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Jerry Broughman, president and CEO of Controlled Turning Inc. (Jackson, MI), has been at the helm since the company was founded 30 years ago. Today, CTI has 26 employees, occupies 7,500 sq ft and operates an array of CNC turning and milling equipment, mostly for short run jobs – a lot of short run jobs.
Last year 40,000 different types of parts went through the shop – a lot of variety, diversity and changeover. "Our growth is slow on purpose," Broughman says. "We like to grow in step with our customers' needs. We're not the kind of operation that throws money at things and hopes something works. We take our lead from our customers."
Broughman describes how the company does tooling for the auto industry – not parts for cars, but rather for tooling to make components for cars. CTI also does hydraulic and pneumatic components, along with medical and dental components.
Machined materials include virtually all forms of ferric and non-ferric material, mild steel, medium alloys, stainless and tool steels, brass and aluminum. "When we pick up a new customer, we grow to fill his needs at that moment," explains Broughman. "Our plans for this coming year are to expand by 3000 sq ft, providing the growth is still there. We were going to do this last year, but we ran out of time and then the weather got to us."
However, when it comes to upgrading technology, that's a different issue entirely. Broughman says the company constantly looks at new equipment, both as additions and replacements. They replace controls on a regular basis. "We use nothing but Fanuc controls and drives," he says, "and Fanuc offers an update every year, so we upgrade about every four or five years."
It's been two to three years since Broughman bought three machines from GBI Cincinnati, Inc.(Cincinnati, OH), a Feeler FV-760 CNC vertical machining center and two Feeler FTC-20 CNC turning centers. "We'd had a relationship with Methods and Equipment Associates (Livonia, MI) going back to 1985, and we always called them in when we needed something new," remarks Broughman. "They began representing GBI Cincinnati and introduced us to the Feeler line. We needed some additional capacity in turning and milling, and our Methods guy suggested we try the Feelers."
One FTC-20 replaced an older machine and the other FTC-20 and the FV-760 were additions to his arsenal of 15 CNC machines. The FV-760 is a 40 taper, 10 hp, 8000 rpm VMC with 30 in x 16.5 in x 20 in travel (X, Y and Z) and linear guideways. Table size is 35 in x 16.5 in with a 660 lb load capacity.
Rapids are 944 in/min (X, Y and Z), positioning accuracy is ±0.0004 in and repeatability is ±0.0002 in. The 18-tool carousel has a tool-to-tool change of 7 sec. The two FTC-20 CNC turning centers have an 8 in chuck diameter, 20 hp, 4500 rpm with a spindle bore of 2.44 in and a bar capacity of 2.04 in. Travels are 7.9 in (X) and 14.96 (Z) with rapids of 944 in/min (X and Z) and repeatability of ±0.00012 in (X) and ±0.0002 in (Z).