A well-run spindle maintenance training program ensures any CNC machining or manufacturing company’s long-term success. A successful training program will keep your operations running efficiently and steadily so that the delivery of well-designed and quality machined parts continues at an expected rate while minimizing equipment and staff downtime due to equipment repairs or failures.
Such a program will also help your staff:
- Troubleshoot and repair equipment correctly and safely
- Identify potential problems for repair before failure occurs
- Maintain maintenance data to predict downtime rates for more effective planning
- Efficiently identify repair or replacement parts, including spare parts that should always remain on hand
This is all reasonable and easy to say. What isn’t always easy is establishing a maintenance training program for your spindles, maintaining said program, and making sure your staff is always properly trained in the importance of performing preventive and corrective maintenance with the correct knowledge and experience to ensure your operations remain successful.
Below we’ll delve into the different steps that you can take to ensure your staff is and remains trained in proper spindle maintenance for CNC machines.
Developing the Training
Let’s assume you’re starting with a blank slate when training your staff on proper spindle maintenance. Even if you already have an existing training program or a staff that’s decently trained, this will hopefully act as a refresher on the types of things you should see in a training program.
When it comes to training development, you usually have three options:
- Hire someone to develop and conduct the training
- Develop the training internally
- Do a mix of both
The decision on which path to take usually boils down to cost, the size of the staff, and the complexity of the operations and machinery involved. What doesn’t change, though, is what goes into the training and the fact your staff needs training.
This means your training needs to hit some basic but critical checkpoints that include:
- Spindle Operational Theory
- Spindle Applications
- Routine and Preventive Maintenance
- Troubleshooting
- Safety
- Hands-On Training
Again, these are basic but critical checkpoints and provide a foundation for any proper spindle maintenance program to be built upon. This doesn’t mean there won’t be some tailoring required. After all, if you’re dealing with high-speed CNC machines utilizing multiple motorized spindles, there will be some training differences compared to the training required for a gear-driven spindle.
Training Objectives
Defining training objectives is the part where the tailoring of your training for your staff comes into play. This is where you decide what your staff needs to know regarding proper spindle maintenance.
Theory
It’s a good idea for all maintenance training to start with a refresher on theoretical knowledge. Even if it’s short, it provides a moment to focus the staff on the exact point of the training. More often than not, everyone on your staff will know what a spindle does. That doesn’t mean they understand why it does what it does. If your staff understands how the spindle works, it makes it a lot easier for them to troubleshoot and diagnose problems later. It also gives you a moment to re-evaluate the basic knowledge of your staff.
Applications
Again, this will probably feel like common knowledge for your staff. However, it still reinforces the fundamentals of spindle operations, maintenance, and best practices. Even if you don’t run a milling or engraving operation, if your staff understands how diverse spindles are in their applications, it may help when it comes to troubleshooting, repairing, and finding replacement parts when necessary.
Maintenance
Routine and preventive maintenance training will be the main component of your staff training. This essentially boils down to the “guts” of your operation and why maintaining your spindles will ensure quality product delivery, reduce wear and tear where possible, eliminate waste, improve efficiency, and maximize output while minimizing downtime. The goal is not to run equipment to “fail” but to run correctly as long as required without causing unwarranted damage or impacting safety.
The knowledge covered in such training should be drawn from such sources as:
- OEMs, Designers, and Technicians
- Technical Manuals
- Previous Training Material
- Appropriate Updates and Notices from Manufacturers
- Knowledge and Experience of the Trainers and Students
Maintenance tasks covered in this training should include:
- Proper Spindle Inspection
- Spindle Cleaning
- Lubrication and Cooling
- Bearing Maintenance
- Alignment
- Run Hours Analysis
- Vibration Analysis
- Parts Failure Analysis (if applicable)
- Input Failures that affect the Spindle (Power, Program Logic Controls, etc.)
Again, a lot of this can be tailored based on your specific needs and the requisite knowledge you believe your staff should have to ensure your operations remain steady, efficient, and self-sufficient. But this also provides a blueprint of how your staff could be trained in proper spindle maintenance.
Troubleshooting and Safety
No good training program for any staff is effective without emphasizing basic troubleshooting and the importance of safety in affecting normal operations or unexpected repairs. This area of any training program will have to hit the basics, such as properly using PPE and following safety requirements. However, troubleshooting should be tailored to your specific equipment and operating environment.
Hands-On Training
Lastly, none of this training should be solely conducted in a classroom. It should be coupled with a lot of hands-on training. If most of the training were hands-on, it would be even better.
Other Items Required
Besides what’s outlined above, a few other things are required to make the training of your staff in the proper maintenance of your spindles successful. Those include:
- Documenting who’s received training (rosters and critiques)
- Routinely test your staff’s level of knowledge (exams and spot-checks)
- Routinely offer refresher, hands-on, and new training opportunities
In Conclusion
Again, this is a blueprint, but it’s a blueprint that can be highly tailored to meet your needs. At the minimum, it provides a way forward on how to train your staff in proper spindle maintenance.