See Your Finished Product Before It Goes To Production: How Index Machines Do It
Index machines are special industrial machines that are able to do a wide variety of manufacturing tasks. It would be very surprising to walk into your factory and not see an index machine in operation. If you do not have at least one of these machines helping you produce something, you may want to purchase and install one for the mere reason that you can see a finished product before you ever start production. Here is how an index machine with XPanel i4.0 software does just that.
The Touchscreen
Touchscreens are everywhere now, even in the industrial and manufacturing sector. It eliminates the hassle of extra equipment, like a keyboard, and gives your CNC machinists greater control over the pre-programmed commands for production. The touchscreen also allows you to see multiple simulations of a single production to help you decide which route you want to take on a project for a client.
The Software
The XPanel i4.0 software coordinates with the touchscreen and your machinist's knowledge of the various manufacturing tools. Your machinist hits the button on the screen for "simulation" and then punches in the machining tasks, material types, material sizes and expected final product dimensions. There may be a few other options for the simulation which your machinist can choose, but since a simulation can be run as many times as you need it to, your machinist can re-program the simulation with these other options for another round.
Then the machinist hits "run sim" on the screen, and voila! You can see the full production of the product on the index machine's screen as if the project were operating in real time. For projects that have steps that would ordinarily take several hours, you can speed up the simulation too so that you can see the full effect in abbreviated time. If your client or customer is not present to witness the simulation(s), you can save the simulation(s) and send it/them to the client or customer for viewing at his or her discretion.
Training on an Index Machine
Most machinists under the age of thirty who have graduated with a degree in this field have already learned how to use this software and the touchscreen in index machines. If you have some older machinists who are unfamiliar with this technology after your company has purchased and installed an Index machine, you need not worry. The screen and software is fairly intuitive, so your older machinists will catch on quickly, even for the simulations.
For more information, contact companies like Hales Machine Tool Inc.