Ryan Meleg, Omega TMM, Latest Advances in Tool Measuring Solutions

Wolfram’s Open House featured guest speaker, Ryan Meleg, Executive Vice-President, Global Sales, Omega TMM

Full Video Transcript

My name is Ryan Meleg, I’m the Executive Vice President at Omega. For those that don’t know who we are, you may know us by our previous name, Parlec. As Parlec we made tool holders and boring and tapping systems along with pre-setters. And then roughly seven years ago we sold off that division to Technics Industries and we kept the automated solutions, pre-setting and tool inspection division and renamed ourselves Omega.

So we are based in Rochester, New York, well just outside of Rochester and Fairport, but nobody knows where that is so we always say Rochester. All of our manufacturing is done in our Fairport location. So all of our taper grinding, all the critical components are all made here in the U.S. which is a really big deal. I mean that’s a lot of what we’re talking about here, you know, with all of our partners, you know, being made in the USA. That’s what Wolfram is. You know, when you buy products, you want to see that USA label. We are a made in the USA company.

All of our software is also developed here in the United States within our four walls. So we have a very unique value proposition that there’s no one else in our specific niche industry that can say that. We are the only ones.

So we’re going to talk a little bit about pre-setting. I’ll talk to you about some of the solutions. Of course, I’m going to say our machines are awesome because I designed them, so apparently they’re the best. It’s obvious. But, you know, we’re going to talk about the whole situation, why we’re all here, and how we all integrate together as well. You know, there’s amazing products from Blum. There’s amazing products from Caron, from Tsugami, from Schunk, from everybody here. And how do we integrate together and make your manufacturing experience better and more productive? Because I’d love to see somebody raise their hand that makes a lot of money when their spindles aren’t turning. There’s no one here. Everybody makes money when their spindles are running. And that’s as a group, what we all do here. Keep your spindle up. Uptime is the most important thing.

Part of that uptime is presetting. So what is presetting? We have a few options on ways to measure a tool assembly. You can measure it offline or online. So online would be utilizing a Blum product, like a laser or a probe, where you would put your tool assembly into your machine, the probe would come over or would move it through the laser to determine the length and /or diameter. Offline presetting, which is what we manufacture, is a vision system where you measure the tooling separately from the machining center. So why would you want to do that? And then the question is, well then aren’t you a Blum competitor? And the answer is no. You know, we know those guys very well. You should be doing both. You should be measuring offline and then do a quick check online. We integrate together. And why would you want to do that? Well, whenever you are using your machine tool spindle, if you have a $500,000 Mazak and you are measuring tools with that spindle, is that what you paid $500,000 for? Absolutely not. You spent that $500,000 to turn metal into usable parts for production. That’s where a pre-setter comes in. We measure everything offline to within microns. It varies by the family of machine and style of machine. We have accuracies to half micron repeatable for things from micro tools all the way up to standard deviations like two or three ten thousand of an inch depending on the model.

So why would you want to preset? When you’re doing it offline you are not utilizing spindle time your machine is running. I know I need these next six endmills or drills or a combination of roughers and face mills and I’m going to be using these tools. I don’t want to stop my spindle. I’ll measure all of them and I’ll get height. I’ll get diameter. I’ll get angles.. If it’s a porting tool, we’ll have multiple steps. Yeah, we can do DXF profiles. Whatever it is that your tooling requires.

And then we will take all that information because we’re talking about connectivity today and then it depends on how your system is set up. Do you want us to print a label with that information on there? And have somebody manually type it in? Probably not. It’s not the best idea.

Then we have the next option, which is posting, which means we will send all of your tooling information on your DMC network to a specified location where you can pull it into the machine. Then you have the next step. We could make a QR code and put something like a Caron ToolConnect or an Omega Matrix 4.0.0 that’s actually connected to your machine tool and you will scan each individual tool at your machine tool and download all the offsets.

Or you have the best, in my opinion the best, RFID. Where, you know, we will measure the tooling, we will write all the information to the RFID chip, you will then take that tool over to your machine tool, put it in the Caron Engineering Tool Connect pot, it’ll read that chip, it’ll rotate the carousel, you’ll plug it in, you’re ready to go. And while you’re doing all those steps, you’re still cutting chips. That’s how you keep productivity up. You know, we optimize tool life. We optimize tool wear. Excuse me. With the help of systems from Caron Engineering, being able to communicate with TMAC and understand what’s going on. You know, there’s a lot of connectivity involved.

One of the newest things from us individually is our optics software. So this is a screenshot. As you can see, it’s all one screen, 22 inches. It is a drag and drop screen, which is one of the coolest new features. There’s nobody else that has this. So what you can actually do, there’s all these icons at the bottom. And normally that’s one of the biggest complaints about other machines is, “Well there’s three pages of icons. I don’t know what to click. I don’t know what to push. I have to scroll through it every time. How do I know what I’m measuring?” On our machines, we said, “Fair enough. There’s nobody that uses 30 different measuring routines. We haven’t come across anyone yet. And that’s everybody from Boeing to General Motors to Foxconn, you know, across the globe. We’ve never found anyone that needs all that.”

So we created a drag and drop system where you only have the measuring programs and items that you need for your specific tooling process on the touch bar. Now, in one click, you can see all the other icons, but we wanted to make this as simple but yet robust as possible. So we have all the complexity, and we have all the capabilities of all of our competitors, which by the way, they’re very good machines, Haimer makes a good machine, Zoller makes a good machine. Anybody can measure an endmill. Anybody can measure a drill. It’s not rocket science, but it’s how fast can I measure a drill? How accurately can I measure the drill? What do I have to do to get that information to where it needs to go? Those are the big questions. You’ll see some of our newest stuff that’s coming out.

Now a lot of this you’ll see at IMTS because we’re giving you guys a little bit of a teaser. So part of productivity is also balancing. I’ve actually talked with a couple of folks here about it today because when you implement RFID, you have to, if you didn’t buy tool holders that have an RFID pocket milled into it for a chip, you have to mill them yourselves. Once you mill it, it’s out of balance. So then you have to balance the tool holder, specifically if you’re running high spindle RPMs. So we went into development and created the Staterra. So it’s a dual-playing balancer. So we’ll measure at the face, and then we’ll measure at tool tip as well, or, excuse me, I’m sorry, tip of the holder plus flange. Thank you, Chris. Oh, without you I don’t know what I would do. So, we can balance any tool holder style from Cat 40, Cat 30, Cat 50, HSK from 25 to 100. We can balance the Capto. It’s a great alternative to some of the other balances out there. One, more affordable. Two, it has the Omega warranty and Omega back.

So what does that mean? Well, we are the only presetting machine on the face of the planet that one, that is mainstream made in the USA. Number two: As long as you get it calibrated every year, which pretty much 96% of people do, the warranty on the machine is a full five years–longest in the industry. Everybody else maximum two and that covers electronics and everything.

We also have a 10-year mechanical warranty on the machines and that’s part of the made in the USA idea. We control the manufacturing of everything on our machines. So we are 100% confident that you will have a long lasting machine that we will not be coming out and doing warranty work because that costs us money. Right. But we’re giving you peace of mind that we will do it at no additional cost. Beauty is we don’t have to because you’re not going to have any kind of issues.

What you see here, this is our solos machine. This is our highest volume selling machine that we manufacture. This is actually a really neat machine because when we talk about spindle uptime and productivity, this machine actually does two processes at once. Technically three but let’s go with two. On this side, we’ll see a measuring column which looks like the presetter that’s here at Wolfram. So that will measure a fully made tool assembly. This item here is an induction head. So what we can do is take an empty tool holder, put it in our spindle, the induction head will come down, it will heat the tool holder to 500 degrees in roughly two and a half seconds. You can then insert the carbide that goes into the heat shrink holder. There’s a height setting system that is built into the bottom that can manage the heat shrink holder length to plus or minus five microns–most accurate in the industry. And then, once you’ve completed that function, you’ll take a cooling cup, stick it on top, and it takes about 60 seconds to cool a tool. You can create an entire tool assembly, including heating, cooling, measuring, reading and rating RFID in about a minute and a half.

What really sets us apart is we have this second spindle right here. And what does that do? So that actually measures just the carbide. And that gives us the ability to have plus or minus five microns height setting on this side. You can actually measure the carbide of the next tool while the other tool is cooling. That’s why we’re about a minute and a half faster per assembly than any other manufacturer in the world. To keep you up and running, when you see places like GE Aerospace in Cookset, New Hampshire, they go through roughly 400 endmils a day ’cause they’re making blisks. So they’re constantly heat shrinking tools and they need them as fast as possible. That’s why they have an Omega machine, well, multiple of them, because we’re the only ones that can keep up with their production.

You know, anybody else you’re gonna have to buy three or four or five of their machines to keep up with that kind of production We’re the only ones mm-hmm and then you know once we’ve done all the measuring we write to the RFID you can have trays of tooling that are already preset. They could sit there for weeks. It’s fine. They’re already done. Everything is within plus or minus a micron or two and you can keep your productivity up you can run 24 hours a day seven days a week because we also do robotics integration so you can run completely lights out you can load and unload utilizing a Fanik or a Kuka or whatever type of robot you like excuse me yeah you can unload and load with it any type of robot you like and it will automatically perform all these functions.

So we’ve already talked about the Statero a little bit, this one to give you a little bit of a bigger picture. Once again dual plane balancer – very very nice that you will see this at IMTS that’ll be its actual debut. Yes, of course balancing is important. Why is balancing important? Enhancing machining efficiency when you want to get a better finish on your parts. You want to get better wear on your tools. You want them to last longer. Making sure the holder is balanced. Very big deal. Reduce setup times. And of course, boosting overall production.

So why would you want to work with this? Well, other than you get to work with me, which obviously is fantastic, precision craftsmanship, everything’s made here. You know, if there’s a question and you have to call the corporate office, perfectly fine. If the person that answers the phone can’t get you the information, they will walk to the office of the person that wrote to the software. Or the person that did all the schematics and blueprints for the machines. Or the person that machined that individual spindle or ground that spindle. Can go and make sure that everything is perfect because we have that ability extended warranty and dedicated service our responsive customer support, so our goal if you call in one you should talk to a person within 10 minutes. That includes even if we’re busy and we have to call you back. Somebody will call you back whether it’s service sales, the inside sales team or even myself, you know know, or Chris, Chris might even call.

Now, mind you, I’m not going to be able to help you with anything under any circumstances. I’m not allowed to touch the machines, but I will call and I will say, we will get back to you. I will get the person on the phone that you need to speak to. That’s the most important thing. We can remote into your machine. We can send someone out. Whatever needs to be done, we will get it done. done. Innovative technology and software, that’s really what most of us are about here.

Think of all the innovation, specifically, you know, the things that Rob does with Caron Engineering, very innovative, very cutting edge, you know, and we are also technically, we’re a custom engineering company. If there is something that you want made, I want a presetter, but I wanted to do X, Y, and Z. Well, there’s no machine on the face of the planet that does this. No problem. We’ll put together a project, we’ll put a cost to it. You decide if you want that done, and if you do, you will have a one-of-a-kind. It is absolutely no problem. Custom machinery is right in our wheelhouse. We have engineers on-site, software, mechanical, whatever it is we need, and we will get it done for you.

And of course, our team is here to help. So, Jerry Breski is the gentleman right there in the white shirt. He’s our Regional Sales Manager that covers this area. Kristin Zinga is our Executive Vice President of Marketing. And of course, I mean, you know me, I’m right here. But like I said, our headquarters is in Fairport. We have 37 folks there at that individual facility. And then we have another roughly 40 throughout the globe. We are global service global sales, and we look forward to working with you guys.