional hours of billable machine time?"