Technological solutions for machine tool manufacturers

The machine tool manufacturing sector is primarily export-oriented. According to AFM data, Spain is the third largest producer of machine tools in the European Union and the ninth largest manufacturer worldwide. This economic reality implies the need to compete internationally with other producers and make a strong commitment to technological solutions.

New technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Industrial Robotics, Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality are transforming the industry. Companies are immersed in a process of digitalization and implementation of intelligent solutions to evolve towards Industry 4.0.

Learn the best way to digitize the 4.0 company.

Adapting to this new scenario involves implementing innovations that help the sector face challenges such as improving productivity, training personnel, prototyping parts design or monitoring processes, such as the case of the Uktena intelligent industrial assistant.

In this post, we will show you which technological solutions can best help in these areas of the machine tool manufacturing industry.

Let's go!

Challenges for machine tool manufacturers

Machine tools are motorized solutions manufactured to shape solid materials. There are many examples, from lathes commonly used in many industries to machining centers, drilling and cutting machines, metalworking machines, or metallurgical machines.

We are talking about high-precision solutions that can work with a wide variety of materials, although they are mainly focused on producing metal parts, which can later be used in the manufacture of other machines, with the B2B sector and the industry itself being the main client, in sectors such as automotive, aeronautics, or energy.

Since industries are in the midst of a process of adaptation to Industry 4.0, many need to renew their industrial equipment, so machine tool manufacturers play a very important role in this technological transformation. Improving efficiency and productivity will be key to maintaining the strategic positioning that many companies have achieved.

Given their characteristics, machine tool manufacturing must consider various challenges:

• Training and Education: Prototyping and designing machine tools must provide maximum efficiency and functionality to meet market demands.
• Costs: Optimizing costs in manufacturing processes is an essential competitiveness factor that must be worked on to improve profitability in a globalized and highly competitive market.
• Personnel Training: Machine tool manufacturing requires high-precision processes, where it is necessary to rigorously monitor the tasks of operators and industrial machines and robots to ensure efficiency and productivity and minimize possible errors.
• Process Control and Monitoring: The complexity of manufacturing various parts requires optimizing the monitoring of each process to act quickly and avoid incurring overhead costs due to a higher number of defective units.
• Additive Manufacturing and 3D Printing: 3D printing is one of the main challenges in the machine tool manufacturing sector. Many companies in the sector are understanding the potential of high-precision additive machines compared to traditional models and require solutions that allow them to adapt to demand.

How to increase efficiency and process control in machine tool manufacturers

To address the challenges of machine tool manufacturers, there are technological solutions that can play a decisive role in improving efficiency and productivity in production plants, as well as in the design and prototyping of advanced machine tools.

The implementation of an intelligent industrial advisor plays a key role in an industry where achieving the highest degree of agility, efficiency, and precision is essential to create an attractive and reliable product.

The role of our intelligent industrial advisor, easy to install, would allow:

• Visualizing sensor data in real-time in your production plants, increasing the chances of achieving manufacturing KPIs.
• Creating and manipulating 3D objects of parts and components used for machine tool design, both in prototyping new parts and during the production process.
• Assisting operators in real-time with instructions on the most complex and high-precision tasks they must perform to achieve the greatest harmony between all areas of the production plant.
• Having a better understanding and visualization of the data from the machine tool production processes, so you can detect improvement points to optimize production and costs.

Mixed Reality: your intelligent industrial advisor for machine tool manufacturers

New technologies in the machine tool sector play a key role in process control and cost efficiency. One of them is Mixed Reality, which combines virtual and physical objects to provide a combined interface.

Through glasses similar to Virtual Reality, operators can work with real-time data visualization while interacting with virtual 3D and physical objects for designing or producing metal parts for machine tools, with detailed instructions to improve productivity and avoid errors during the process.

Implementing this type of solution is easy, does not require a high investment, and facilitates different areas that play a key role in competitiveness.

• Improvement of production processes
• Minimization of errors
• Real-time data visualization
• Easy integration with your business software solutions

With Uktena, machine tool manufacturing companies can address some of their main challenges, improve their efficiency, and adapt to the needs of a constantly evolving market.

If you want to know more about our proposal, we invite you to try our free demo, where you can test the product and its advantages, and we will make you a personalized proposal that fits the needs of your industry in the machine tool production sector.