In 2007 Bourn & Koch, Inc., embarked on an initiative to bring to the global market innovative products to replace the legacy lines of Motch and Bullard turning centers, Springfield vertical grinders, Blanchard vertical rotary surface grinders, and Fellows midrange
Bourn & Koch was sensitive to the market competition for vertical turning, vertical grinding, hard turning, rotary surface grinding, and shaping products in the 1,000 mm size range. As the OEM of these lines they tasked their engineering design team to find a way to reduce and lower manufacturing cost, improve on the old-line name brands by integrating the latest technologies, and produce the product faster. The result of researching through volumes of their OEM intellectual property, industry designs, and studying the market place was the creation in 2008 of the Bourn & Koch “composite platform” machine.
For Bourn & Koch this machine is a basic, low-cost common building block with innovative no or low maintenance technologies, and integral and linear motors with high precision feed back that could be: a vertical grinding machine (to replace their OEM Springfield designs) with hard finish turning capabilities; a vertical turning center (to replace their OEM Motch designs); a vertical gear shaper (to replace their OEM Fellows 36-6 design); a rotary surface grinder (to replace their OEM Blanchard designs) or; any combination machine of the above. For the potential customer, the benefit is a lower purchase cost, since the new machine design build cost is less than the build cost of a new machine of the old legacy design. The new design has, in most cases, 40 percent-plus fewer parts than the old legacy design. Each process configuration of the composite platform has its own set of innovative associated optional features that enhance the basic machine, peculiar to its machining application. The composite platform incorporates functionality to enhance flexibility to incorporated optional features not available in present machine platforms. Other specialty machine possibilities also presented themselves with this new composite platform. The first composite platform machines were specified to be 1000 mm capacity machines, with the first—a vertical OD/ID grinder with hard finish turning capabilities—available in the third quarter of 2009.
For Bourn & Koch, it allows the company to stock composite base units and columns—normally the longest lead and most expensive components of the old legacy designs. Stock base units and columns takes at least six weeks out the build cycle for any configuration machine. Further, it has the advantage of dramatically reducing the total assembled part count, composite components, less assembly time, no maintenance, and faster installation and startup times. From a customer perspective Bourn & Koch can offer simple composite connected machines for multiple machining operations—for example, turning, OD grinding, and gear shaping—all with connected individual machines, which essentially share similar parts and technologies. Initially Bourn & Koch will offer a composite platform design in four application configurations: 1) B&K 1000VBG CNC Vertical OD/ID grinding machine with hard finish turning capabilities; 2) B&K 1000VBT CNC Vertical turning center; 3) B&K 1000VBS CNC Gear Shaping machine; 4) B&K Combination VBT-VBS Work Center.
For more information contact Brian W. Cluff, vice president of Star SU LLC, at (847) 649-1470, bcluff@star-su.com, or [www.star-su.com]. Timothy P. Helle, president of Bourn & Koch, can be reached at (815) 965-4013, thelle@bourn-koch.com, or [www.bourn-koch.com].
