The 3 New MachinesWere Xactly Right!

X a c t i n s t a l l s t h r e e S o d i c k w i r e E D M s

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T h e m a s t e r s i n l i n e a r E D M t e c h n o l o g y

X A C T W I R E E D M C O R P. F I N D S W H A T T H E Y N E E D A T S O D I C K !

Xact Wire EDM Corporation is auniquely devoted wire EDM jobshop that provides a high level ofservice to a wide variety of indus-tries. Xact has its headquarterslocated in Waukesha, WI and alsooperates a fully equipped branchlocation in Cary, IL. John Dora and

Jeff Gubbins established Xact in 1984 and have seen nearly every wire EDM application there is.The tooling they haveworked on has been used to make everything from mobile phones to car parts, stamping and trim dies, molds, andextrusion dies.Virtually all industries have benefited from the expertise at Xact. Xact also applies wire EDM to machineprototype and production parts either on a low or high volume basis. Parts have been machined for the Mars rovers,satellites, medical scanners, surgical instruments, oil drilling equipment and gages to name a few examples. Newapplications are constantly being found for wire EDM and Xact is always on the leading edge.

Prior to starting their business, Jeff and John worked together for five years. They held common beliefs about howto treat customers and other people in general.They also believed that to succeed, they needed to listen closely to theircustomers, constantly hire and train good people, frequently acquire new advanced technology, always strive toimprove, and also be willing to quickly move into new application areas. With little financial resources to support themin the beginning, the first years were challenging but interesting and exciting.

Since the beginning, Xact has remained focused on wire EDM and functions as an extension of their customers’capabilities. Xact partners with their customers by offering expertise, capacity, cost effectiveness, and advancedcapabilities. Xact enjoys numerous close long-term customer relationships.

Today, Xact has over 55 employees working three shifts, 20,000 square feet of space and is considered one of thelargest wire EDM job shops in the country with 30 wire EDMs. More importantly, they believe they are the best shop todo business with. In a recent 2006 customersatisfaction survey, 100% of those whoresponded said that they would recommendXact’s services to others. Xact’s goal is to workvery closely with leading companies andprovide the highest quality and most costeffective wire EDM service available. Xactbelieves they have succeeded in thiscompetitive global environment because oftheir values. John and Jeff also understand thatXact’s future depends on these solid long-termcustomer relationships, conscientious employ-ees, and cutting edge EDM technology.

In 2005, Xact’s sales grew by over 30%.Theeconomy was back on track and growing rap-idly. Because of increased demand, Xact hadto expand their wire EDM capacity. Xact is verycommitted to keeping current with the latesttechnological advancements.

Because of this commitment, before addingthree new machines, they decided to very carefully compare several leading EDM manufacturers. As part of theevaluation, the main wire EDM manufacturers cut the same production part.The parts were then carefully inspected onone of Xact’s video inspection systems. They were looking for a value driven machine that could produce an accuratepart in an acceptable amount of time. After all the results were in, Xact decided to install three Sodick wire EDMs as theanswer to their capacity needs and to help make them even more competitive.

It was the results produced on the Sodick that provided the bestcombination of machining speed and cutting accuracy for thedollars invested. As part of the evaluation, Xact also usedtheir laser calibration system to inspect a Sodick machineand they found it to be extremely accurate. Theadvanced linear motor drives were found to be veryfast, smooth, silent and vibration-free. Xact was alsoimpressed with the reliability and speed of theSodick automatic wire threading.

This would be Xact’s first Sodick EDM, and they werevery aware of the learning curve and the fact that theiroperators were used to running another EDM manufacturer’s machines. Thelearning curve; however, was relatively short due to the carefully plannedtraining provided both at Sodick’s facility and in-house at Xact. Experienced andinexperienced machinists were able to quickly learn the machine. Members ofXact’s implementation team (one of whom had 22 years of wire EDMexperience) had high expectations and found the machine intuitive and thepeople at Sodick very eager to help.The learning curve was further acceleratedsince they were able to setup and run three machines from the beginning. Thelessons learned could then be applied to obtain output from three machinesrather than the typical one machine for a first installation. Xact made a bigcommitment to install three machines at once, but they had a high degree ofconfidence in the equipment and they wanted to spread the implementationcosts over multiple machines.

After learning more about Sodick, Xact wasimpressed with the machines’ ability for NCcode customization. For example, the operatorcan customize the NC codes of a specific partprogram to include IF, THEN statements, mathcalculations, and even include pick-up routinesthat if a pickup does not repeat within adesignated tolerance, an alarm will sound.Thishelps eliminate scrapped parts if the part isloaded improperly.

After installation, Xact found the machines tohave very good cutting speed. Even thoughspeed is quite important, it is not the only issue.Jeff Gubbins stated, “What good is speed ifsome parts are out of tolerance resulting inincreased inspection time and scrap? We arevery focused on having a capable process. We

look to usable cutting speed as the true measure of a machine’s abilities.” JohnDora added, “We measure the partscoming off the Sodick linear motor wireEDM on our video inspection system andthe parts consistently measure withintolerance. We were looking at a reliablevalue-driven machine and we found it withthe Sodick.”

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For more information about XactWire visit xactedm.comor call (262) 549-9005

Top 10 - What Xact’soperators liked aboutthe Sodick1. Usable speed: the best

combination of cutting speedand cutting accuracy.

2. Linear motor drives: fast axisspeed reduced set-up time.

3. Automatic Wire Threader: highlyreliable, very fast.

4. 15” CRT: large powerful touchscreen is easy to view and allowsfor flexibility

5. NC code flexibility: powerful fea-ture that allows for customization

6. Rise/Fall work tank: makes iteasy to load, see and set upworkpieces

7. Machine network: allowsprograms to be sent directly tothe machine and sent betweenmachines.

8. Sales Staff: professional andhonest

9. Sodick support staff: is friendly,eager to help, caring, knowl-edgeable and easy to reach

Mostimportantly,Sodicklistens to us

and is willing toincorporate ourimprovement ideas bycustomizing the controlfeatures for Xact.

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