Now Let’s Take a Look at Mori Seiki Spindles:

Japanese Machine Tool OEMs are known to manufacture their spindles in house and rebuild their own spindles. Mori Seiki was known for their industry leading metal removal rates with their in house manufactured spindles.

Did the combined origins of DMG Mori having roots in both Germany and Japan create an internal struggle as to who should supply their CNC spindles?

Is DMG Mori best to manufacture spindles exclusively in Japan or outsource the supply of new spindles to Kessler Germany?

Should DMG Mori partner with a spindle repair company to meet the growing demand of their customers in America?

Mr. Kazutoyo Moriguchi the President of DMG Mori USA based out of Davis, CA and I discussed the questions above. At first I suspected his visit may be only a formality. Then as he began to explain their ongoing challenges to keep up with a growing demand for such a high volume of spindles I began to understand the severity of this situation made increasingly more difficult because of their successful sale and diversity of their product line. Bear in mind DMG Mori sells both CNC Machining Centers and Turning Centers with more than 160,000 machine tool installations worldwide.

As our conversation moved from our conference room to the shop floor of our 25,000 sq.ft Spindle Remanufacturing facility I understood their need for help was real. Mr. Moriguchi and I talked for hours about the ever present challenges of peaks and valleys both of our customers ever changing requirements create. Often people speak of “feast of famine” in the machine tool industry. For DMG Mori and Motor City Spindle Repair this is not the case. It’s more of a strategy on how to handle our continuous models of growth. There are no slow periods. Not even in this pandemic. Only periods of how to best manage customer demands. At Motor City Spindle we deal with challenges of processing 40 to 50 spindles in a slow month to processing multiple stages of spindle repair exceeding 100 spindles in a busy month. Imagine what DMG Mori is faced with keeping spindles on hand for all new CNC  machine tool sales but also all “Legacy” machine tool spindles.

Legacy spindles is a term used to describe a spindle from machines an OEM no longer sells but is still contacted frequently to support for service. Imagine the difficulty of keeping up with these constant requests.

I learned the term “Legacy” spindles to describe Mori Seiki spindles from Edward Dee who I hired in 2018 to work in our Spindle Room. Ed worked for DMG Mori in their Dallas, TX Spindle Room. Years ago DMG Mori rebuilt their spindles in Dallas, TX before moving it Davis, CA. It is rumored there are several hundreds of spindles (I even heard 800 to 1000) at the Dallas, TX facility in need of repair but the need of what quantities are nearly impossible to calculate. I can’t help but think of the ending to Raiders of Lost Ark when they wheel that crate containing the “Ark” to its final resting place.

Really, several hundred broken spindles? 200? 500? 800? 1000? Will these broken spindles ever be rebuilt? Will DMG Mori ever load up semi trucks full of broken spindles and ship them to The Motor City Spindle Team? (I serious doubt it but that’s another topic for another day).

ENOUGH BACK STORY. ENOUGH HISTORY. ANSWER THE QUESTIONS!!!!