Iowa Public Television

Challenge Question Number 1 for Senior CNC Programmer #1181

Clearly describe what you expect from the students:
The part that was described in the challenge originally was programmed at 10 inches per minute with four cuts. The new tool will be programmed at six inches per minute with two cuts and the lengths of all the cuts are six inches long. The old tool will survive 10 parts with the cost of the tool being $50. The new tool will survive for 6 parts with the cost of the tool being $35.
A) Which tool was the faster to run?
B) Which tool cost the most to use?
C) Is it justified to change over to the new tool?

In order to give the teacher some guidance in evaluating the student's project(s); list some tips that may help to assess the student's work:
With quality being our main goal, we have to come up with the best solution to run our parts. Some questions you might ask would be:
A)Does the new process change the quality of our end result?
B)How many times are we going to run this job? Was it a onetime thing?
C) What are our labor costs involved here:
1.Time involved to re-program job.
2.Time machine is down waiting for new program,
3.Time the operator is waiting.
D) Using a different vendor to be able to buy the tooling cheaper.
E) Sometimes the operator doesn't see the cost of the tooling; he/she sees only the time saved at the machine.