Time is money, the old adage says, and no one knows that better than machinists. As such, reducing setup time has become increasingly important. Meanwhile, to reduce large inventories and support lean initiatives, customers who formerly placed large orders now require manufacturers and job shops to produce smaller quantities of machined products more frequently. This requires more-and varied-setups. Machinists can maximize productive machine time by using quick-change chucks. Developed in Germany, they have been refined to provide even greater advantages over traditional changeover systems that involve time-consuming manual labor and costly setup time. A quick-change system can reduce workholder changeover time from an hour or more to minutes, boosting productivity and repaying the investment cost in less than a year.
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