VIDEO: TOOLING UP – Smart Tools for Milling

Narrator:  This video is brought to you by Accupro, putting the science of machining dynamics at your fingertips. If you're looking for real world insights, tips from leading industry experts, the latest trends in products and technology, you've come to the right place. From MSC Industrial Supply, this is Tooling Up.

TONI NEARY: Thank you so much for joining us on a very special episode of Tooling Up. I'm your host, Toni Neary. We're so excited that you're here today. If you're new, be sure to click that subscribe button so that you don't miss any upcoming episodes. Please welcome our very special guest from MSC Industrial Supply. We are here with the Senior Director of Metalworking, Sales and Innovation, Jamie Goettler.

Jamie, thank you so much for joining us today. I am really excited for our conversation.

JAMIE GOETTLER: I am equally thrilled to be here, Toni, thank you so much and looking forward to spending time with you today.

TONI NEARY: Perfect. We'd love to kick off for those that are not aware a little bit about your role at MSC and what your professional journey looks like. You are so well known in our industry and we'd love to know a little bit more about your background and how you got here.

JAMIE GOETTLER: I've been in metalworking or metalworking sales for the better part of 25 years in my career. Twenty-two of it has been here at MSC. And my role today is really to identify specific technologies or innovations that we can take at MSC and scale across the machining and manufacturing sector within the United States to help improve the productivity, profitability and the prosperity of American machining businesses.

TONI NEARY: And just knowing a little bit about MSC I mean, you're so well known in the industry. Tell us a little bit about what inspires you in what you're doing in your role every day.

JAMIE GOETTLER: Yeah, I see that there's a tremendous opportunity for the U.S. to reclaim dominance in manufacturing. So when we think about those things that we can impart in terms of productivity improvements or the incorporation of technology that help these shops become more competitive on a global basis, that help us, you know, with supply chain resilience and cutting lead times down and making our machines and our our valuable human resources more productive.

That's what we are looking to do. That's the most important thing we can do to work towards reshoring. And once again, we're just thrilled to be part of that particular journey with any single shop or the whole collection of them, quite frankly.

TONI NEARY: So if we can go back in time and kind of hit reverse a little bit and talk about the Series, we're going to look at the Accupro ST Series today, but tell us specifically the industry challenges that that was developed to address.

JAMIE GOETTLER: We began the commercialization of a product known as MSC MillMax®. It's a service where we use modal tap testing within our customers to influence improvements in their milling operations on their shop floors, of course, and, you know, resounding success with it. Although it's a technology that had been around for a little while, it was actually we had updated to give instantaneous response at a machine to say, you're operating at this surface footage or feed rate or RPM, and we know that you're capable of doing this after doing this measurement.

Well, we outfitted our entire metalworking specialist team with MillMax kits, but we can't be everywhere at all times. And so what can we do to have that same level of performance be available for any customer that wants it any day of the week? And so the idea of what is known as the Accupro ST Series became a reality.

And so ST series stands for Smart Tool. What makes it smart is when the customer buys it off the shelf from MSC, it's preconfigured and calibrated to operate on certain types of the most popular milling machines in America, comes complete with a dashboard that offers on this make and model of machine, here are your ideal operating parameters, which is brand new to the industry.

So that's where the genesis, it really came from the fact that if we're going to transform manufacturing and do our part, let's start with milling. And that's how we got to this ST series.

TONI NEARY: And I think it's amazing to talk about the fact that we do have so many new people entering the workplace, right? That's the goal. We're trying to fill the skills gap, grow the workforce, and some people may not have that level of expertise when they're first starting on their jobs. So when you can hit the ground running and have those additional tools, it can really have a huge impact on the production for all of your customers.

JAMIE GOETTLER: Without a doubt. Once again, it's a really great transition as we have a retiring, amazing workforce of long-term machinists that have really held up this industry for a long time. But we have a lot of new talent coming in and this confluence of technology with new entrants couldn't be a more perfect time for something like the Accupro ST series.

TONI NEARY: And I think that's a perfect segue. You and I are very passionate about the future workforce and manufacturing and making sure that we grow the pipeline, that everybody is aware of the pathway to prosperity that careers in manufacturing can provide. So this seems like it's designed for simplicity in line with the ST series. But what does the learning curve look like for implementing this kind of technology?

JAMIE GOETTLER: The, the change management that's associated with something like ST series is it can be that simple if you do trust the science. And so we have some persuasion and convincing to do of end users to say, look, you don't have to do it that way anymore, with this type of tool. You can adopt this, you can embrace and as you said, Toni, trust in this dashboard and you can find yourself making parts sooner than you ever did before.

TONI NEARY: And I think you mentioned, you know, they can't have the MSC experts as metalworking specialists over their shoulder the entire time. So this gives them a little more intuition, a little more of an access point where they can really use the dashboard to drive some of those decisions that, you know, if they're a little cautious, they can certainly talk to their metal cutting experts, but they also have the capability that they can really trust this dashboard. Talk a little bit about the science behind it and how you really developed the system.

JAMIE GOETTLER: Where ST series is a little bit different is we've gone and we've analyzed the US's most common machines we see on machine shop floors. CAT40 machines is where we're starting out with. We know the response of that particular spindle because we measure it. What we built the holder in the end mill and we created a notch in the end mill that allows the user to repeatedly position it the exact stick out length every time.

So we know how that end mill is going to work in that holder. And if we know how that machine spindle works, we combine them together and now we're able to provide a dashboard with predicting exactly how that tool is going to run. And that's how we offer it up to customers.

TONI NEARY: I think my favorite analogy I've heard so far is the popcorn analogy, right? Everybody knows how horrific the smell of burnt popcorn is. It's going to hang around for a while, but it's, you know what's worse, burning popcorn or having half your bag not pop correctly? So can you talk a little bit about the popcorn analogy and how this tool can really help kind of set that sweet spot?

JAMIE GOETTLER: What ST series does in this analogy is imagine buying, you know, your favorite brand of microwave popcorn and you, this website might know that your Samsung microwave or whatever model microwave is, says for this type of popcorn and this exact microwave, 6 minutes and 31 seconds and that popcorn will be absolutely perfect. And so we've used that analogy, you know, to help again with change management. And by and large, it works.

TONI NEARY: Jamie, I know you're incredibly busy. You're such a rock star in this space. And I just want to thank you so much for spending some time with us today because we have to share this technology out. It's pretty amazing.

JAMIE GOETTLER: Thank you for giving me the platform to be able to talk about it today and we're excited about what the future holds.

TONI NEARY: Absolutely. Such a great conversation, Jamie. Thank you so much for sharing your insights and your experience. If you enjoyed our talk today with Jamie as much as I did, don't forget to click that subscribe button. You can also get more information on the Accupro ST Series at the MSC website at https://www.mscdirect.com/solutions/accupro-st-series

Thank you so much for joining us today and we'll see you next time on Tooling Up.

Narrator: Want more insights and ideas to improve the efficiency and productivity of your operations? Check out the MSC Tooling Up video playlist to hear tips that can take your company to the next level and subscribe to our channel so you won't miss out.