John Crane UK limited: The CAD-CAM Link

Introduction
Founded in March 9th 1917 Chicago by Frank Payne First product invented by John Crane (sealing rotated shaft) In 1923 a British subsidiary was set up at Payne In 1989 the PBI was 32 million on turnover of 239 million It had subsidiaries in Austria , Belgium, Germany, Holland, Italy, Sweden, Spain Switzerland and a joint venture in china.

The Products
Mainly deals in mechanical seals Used around the propeller shafts of submarines, chemical pumps and water pumps. Provide barrier between two regions with a common shaft rotated Providing sealing solutions Specialized and complex gas seals are also manufactured

The market
Large projects Original equipment Manufacturers End users

Manufacturing in Uk
Units in the town of Slough (170 employees) and Reading(70 employees) Produced by PTFE and sheet steel Turning and milling technique is used Turing is highly acceptable in sealing business Mori Seiki NT 4200 - 5-axis turning+milling (Swerve Co) - YouTube.flv

Component Machining
Make to Order ( 35% Slough factory) Specials Standard Make to stock (65% Reading Factory)

Reading factory
Machines become obsolete Functional layout( lathes and milling) Completion require visiting multiple departments Idleness is high Very long lead time

Golden Opportunity
Havant factory fire turn to be a golden opportunity Opportunity for Crane re site and Reorganize production Grouping was done is reading factory(MFS & MTO) Separation increased the visibility of manufacturing Lead time was decreased(26 weeks to 12 weeks) Workers were employed as setter-operator

CNC in Reading
Facing problems in maintaining quality and production Gibbon introduced CNC In Reading Manufacturing gets faster and reliable Data is punched in the controllers memory Highly flexible technique Can perform multiple tasks Better trained people are hired to perform the job Alucobond cnc processing - YouTube.flv

Manufacturing cells
Machines are located as per the parts they are manufacturing(turning and milling) Mini factories are created within the existing plants FMS technique is also introduced in the production process Machines necessary to complete one type of job along with operators are put under one cell Productivity of the workers increased Lead time decrease

CIM in Crane
Information sharing becomes easy All the subsidiary has the access of data All the processes get integrated Eight CIM projects are generated Computer Aided Manufacturing- Research YouTube.flv

Development Of Expert System

Designing seal as per the requirements Run on laptop carried by sales engineer Artificial intelligence technique is used Designs were made as per the specified answers given by the customers Designing of seal becomes easy

Computer Aided Design

CAD was introduced to use the tremendous expertise of the engineers effectively Now engineers use light pen and button box to draw designs Calculations become easy Time saving process Can also edit the existing designs to develop new designs. Computer Aided Design - YouTube.flv

CONT
CADAM software is not as per the requirements Facing problems due to programming of CADAM software By mid 1989 access has been granted by the software developer to edit their programming as per their requirements In 1990 Crane develop their own CAM software Computer Aided Manufacturing- Research YouTube.flv

Online Programming
Six new turning centers are combined The task is distributed(operation one and two) The operators are designing the design and also handling the machines Machine idle time is increased

Offline Programming
Machines work on offline mode No need of operators Data feeding process is used Machines idle time is reduced