ADDMAN Precision raises CNC utilization to 65 percent with no new machines

ADDMAN Precision, an aerospace machine shop in Wright City, Missouri, raised utilization across its CNC floor from 52 percent to 65 percent over two years using Scytec's DataXchange monitoring software, without buying a single new machine. The 38,000-square-foot facility produces F-15 airframe components around the clock, and some parts require more than 100 hours of machine time each.

By the time DataXchange arrived, Chief Engineer Jerry Halley's team had already wrung out every in-cycle gain, refining spindle speeds, toolpaths and cell configurations for years. The remaining problem sat outside the cut: aerospace contracts demanded year-over-year cost reductions, but the shop had no reliable way to measure utilization or trace what was causing downtime. "The procedures that seem efficient and the procedures that are efficient might be two different things," Halley said. What's new here is that DataXchange connected ADDMAN's mixed fleet, both SNK profilers and older legacy machines, without new hardware. The software pulls from MTConnect, Fanuc FOCAS and OPC UA machines as well as older and manual equipment, reading utilization, part counts, downtime, feed rates and alarms.

The software produced a color-coded daily utilization report that the plant manager and all five cell leads reviewed every morning. A yellow column marking unexplained idle time was impossible to ignore. ADDMAN later added a Real Time View on shop floor TVs, an Operator Data Interface for logging idle reasons on the spot, and automated alerts that fired whenever a machine sat idle too long. A 5 percent gain came from the observation effect alone, before the team changed a single process.

Engineers running high-value, long-cycle jobs will recognize the stakes. On parts that tie up a machine for 100-plus hours, a 13-point utilization swing compounds into meaningful added shop capacity with no capital spending. The monitoring also surfaced spindle failure patterns that a manual walkthrough would have missed, and it gave ADDMAN's sales team a new pitch: aerospace buyers can now request a live view of job status and machine state on the floor.

DataXchange has run on ADDMAN's floor for more than ten years, but the utilization push detailed in the case study took two years to hit its 65 percent target. The shop's next goal is 70 percent.