Manufacturer of Food Processing Machine

The company is taking advantage of the excess capacity created by the economic downturn to rebuild key machines including a 100-hp Waldrich Coburg portal gantry mill, a twin-traveling column Mazak horizontal machining center and a Makino HMC with a 40-in. work cube. "At the onset of the recovery, quick delivery is going to be as critical as price," says Schuitemaker. "The rebuilds coupled with lean practices will be crucial to our objectives of increased velocity and plant capacity, even with a reduced workforce, while allowing us to hold prices down through internal cost reduction." With the current economic conditions, manufacturers have faced the double-edged challenge of having to reduce staff and resist price increases to offset revenue losses. While Cincinnati has reduced staff in the last year, it has kept machine prices at 2007 levels.

"A core competency is production of our own machine control hardware and software," says Schuitemaker. "We recently incorporated surface-mount manufacturing capabilities by purchasing pick-and-place robots and automated soldering machines. This allows us to reduce lead times and use smaller components for smaller footprints on more complex circuit boards."

Also demonstrating Cincinnati's commitment to lean practices is the new Web-based machine diagnostics/monitoring system that allows customers access to remote troubleshooting services. "We found that a third of our service calls can quickly be solved using remote diagnostics," says Schuitemaker. "And if a service call is required, remote diagnostics allows us to identify and ship the required parts so they are at the customer's site even before the service rep arrives."

l technologies to power and manage the motion. For one recent customer requirement, where a major agricultural equipment builder needed grinding, turning and turn-grind machines, EMAG looked to its longtime partner Siemens for a standardized CNC solution.