Machine shop benchmark: the first results!

At the MACH 2024 exhibition in Birmingham earlier this year, Hexagon launched its ‘Technology Benchmark for Machine Shops’. This free, anonymous online tool lets machining companies discover where they stand in comparison with industry peers regarding a range of core activities. A few months down the line, Hexagon is revealing initial data about where machine shops sit in their journey to manufacturing excellence.

Hexagon views its Technology Benchmark for Machine Shops as the first step towards a more agile, data-driven future where every machining company, large or small, can thrive. The company’s AI-based interactive benchmarking tool provides an easy way to assess and compare machine shop operations in less than 10 minutes. It covers eight key processes, including quoting and planning, through design and review, to preparation for manufacturing, actual production and final inspection. In particular, the digital tool asks about shop-floor production intelligence, namely collecting and utilising data, to identify areas in the machine shop that could benefit from greater efficiency.

The burning questions

Participating in the benchmarking exercise means answering questions about various key processes. The tool asks whether a particular process is manual, technology-assisted or fully automated. It also asks what KPIs (key performance indicators) the machine shop is tracking, with participants making selections from a list provided at each step. Machine shops are free to repeat the benchmark on a regular basis to track progress against their previous status and others in the industry.

“From the benchmarks completed to date we overwhelmingly see that machine shops are still battling with very manual processes for tasks like quoting and planning,” reveals Jason Walker, VP – General Manufacturing at Hexagon. “Most are using spreadsheets or even whiteboards for planning their daily production runs. Many machine shops are subsequently looking to optimise this area.”

Regarding component design and review, machine shops also reveal this process to be heavily manual in structure. Typically, a machine will shop receive a component drawing from a customer, check its manufacturability and maybe suggest some changes to simplify the process or save cost.

“The review process for those edits is generally picking up the phone or going back and forth on email,” states Jason. “It’s not particularly ‘real time’, so design and review tasks are another area offering significant optimisation potential.”

Data is king

Regarding production intelligence, Hexagon undertook a report with commercial analytics company Forrester at the end of 2023. Among the key findings was 98% of respondents indicating that they are struggling to utilise data, a fact Hexagon can confirm from its own experiences.

“When we visit machines shops, we typically find that most production control tasks are still paper-based. There’s very little in the way of digital tools. Any available machine or operator data doesn’t tend to get collected or contextualised, which makes it hard to utilise. It’s also difficult to apply AI to paper-based processes. For many machine shops, we therefore see digitising as the first step in the journey to manufacturing excellence.”

He adds: “Digitising is becoming a key discussion point. OEMs are putting pressure on their supply chain partners to digitise processes so they can generate more real-time insight into production status and demand, as well as quality inspection results. Capturing quality information manually and entering data into an online portal is no longer optimal for a growing number of OEMs. It’s not particularly efficient, and there’s clear opportunity for human error.”

Think positive

From a more positive viewpoint, benchmarks completed thus far indicate that CADCAM software enjoys widespread utilisation in machining preparation, with most machine shops indicating this process is fairly well streamlined. However, gains remain available, potentially by using AI and more automation to assist users and generate machining programs faster.

Equally, digital tools and software currently have good industry penetration in helping to manage quality departments. Possible gains here include bringing component inspection to the shop floor, or even the machine tool itself, to drive efficiencies and relieve quality department bottlenecks. Bottlenecks arise because there are typically fewer inspection machines than production machines.

Says Jason: “The initial insights so far have been very revealing. I guess the predominant observation is that some areas across the workflows of many machine shops remain manual and paper-based. The main takeaway therefore is the need for better data capture and utilisation. It’s about digitising more operations that link different processes together and aid the transition from paper to digital tools. This improvement is a precursor to applying AI co-pilots [virtual assistants] and driving insights from the data: in particular identifying more areas that would benefit from optimisation.”

Solution evolution

Hexagon is of course looking to evolve the tool in line with feedback. User reports to date have been varied, largely depending on the region.

“We had a couple of pilot customers from Japan who liked the tool – saying it provides a good indication of where they should focus – but they would like a lot more detail. Conversely, early users from the US and the UK seem to prefer the high-level overview and subsequent options to deep-dive into a specific area with Hexagon or someone else.”

Moving forward (with its customer feedback in mind), Hexagon will likely request a little more granular information about type of machine shops and size of businesses taking part in the benchmark to help drive even greater accuracy. However, anonymity will remain at all times.

Bring the future closer

Hexagon’s new benchmarking tool is ultimately about helping machine shops understand where they currently stand in their journey to manufacturing excellence. It provides a notion of how they can transform their traditional manufacturing outlook into a more productive, versatile and customer-centric future. Of course, accessing this information means taking the benchmark, which along with English will shortly be available in German, Italian, Spanish and French.

Upon completion, the result is instant. The tool also provides a list of recommendations to help improve processes. At no point is there any obligation to engage with Hexagon or adopt its products, or those of its partners.