Before standardizing on Mazak CNC equipment, Task Force Tips (TFT) used competitors’ lathes and Mazak machining centers.  Stewart McMillan, President of TFT, purchased a used live tool lathe in the late 1980’s seeking more versatility and less workpiece handling. Soon thereafter, seeking continual improvement, a live tool Mazak was purchased over the competition. According to Jim Walker, TFT Engineering & Production Liaison, he stated that the Mazak Super-Quick Turn lathe provided a "more powerful graphical conversational control, faster rapid traverse rates and tool change times" leading to increased throughput.  Additionally, the live tool Mazak machines allowed TFT to hold better OD concentricity to milling features thus improving overall part characteristics.

Today, TFT has partnered with Mazak as part of their overall strategy.  The key to partnering with a machine tool builder is to "do it with the right builder", says Jim Walker.  Mazak, like TFT, is "willing to move the technology forward."  According to Stewart, the main reason for their choice in Mazak is their product depth and he stated that Mazak is the only manufacturer who is "across the board innovative…. (and) pushing the envelope on all fronts."

By utilizing all Mazak CNC machines with Mazatrol conversational programming, jobs can be routed to any open machine.  An operator can walk up to any machine and know how to program & run a job.

The latest addition to Task Force Tip’s manufacturing is a new FH-5800 dual pallet Horizontal Machining Center with Mazatrol Fusion 640M PC/CNC Control.   The machine has rapid traverse rates of 1969 ipm, 3.2 second chip to chip tool change time and takes a mere 6 seconds to change pallets.  With the new Mazatrol Fusion 640, the machine is directly linked to the company network system, allowing immediate access to engineering drawings, job sheets, as well as allowing remote access to the machine from a PC anywhere in the company.

Recently, when Mazak updated the Fusion software, the new data was e-mailed to Jim Walker’s desktop PC.  The software was copied to the machine via a linked hard-drive between the machine and Jim’s PC.  Jim walked out to the machine and downloaded it from the PC side directly into Mazatrol.  The whole process took about 5 minutes and the machine was up and running immediately after the upgrade.

Task Force Tips currently sells their products throughout the US and in over 30 foreign countries.  They are "dedicated to excellence and performance as well as unmatched customer service."  Machinery Systems and Mazak Corporation are proud partners with Task Force Tips and congratulate them on their recent ISO 9000 certification. Way to go, Task Force Tips!