CNC Instructor's Curriculum:

During any CNC machine’s usage, there are really only two activities. Either machines are in setup or they are running production. Setup time is the total time the machine is down between production runs. Cycle time is the time it takes to complete a production run divided by the number of good workpieces produced.

When machines are in production, they are, of course, being productive. But anything that can be done to reduce the time it takes to complete a production run will - in turn - reduce cycle time. And of course, will improve the machine's overall utilization.

Traditionally, CNC users have not had to run CNC machines at peak potential. The sheer productivity of CNC machines (compared to their manual counterparts) has thrilled many a CNC user. However, things have been changing in the manufacturing environment. Lot sizes are shrinking. Lead times are shorter. Quality expectations are higher. And of course, operating expenses must be reduced.

All of this requires CNC users to provide faster turn-around for the workpieces they produce – and a big part of faster turn-around is related to reducing the amount of time that machines take to complete a production run.

All CNC users should have a strong interest in cycle time reduction. The larger the lot sizes, the more important it is to reduce cycle time. Even people with years of experience will be interested in finding new ways to minimize cycle time, meaning you should be able to draw from very large student base, dramatically increasing the number of potential students for your CNC courses.

This course will allow you to relate the cycle time reduction from the ground up. The objective of this course curriculum is to help instructors relate concepts, techniques, and ideas that will help students go back to their companies and implement a successful setup reduction program.

The course will be presented in three modules.

1: Preliminaries

Discussion of basic premises, reasons why cycle time must be reduced, and general introduction to the course

2: Cycle time reduction principles

The two task types related to running production, the three general ways to reduce cycle time, and the four-step procedure to reduce cycle time

3: Cycle time reduction techniques

Countless techniques to reduce cycle time for CNC machining centers and turning centers in several categories, including preparation & organization, workpiece loading, program execution, workpiece unloading/unloading, maintaining production, sizing adjustments, and dull tool replacement

Instructor materials

CD-rom disk including all instructor materials - The disk includes the following instructor materials: Written documentation: Getting started with the machining center curriculum - provides information about how we intend the curriculums to be used. Setup reduction planning forms, and exercises & answers.

All written documentation is provided in Adobe Acrobat format (PDF files) on disk one in the folder named Written documentation. In order to view/print them, you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. We also provide this software on disk one in the folder Adobe Acrobat Reader. Note that all written documentation provided on the CD-rom can be freely printed, copied and distributed.

Microsoft PowerPoint slide presentations - PowerPoint is fast becoming the presentation software of choice by most presenters. Presentations in this curriculum total over 450 slides to provide your visuals for the course. Every step along the way, there's a highly colorful graphic or animation to help you make your points!

Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer - Though we highly recommend that you have the actual PowerPoint software, we do include the PowerPoint Viewer. It does allow you to display the slide shows, but you’ll have no way to modify them. Additionally, the slide shows are quite long (some over 300 slides). PowerPoint Viewer does not allow you to move around in the slide show nearly as easily as the actual PowerPoint software does.

Ability to print the slide show hard copy - PowerPoint allows you to print a hard copy of each slide show (Microsoft calls this printing handouts). This may help you prepare if you don’t always have a computer available. You can include 4, 6, or 8 slides per page.

Free phone assistance - Again, there’s a lot of information in this curriculum. If you have questions about any topic while your preparing to teach the course, we welcome your phone calls (847-639-8847). Or email us at lynch@cncci.com.

What you'll still need

In order to show the PowerPoint slide presentations to a group of people, you need the following items.

A computer with Windows 95 (or higher) - Any current model computer will work. If using a desktop computer, you can easily watch the monitor of the computer (facing your audience) to see the slide show as slides are displayed behind you by the projection system. Since the left mouse button advances the slides, you even have a remote slide advance button (as is commonly used with a 35 mm slide projector). If portability is an issue, keep in mind that many of the notebooks and sub-notebooks have ample power to run the presentation software. However, be careful in your selection. Many notebooks do not allow you to send data out through the VGA port and see the slide show on the LCD screen of the notebook at the same time. Without this ability, you may have to turn around to see your slides, which can be distracting to your audience.

Microsoft PowerPoint Software (PowerPoint 2000 was used to create the slide show) - Though you can display all presentations with PowerPoint Viewer (included with this curriculum), you will need Microsoft PowerPoint if you intend to modify the slide shows given in this curriculum. We highly recommend that you have this ability. This software can be found in any computer store for a price of about $250.00 (it also comes with Microsoft Office). You will find this to be a very powerful presentation generating program; one you can use to develop your own slide shows for other courses (or of course, modify those in this course curriculum).

A way of displaying the screen show - You have several alternatives in this regard. All involve using a device that takes data from the VGA port of your personal computer. First, many schools already have a projection system that can display information from a personal computer. Basically, anything that can be shown on the computer screen can be displayed through the projection system. Second, you can use a device that sits on top of an overhead projector to display your screen shows. In essence, this device makes a transparency of what ever is on the display screen of the computer. Third, and especially if price is a concern, you can use a simple scan converter (about $200.00 - $300.00) and display your screen show on any television that has a video in connector (as most do). If you must use the RF connector of the television (where an antenna plugs in), an RF converter must be purchased. Since there are so many alternatives for displaying your slide shows, we welcome phone calls (847) 639-8847 if you have questions about your alternatives.

This curriculum is FREE with your initial textbook order!

Not only will you be teaching with the best state-of-the-art CNC curriculums in the industry, you’ll be doing so free of charge! All we ask is that your school bookstore buys the student manuals from us! With an initial order of just 20 manuals, we’ll ship the instructor’s materials free of charge! All instructor materials (slide shows, PowerPoint Viewer, instructors manual, and Adobe Acrobat Reader to view/print the manual) come on the cd-rom disks. Our net price to your school (or bookstore) for manuals is $40.00 each for the student manual. Future orders can be in any quantity. This cost will be recovered, of course, as students enroll in your classes and buy the manuals. In essence, your first 20 students will be paying for the curriculum!

Other purchasing options and our return policy.