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The Heart of the Machine

Why are manufacturers immediately seen as belonging to an elite when they buy a Makino machine?

What makes Makino such a special manufacturer?

Makino machines are highly dedicated pieces of equipment. Every market has different requirements. The same machine structure and the same spindle cannot be optimal for all applications at the same time. That doesn't mean it won't work, but it won't be the best process for the part and won't help manufacturers become master crafters in their field of expertise.

Makino focuses on the requirements of the market, for example:
  • Large aluminium aerospace structural components – high material removal rate, high feed rate and higher jerk = Makino's MAG3.EX
 
  • Automotive aluminium die-casting market – low cycle time, minimum non-cutting times, maximum machine stability = Makino's J series
 
  • Pump manufacturer – high machine rigidity, highest concentricity between holes, high cutting torque = Makino's a1 series
 
  • Lens manufacturer – nanometre surface quality, highest machine stability = Makino’s IQ series
What makes Makino such a special manufacturer?

The heart of the machining centre

For Makino employees it is crystal clear what makes Makino machines so special, what is indeed the heart of the machine – the spindle.

Anyone who has ever used a Makino machine knows that its spindles are special. When you compare a spindle made by Makino with a "catalogue" spindle with similar specifications you can really feel the difference. What’s more, the machine also feels the difference – lower power consumption, better surface quality and fewer vibrations are normally the first symptoms the end-user notices when using a Makino machine for the first time.
The heart of the machining centre

Why is Makino producing his own spindles?

The answer is very simple. Our R&D team designs the machines starting from the component to be produced. In order to produce this part in the optimal way, we study the process requirements. Do we need a high-torque or high-power spindle? Should we focus on vibration dampening, increasing the rigidity or go for a compromise between both requirements? Do we need a small spindle to access the most complicate features of the parts or can we have a bigger spindle?

This very first choice in designing a machine is the critical step that will determine the future performance of the machine. Selecting from a catalogue of spindles will limit our choices, the future of the machine, and how we design the machine.

While other manufacturers design the machine around the spindle, Makino designs the machine around the part, modifying the structure to meet the component requirements.
Why is Makino producing his own spindles?

Spindle production

Makino has always understood the need to deliver the best possible solution to customers and thus decided to produce its own spindles. But this is not an easy task.

However, Makino has decades of experience in producing spindles and has developed the complete process of producing the spindle in-house. But to be able to produce the spindles customer require, we needed to construct a special building, our spindle centre in Atsugi. Inside the building we have installed all the necessary machines – from circular grinders to Makino machines specially modified to perform machining process with a quality that the market could not deliver.

This last point is something that surprises people who visit our production facilities: how Makino is able to construct special machines to deliver the impossible qualities the machine will later need?

As everyone knows, "a machine is as precise as the machine that produces it". So to manufacture our highest-precision IQ machine, we need to have a machine that is even more precise than an IQ in extremely controlled environments and processes.
Spindle production

Master-crafted spindles

Dedicated machines with dedicated spindles, and each one of them produced to deliver the best performance possible for the application.

This is our design philosophy and our way of helping our customers become the best manufacturers in their field and enabling them to deliver the required parts at the minimum cost per part with the highest machine availability.

This cannot be achieved without the "heart of the machining centre".
 
Master-crafted spindles