A setting method that improves lathe productivity.

Franck Boccaccini works with gluing companies to help the gluers produce good pieces the first time.

To this end, he has drawn up a number of working rules, the result of almost 30 years of experience in machining, which will eliminate all the production stages.

If today, the workers of the DGC gluing company in Magland (Haute-Savoie) feel more confident in their work, and are more serene when they leave their machine tools running at night, unattended, they owe it to one man, Franck If today the glue makers at DGC, in Magland (Haute-Savoie), feel more confident in their work and are more serene when they leave their machine tools running at night, without supervision, they owe it to one man, Franck Boccaccini. This 51-year-old Swiss citizen spent some thirty years in industry before founding his own consulting firm in Geneva. In Geneva, he founded his own consulting firm, FBO Engineering.

Having worked as a CNC operator-programmer-generator, then in industrialization, before finishing this first part of his career as production manager, Franck Boccaccini has always had a taste for analysis and mastery of manufacturing processes. In my professional career, I have always been close to machining and process improvement," he says. And it was through this experience that I was able to refine my method. I was able to understand the issues, because of my position as production manager, and I was able to define the methods as if I were a worker.

In founding FBO Engineering, this former industrialization manager at Derendinger, a Swiss company that manufactures high-precision mechanical parts for the aviation industry, wanted to share his method in order to "bring high-performance and reliable machining solutions to customers".

His method? "Replace the variability of machining processes with simple precision settings that are accessible to all," he says.

The centering Y

And to take the example of the Y-centring of tools. "The influence of Y-centring on tool life is the variable part of a lathe and therefore the amount of error left in the centring. For Franck Boccaccini, the idea is to remove all these machining variables through simple, factual adjustments. "This shows that a precision setting stabilises the variable part of a process, so that the process no longer varies during production," he insists.

He adds that "the more tools you have to work with, the more important it is to have precision control. If you have your machine set up like a Christmas tree, you're going to have a firework display of production errors if you don't use the method that ensures reproducibility. Instead of suffering, you will guarantee times when nothing will happen, i.e. when you will not encounter any problems. Second example: a milling operation on a lathe. "If you leave a runout, some of the teeth on your cutter will be overloaded while others will be underloaded. The overloaded teeth will break before the end of the tool's life, the others will generate burrs. I have a method for reworking milling tools in turning.

In total, the Geneva-based consultant offers eight re-setting procedures. These range from barrel reaming, to Y-centring, to basket cutting. In addition, there are three NC programming rules: anti-burr, anti-overload and anti-accumulation of chips.

"We are going to decide on the toolpaths that do not generate chip accretion, overloading or burrs. The solution lies in the choice of the toolpath, and I provide the rules to be followed in creating these toolpaths," describes Franck Boccaccini.

"At the beginning, I was sceptical".

I was sceptical at first," says Gae?l, a developer at DGC. We were doing the Y-centres, but they were not as accurate as the FBO method. They are logical rules, which require more time to be spent before a production, but then you win. We no longer dare to start a series of pieces with a badly regulated tool. For Gae?l, the method has brought "a sense of security". "You replace something approximate with something 100% reproducible," adds the Swiss expert. This has allowed us to run our machines at night without over-supervision," say Eric and Gregory, two other designers at the company. It's a step forward and thanks to the FBO method we have taken this step.

For the former head of production at watchmaker Roger Dubuis in Geneva, applying his method will have several positive consequences in the life of a machining company. Gene?ve, applying his method will have several favourable consequences in the life of a machining company. And to sum up some of them: producing parts without rejects, with an OEE of 90% always achieved, eliminating customer non-conformity lists and all the corrective actions that ensue, no more need for workstations, no more need for a new production line, no more need for a new machine.No more sorting stations, no more Six Sigma, no more complicated scheduling, no more CAPM, no more dunning and planning delays due to non-conformities and production issues, and no more specific time-consuming problem-solving projects.

"21 hours of good work a day is the minimum guaranteed by FBO for those who want to apply my method," he says. People are all upset," he says, "because of problems with delays, scheduling, rework..." In the end, the subcontractor will no longer suffer the consequences of all these production problems.

Burr-free parts

Gae?l is now a more relaxed collector in the workshop. An hour of gluing on my machine allows me to be quiet for 17 hours," he says. It has become a comfort, it has made my work easier. The method has given me more desire in my work. It has motivated me. And to show the journalist a coin. "It was a nest of burrs, now I can machine it without any burrs. Some collectors remove parts made of Peek, because it is a material that makes too many burrs. By applying my method to the basket cut, you won't have any burrs," Franck Boccaccini adds.

Gae?l says again: "I have a workpiece turning at the moment. Before, I was always on my lathe pulling chips, checking dimensions. Now I don't have the chip problems because of the programming rules, and I don't have any variation on the dimensions because the basic settings have been done well.

Another testimony from Eric and Gre?gory. Each painter applied the redesign methods in his own way, which were not always easy," they say. But above all, they did not have the same reliability as FBO. Now, all our machines are regulated in the same way, regardless of the painter who works on them. And Franck Boccaccini concludes Franck Boccaccini concludes that "a company's know-how is unique from the moment it generates a team spirit that is based on the same rules.

Je?ro?me Meyrand