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This metric is also shared with all employees, but it's not done with the intent to browbeat them when the index for their machine(s) isn't optimal, Mr. Tumanic says. In fact, the trans- parency of sharing this with employees ser ves to motivate them to look for ways to boost the throughput of jobs (thereby reducing the green time for those jobs) so other jobs in queue can be processed sooner. Why do they do that? It's because they know that higher company profits mean the chance for higher take-home pay, thanks to the shop's quar- terly employee gainsharing bonus. Transitioning to Standardization Founded in 1992, J&R; Machine is an ISO 9001:2015-certified shop with a range of capabil- ities in addition to CNC machining, such as proto- typing, engineering, fabrication and assembly. Its customers include some of the largest names in the defense, medical, machinery, hydraulics, oil and gas, and auto racing fields, although it is always on the lookout for opportunities in new, emerging markets. The 34-person shop looks and operates much differently than it did years ago. Previously, it used a variety of machine types and went after different types of work. Today, it has settled on two machining platforms it will purchase moving forward: live-tool CNC turning centers and hori- zontal machining centers (HMCs). It has also settled not only on the machine builder, DMG MORI, but the machine models it will purchase: NLX 2500 turning centers and NHX 4000 HMCs. Not all the shop's 20 CNC machines are these models, but they soon will be. As part of the shop's business plan, machines must be replaced when they reach 10 years old. Currently, its oldest machine is a still-youthful 2012 model. J&R; Machine has identified precision turning with live tooling capability as its core competency. In fact, the work envelope it has identified for all jobs that the shop will take on ranges from 1 to The shop uses HMCs for some parts that require a lot of milling, but not much turning. That way, milling operations don't become a bottleneck for its live-tool lathes. An HMC's dual-pallet design enables high spindle uptime, because operators can load the next job on the pallet outside the workzone while the machine is processing the job on the other pallet. This is one reason why the shop will not purchase any more VMCs moving forward. This index is simply a ratio of a machine's run hours to its operator's payroll hours. Modern Machine Shop 79 Productivity Index