Reply To: Happy holidays…

[david pierce]

William,
It is really about working with your mind and not your hands. Have you ever met anyone who could actually remove metal with their bare hands? Also, there is a concept that running a CNC machine takes less skill than running a manual machine. I have done both and have found this not to be true. After serving out an apprenticeship on manual lathes and mills, the owner of the company asked me to take over the CNC department. I ran it for nine years before getting the position of VP of engineering. I have never seen one instance where these machines ran themselves. I did however see the person who replaced me turn over $100,000.00 in MARTA train gears into scrap metal. Whenever you see a video of these machines running you only see the spray of coolant and the machine making parts with no one turning any handwheels. What the video does not show is the planning, programing, tool and fixture making, machine set up, testing and inspecting that must go on in order to produce correct parts. These machines can make a lot of good parts fast but they can also make a lot of bad parts fast. They can also produce complex geometries that would be extremely difficult or impossible to do with manual machinery.
david