"With Halter our machining centers can be unmanned for longer periods of time."
Jason Winter, Son of the Founder, Rusco Manufacturing, Inc.

Thanks to the HALTER LoadAssistant, RUSCO Manufacturing has succeeded in increasing its margin, getting more production out of its machines and being less dependent on scarce professionals. “We are seeing an increase in our productivity and we are operating unmanned for many more hours,” says Jason Winters, son of the founder of RUSCO, Russ Winters. That is exactly the solution he was looking for, since the supplier of milling, lathing and grinding components, like many other machining companies, has difficulty finding enough skilled labor.

RUSCO now has five HALTER LoadAssistant robot cells at five different Mazak machining centers: “We chose HALTER because they are universally applicable. And with the HALTER LoadAssistant we can achieve the longest period of unmanned work of all the systems we looked at. More pieces coming out of the machine means more turnover.”

Now that the CNC operators can see that operating the robot cells makes their work more valuable, they have gotten over their initial fear of losing their jobs. “By working with the robots, they have come to realize that our goal is to have operators add more value with automation."

"We are achieving our production target with just one CNC operator."
Joseph Hurley, CEO, Pro Products LLC

When Pro Products, a supplier of precision mechanical components, had to produce 200 precision parts per day for a customer, there was no other option than working overtime on Saturday. “Initially, with four machines, two operators and two shifts per day, we thought we could achieve the 1000 parts per week,” said Joseph Hurley, President. In practice this turned out to be more difficult for the Wisconsin jobber than the theory on paper suggested.

The workload led to more rejections. “That forced us to work overtime every Saturday.” Pro Products has since installed a HALTER LoadAssistant on each of its Doosan Puma 2600SY CNC lathes, now the operators no longer need to work overtime. Joseph Hurley: “We have reduced our rejection rate by more than 50%. And because we work unmanned on average four hours a day, we now achieve our daily production target with one operator and two Doosan CNC machines.” He also sees productivity improving by 20 to even 100% with other orders thanks to the automation. The CNC operators are also happy with the HALTER CNC Automation robot cells: “We see that the robots really support us.” What particularly appeals to them is the ease with which they can switch the HALTER LoadAssistant to another product.

"With the Halter TurnStacker Premium 20 we manufacture 30% more parts each day."
Matt James, President, M&M Precision Machining

ince M&M Precision Machining invested in the HALTER TurnStacker Premium, it produces each day 30% more parts on the Hwacheon 200A CNC lathe; with the same staff. “With 18 hours a day a human operator at the lathe, we used to manufacture up to 800 to 850 pieces. Now we manufacture more than 1100 parts each day,” says Matt James, President of the contract manufacturer. M&M Precision Machining is familiar with unmanned machining. The 19 Swiss type lathes run quite some hours unmanned every day. And there are two vertical machining centers equipped with a robot loader.

Matt James started looking for easy to use automation for the lathe because the team must do a hard turning operation with a one minute cycle time on 6” gears. “When the operators heard about the HALTER solution, they were excited because they know this eliminates manual loading of the machine.” The production has increased 30% by automate the loading of the gears. Matt James and his team chose the HALTER TurnStacker Premium because the robot cell is very easy to program and set up. It’s really a plug-and-play solution: “With a pallet jacket we can even move the robot cell to another lathe if necessary.”

"My operators can work with the Halter; no robot knowledge is required at all."
Randy Decker, Owner, Decker Precision Machining Inc.

Decker Precision Machining from Peosta, Iowa has invested in four HALTER systems. Two of them are connected to Doosan lathes and two to Takisawas. The owners, Rick and Randy Decker, chose HALTER because of its simplicity and flexibility. Immediately following the installation, the HALTER systems were loading his CNC machines almost non-stop. Randy Decker: “The HALTER is a technically well-thought-out concept. If any issue comes up, our very knowledgeable service person can easily take care of it. My operators are capable of setting up a new batch within five minutes.”