Machine tool builder Mori Seiki in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, held its Innovation Days summit over the last few days. The company showcased new technology, including a clever new device that goes in a machine's spindle, behind the chuck, and dynamically compensates for out-of-round parts. Many individuals said this is a great invention. The company also showcased its new multi-axis CNC with three turrets, each containing a built-in milling motor, and a Y-axis function.

Exhibits at the summit contained examples of complex -- even beautiful -- parts produced with Mori Seiki machines. One part in particular caught my eye.



The item is a skills-prize winner in a "Cutting Dream" contest for Die and Mold machines. A tiny end mill with a 0.4-mm diameter cut the small "Mori Seiki" letters in the middle of the part. The level difference of the larger, block "NV5000" letters is only 0.0002 mm. Your eye can't help but get caught up moving between the subtle, mirrored levels. Sadowara Kikai, of Miyazaki-gun, Miyazaki, cut the part on a Mori Seike NV5000a1A/40 out of A5017S material.
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On another note, "disruptive" seems to be the new buzz word in industry. First came "disruptive manufacturing," where a new technology upsets the apple-cart of how things had been done. An example of this is the use of additive machines to "build" finished, functional, metal parts, layer-by-layer, directly from 3D CAD models.

Part of the summit included a presentation on "disruptive innovation." The speaker said many firms are already practicing "sustaining innovation." For example, automobile manufacturers improve cars, year after year. At some point, though, things such as roads, curves, and police constrain further improvements. Likewise, said the speaker, companies put constraints on themselves by way of their business models.

He said innovation is more than just new technology. It is also about new services, an example being iTunes. It's also about new processes, such as the one Dell came up with that disrupted the PC industry when the company built computers in a modular fashion and delivered them directly to your doorstep.

The speaker said in about a year Tata Motors in India is coming out with a $2,500 car. It will be able to sell them so cheaply having invented a new business model: The cars are distributed to dealers in "kits," which the dealer must assemble.

Lastly, he said innovation doesn't always mean listening to the consumer. He quoted Henry Ford, "If I'd listened to consumers, I'd have given them faster horses."

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