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people to different machines because the machines and workcenters are pretty much the same. It's easier to get newly purchased machines online quickly, because they are tooled just like the others. It provides an easily scalable format for either adding capacity or replacing old equipment. It makes scheduling easier, because jobs can run on virtually any machine. It enables continuous improvement initiatives to be easier to roll out throughout the shop because the shop only has to focus on one machine platform. Also, by standard- izing the workpiece-size envelope, it directs the shop's sales team to look for work best suited to the shop's capabilities and core competency, which means machines won't be down because the work is not there for them and, ultimately, the company will realize higher profit margins. Machine, Production Index Monitoring Parker Tumanic says the shop also values the data-collection software compatible with its common machine tool platforms, which facili- tates calculating its productivity index, some- thing it began tracking in 2015. This starts with determining how much the machines are running over a given period, when they're not producing because of part loading, when they are down for maintenance and so on. This data is automatically collected via DMG MORI Messenger data-collection software. The collected machine data then is imported into a spreadsheet Mr. Tumanic developed to calcu- late the monthly productivity index. This index is simply a ratio of a machine's run hours to its opera- tor's payroll hours. "We never had an effective way to measure how many payroll hours were tied to machine hours," he says. "Our productivity index enables us to easily see the connection." The table on the following page shows an example of this monthly report from 2015. At that time, the ratio of machine hours to payroll hours was low, with a four-month span ranging from 0.57 to 0.88. This spurred the shop to review the daily performance of individual machines to see why some had more green time than others. This in turn enabled J&R; Machine to direct low-hanging-fruit-type improvement efforts. Shop managers can use the Messenger software to view the run history of individual machines, such as this NLX 2500 turning center, to get more detailed information about the machine's activity. This type of information can be accessed remotely via smartphone, tablets or computers with internet access. It has become fun tracking the index and identifying ways to improve those ratios and grow the business at the same time. Modern Machine Shop 81 Productivity Index