Development of a Cost Model for Vertical Milling Machines to Assess Impact of Lightweighting

Abstract

Lightweighting is a design strategy to reduce energy consumption through the reduction of mass of a product. Lightweighting can be applied to machine tools to reduce the amount of energy consumed during the use phase. Thus, the energy cost of machine operation will be reduced. One might also hypothesize that since a lighter-weight machine tool requires less material to build, the cost to produce such a machine will be less. However, it may also be the case that lightweighting a machine tool increases its complexity, which will likely drive up the cost to manufacture the machine. To explore the cost drivers associated with building a machine tool, data on the features associated with a wide variety of vertical milling machine tools are collected. Then, empirical cost models are fit to this data. The results from the cost models show that the machine tool mass is a significant cost driver; other key drivers are the number of axes and spindle power. The models are used to predict the cost benefits of lightweighting in terms of mass, which are compared to potential increased manufacturing costs associated with complexities introduced due to lightweighting.