Necessity is the mother of invention. Everyone knows that, especially when times are tough. If you don’t invent, you don’t survive. And, Mike Brown, president and founder of Santee, CA’s Computer Integrated Machining, Inc. (CIM), can attest to the truth of it from hard experience.

“We were in pretty hard times back in 2002, right after 9-11,” he says “Back then everyone, including my company, was machining aluminum, fighting each other for nickels and dimes. I knew that if we wanted to survive and grow, we had to find a way to diversify, a way to differentiate ourselves from the pack.”

Brown found an interesting way to do just that.

“We came up with a little ad campaign for our website,” he recalls. “It said, ‘We Fear No Material!’ We thought it was kind of funny, and what surprised us, so did a lot of potential customers. People would call up and say, ‘That’s pretty CNC machinist Shawn Espinoza at CIM’s Mori Seiki horizontal. The system is 4-axis Mori Seiki NH4000 DCG horizontal mill with three 60-tool modules and a 22” x 22” x 25” work envelope. The system has a a 6-pallet CPP, which can be controlled directly from a built in operating panel that allows unattended operation. The pallets are 15.7” square and have a newly designed clamping mechanism for fast changeover.

The company uses the machine for longer cycle-time parts in runs ranging from onesies up to about 500 parts. Mori Seiki.pmd 27 4/14/2009, 3:06 PM As seen in CNC-West February/March 2009 issue funny. Ha, ha!’ Finally, this one company in Seattle called and said, ‘We have this part we’d like you to make, if you can.’ The material was Rene 41, a nickel-based high-temperature alloy developed by General Electric. Rene 41 retains high strength even in the 1200-1800° Fahrenheit range, but it’s a bear to machine, very tough on cutting tools. They told us everyone else was afraid to tackle the job.”

Even though he didn’t have a CNC lathe to make the part, Brown accepted the challenge.

Click here to read the entire article that was originally published by CNC West Magazine, February/March 2009 issue, by editor C.H. Bush.