When you evaluate a precision parts manufacturer, it’s easy to look at an equipment list. It’s essential to see what CNC machines they have, how many axes can they machine, what inspection equipment do they use, and how automated is their operation.
Does reviewing the equipment list show how a precision parts manufacturer use its technology to make precision parts better?
At Pazmac, technology isn’t simply about having the latest equipment on our manufacturing floor. It’s about combining the right technology with experienced people, proven processes and real-time information to consistently manufacture high-quality precision parts.
We call this Pazmac’s Technology Toolbox.
Just like our Business Toolbox, what matters isn’t simply what’s inside it. It’s knowing which tools to use, when to use them and how to get the most from them.
Tool #1: Advanced Multi-Axis CNC Machining
Complex parts often become more difficult to manufacture when they require multiple setups, machines and operations. Every additional setup can introduce another opportunity for variation. It can also add production time, handling and cost. That’s why multi-axis machining is such an important tool.
Pazmac’s advanced DMG MORI CNC turning and multi-axis machining centres allow our team to manufacture complex geometries while reducing the number of setups and operations required. The real value for using these machines comes from understanding how to take advantage of their capabilities.
Our team considers:
- Can this part be manufactured in fewer setups?
- Can multiple operations be consolidated?
- Can we improve repeatability by reducing part handling?
- Is there a better way to machine a difficult feature?
- Can we improve cycle time without compromising quality?
The objective isn’t simply to use advanced equipment. It’s to use it intelligently.
Tool #2: Automation
Where does automation make manufacturing better? That is the question we ask not simply, “What can we automate?”. Automation can improve repeatability, increase machine utilization and allow manufacturing processes to operate more consistently. It can also free skilled people to focus their attention where their experience and judgment create greater value.
For our customers, effective automation can contribute to more predictable production, consistent quality and reliable delivery. But automation never replaces manufacturing expertise.
At Pazmac, we see it as another tool that helps our people do their jobs better.
Tool #3: Real-Time Manufacturing Data
You can’t improve what you can’t see. Manufacturing data gives our team greater visibility into what is actually happening on the shop floor.
Real-time machine monitoring allows us to better understand machine utilization, production performance and potential inefficiencies. Instead of relying solely on assumptions, our team can use actual manufacturing data to identify opportunities for improvement. That leads to better questions and outcomes. We ask:
- Why did this operation take longer than expected?
- Where are we losing productive machine time?
- Is there an opportunity to improve the process before the next production run?
Technology gives us the information. Our people determine what to do with it.
Tool #4: Advanced Inspection and Verification
For customers in industries such as aerospace and defence, subsea, semiconductor, medical and other demanding applications, making the part isn’t enough. You need confidence that it meets the exacting specification.
Pazmac uses advanced inspection, measurement and quality-control technologies throughout the manufacturing process to verify dimensional accuracy and consistency.
The important distinction is that quality isn’t something we inspect into a part at the end of production.
Inspection technology provides our team with information throughout the process so we can identify variation, understand what is happening and respond before a potential issue becomes a larger problem.
Because finding a problem is useful but preventing it is better.
Tool #5: Technology for Challenging Parts and Materials
Some parts simply aren’t easy to manufacture. They may have complex geometries, exceptionally tight tolerances, difficult-to-machine materials or a combination of all three.
Pazmac has never shied away from these challenges. Our team works with everything from plastics, brass and aluminum to stainless steels, nickel-based alloys and other demanding materials.
Advanced CNC milling technology gives us capabilities that weren’t possible a generation ago. But successfully manufacturing these parts still requires something technology can’t provide on its own, experience.
Understanding tooling, speeds, feeds, material behaviour, inspection and process strategy comes from people who have spent years solving manufacturing problems.
That’s why one of the most powerful tools in Pazmac’s Technology Toolbox is the combination of advanced technology and experienced people.
Tool #6: Continual Investment and Improvement
The Technology Toolbox is never finished. Manufacturing technology continues to evolve. Machines become more capable. Automation becomes more sophisticated. Inspection becomes more precise. Manufacturing data becomes more accessible.
Our responsibility is to continually ask which technologies can genuinely make us better at manufacturing our customers’ parts. We invest in technology when we believe it can improve quality, consistency, productivity, capacity or our ability to solve increasingly difficult manufacturing challenges.
Our objective isn’t to own technology. Its to create better manufacturing outcomes.
The Most Important Tool Is Knowing How to Use the Technology
A machine specification can tell you what a piece of equipment is capable of doing. It can’t tell you what the people operating it are capable of accomplishing.
That’s an important distinction.
Pazmac’s Technology Toolbox combines advanced CNC machining, automation, manufacturing data, inspection and continually evolving technology with the experience and problem-solving ability of our people.
And that’s where Pazmac’s Technology Toolbox and Business Toolbox come together.
- Our Technology Toolbox gives us powerful manufacturing capabilities.
- Our Business Toolbox helps us determine how to apply those capabilities to solve our customers’ challenges.
Technology. Experience. Data. Precision. People.
All working toward the same objective: consistently delivering the highest-quality precision parts while finding better ways to manufacture them.
Have a challenging part? Let’s open the Pazmac Toolbox to solve it.
Expect More.
