A component based model developed for machine tool selection decisions

Abstract

Machine tools are widely used in manufacturing sectors; such as automotive industry, metal cutting industry, aerospace industry etc. Purchase of a machine tool is a long-term capital investment decision and requires a high initial investment cost. Machine tool producers offer a wide-ranging types and models of machine tools. On the other hand, expectations and requirements of the manufacturing companies differ depending on the parts produced and their strategic objectives. High stiffness, rigidity, metal cutting performance, surface finish and low tolerance range are common expectations from machine tools. This paper aims to develop a technical evaluation model to help manufacturing companies in their machine tool purchasing decisions. In the proposed model, first components used in machine tools are analyzed and based on this analysis a technical evaluation model is developed. The application of the developed model is illustrated by making a selection among nine different machine tool alternatives.