Modern Machine Shop

SEP 2013

Modern Machine Shop is focused on all aspects of metalworking technology - Providing the new product technologies; process solutions; supplier listings; business management; networking; and event information that companies need to be competitive.

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feature Too Simple for Skilled STaff Stabiltec makes a range of downhole tools for oil and gas drilling. That range in itself is part of what makes the manufacturer distinctive. The company that would become Stabiltec was founded 25 years ago, but a series of acquisitions in just the last 3 years has made it into a single-source manufacturer of not only components for drilling the hole, but also diagnostic hardware for measuring and evaluating the hole. Directional drilling is a specialty. Stabiltec provides the machined parts for oil and gas drilling systems that enter the ground vertically, but reach the underground reser ves horizontally through gradual arcing of the drill. Mr. Boutte engineers directional drilling system components according to the various needs of different OEMs that offer directional drilling products. The challenge in manufacturing these components is that some of the parts demand skilled machining. Underground housing sections that bend by as much as 3 degrees are machined through turning operations that require unusual setups on the lathe. Specifically, after one end of 68 MMS September 2013 mmsonline.com The robotic cell machines components for directional drilling transmission systems. The robot loads and unloads both a machining center and a CNC lathe. the part is turned straight, the other end is turned to be deliberately "crooked" by means of a setup that is offset from centerline. Thus, an amount of runout and departure from parallelism that would be considered an extreme error on most turned parts is deliberately machined into these components. Skilled operators have to run parts such as these. Stabiltec's problem was that these skilled employees are in short supply, and other machining work was taking too much of their time. Transmission parts were the chief example. These parts are components of what is, in essence, a universal joint enabling the underground drill to keep spinning while it gradually curves. The transmission parts are no less critical and no less valuable than the housing sections, but the transmission par t setups are much more straightfor ward. Stabiltec was losing too much labor capacity to the relatively unskilled work of maneuvering these

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