After working with Automated Machinery on several emergency repairs, Tom Denio, Fabrication Manager at MTC, started looking at the long-term advantages of an AMI Schedule Maintenance Program. "If you depend on a machine the way we depend on the 4560, you're playing with fire if you don't have a consistent PM program," concludes Denio.

Even with AMI's SMP, MTC was still having nagging issues with the older control on their W-4560. Automated Machinery addressed this problem by removing the outdated W3 Control and DC drive motors, replacing them with a state-of-the-art CNC and digital servo system. Tom remarks, "Since the retrofit, the increased reliability of this control has been like night and day. We can really depend on this CNC."

Having worked with AMI on both a retrofit and Scheduled Maintenance Program, the level of support that MTC gets from AMI has been significant to them.

Over the last 20+ years IMH Products (Indianapolis, IN) has weathered auto industry consolidations, defense industry cutbacks and general economic slow-downs by diversifying its base of customers and applications, while staying focused on what they do best . . . manufacturing precision sheet metal parts for Midwestern OEMs.

Five years ago, this same mindset led IMH to take a focused approach to protecting and maintaining their most valuable production assets; three CNC Amada turret presses. They didn't have a maintenance staff that could run the kind of preventive maintenance program that they needed and preferred to dedicate their people to production of quality parts, not machine maintenance.

In 1998, AMI put together a comprehensive Quarterly Maintenance Program for IMH, including service and inspection of their three punch presses. Five Press Brakes were later added to the program.

This program has been instrumental in improving machine reliability, reducing component wear, providing maintenance documentation for IMH’s ISO requirements, and helping IMH keep their focus where it belongs … on the production of quality sheetmetal components for their customers.

Posten also said, "During each quarterly service visit, our maintenance associates work with the AMI technician, which increases their knowledge of the equipment and reduces the downtime for emergency repairs. Also, AMI phone support during emergency repairs is very good, and this, along with the in-house training, helps us maintain our turret press runtime and machine reliability."

"I can depend on AMI to arrive on schedule, and to complete and document services that are effective in maintaining these machines, with minimum supervision from me," he continued. "And this SMP is an all-inclusive predictive, preventative and repair process. I have had preventive maintenance providers for other manufacturing equipment that leave me with a long list of repairs and no solution to the actual problems. "But with AMI's SMP, most problems found during the scheduled service are repaired before the field engineer leaves. Major repairs can be budgeted and scheduled for a later date based on urgency, cost and production requirements."

Posten added, "Each of these elements - predictive, preventive and repair - contributes to maximizing machine uptime."