An interesting email

[gcode]

I got an interesting email today from a machinery dealer
The machines is question a large high speed gantry mills
New they sold from 2 to 5 million dollars each.
I would guess they are still in China.
Has anyone else heard anything like this
This is a legitimate email


Hi Gentlemen,

I have been advised that a major USA aerospace company has pulled their work out a Chinese supplier.

This customer has a total of 56 Fooke machines in their facility.  Since contracts have pulled, they have asked Fooke to sell 24 of their Fooke machines.

Machines listed were sold in 2017 and have run times varying from 50 hours to 2,000 hours.  As you can see theses machines have had very little use.

[gcode]

The question is, are they pulling out of China because the work is gone
or because they are tired of zero covid lockdowns and the politics of doing business in China

[rdshear]

Sounds to me like they are trying to get the Fooke out of there...   

[CNCAppsJames]

Fooke's website is pretty short on machine details.

This may solve your machine availability/long delivery problem. Doesn't give you the best solution, but it does possibly give you a working one.

[CNCAppsJames]

My take would be no work.... otherwise they'd be lifting and shifting to their new favourite cheap supplier....

I have a sneaking suspicion there's going to be/is work being pulled out of China not for the lockdown implications but for the manufacturing implications.

I've read a number of articles in the last week or so that the Biden Administration's Commerce Department is finally going to be clamping down on what have previously been lax export restrictions and that in retaliation for that AND some chip manufacturing restrictions being put into place, the CCP is canceling a lot of Boeing 737 MAX orders.

[gcode]

Fooke's website is pretty short on machine details.

This may solve your machine availability/long delivery problem. Doesn't give you the best solution, but it does possibly give you a working one.

We don't need anything like that and would be very leery of buying one of these machines.
If they are tearing 20 or 30 gantry mills out at the same time the people doing the work probably
don't give a shit... and your odds of getting all the right pieces and getting them in usable conditions
is near zero

[CNCAppsJames]

We don't need anything like that and would be very leery of buying one of these machines.
If they are tearing 20 or 30 gantry mills out at the same time the people doing the work probably
don't give a shit... and your odds of getting all the right pieces and getting them in usable conditions
is near zero

There's going to be 3 (minimum) factors in play; 1) The rigging team, 2) The builder's team, and 3) The current end user/customer.

#3 is actually going to be the biggest wildcard. Every CNC Machine comes with manuals and some preipherals. Either electronic, physical, or both. Chances are most or all will not make it to the new owner. Ask me how I know this.

What I've found over the years is people/companies hoard manuals and things. They will keep manuals and things for machines they don't even own for God only knows why. I've NEVER been able to figure out this phenomena. It makes ZERO sense to keep a meaningless thing or manual. This I can guarantee ESPECIALLY because these machines are coming out of China, where Intellectual Property (except for THEIRS) is not respected. The CCP and their cohorts are a bunch of fucking thieves.

[mkd]

that vendor is really Fooked

[Incogneeto]

Careful....My ex doombass Boss bought several from Japan....

Hmmmm right after that Tsunami??

They had been submerged and were worthless.

Also ordering at this time..I would expect some delays (Supply Chain)

Big Ol' Train wreck coming with Congress, Biden admin and rail workers union.

[CNCAppsJames]

Big Ol' Train wreck coming with Congress, Biden admin and rail workers union.

Yeah, that's gonna be a shit show. 

On the one hand, management has NOT doing themselves any favors, and on the other, we ALL know how Union workers can be.

[RobertELee]

If they are tearing 20 or 30 gantry mills out at the same time the people doing the work probably
don't give a shit... and your odds of getting all the right pieces and getting them in usable conditions
is near zero

Reminds me of a previous place I worked, corporate swapped machine brands from Zerox and HP to just HP. They had 25 two year old Zerox's that cost $2+million EACH on our floor and over a hundred at two other locations(over $250million total). Movers literally took a Sawzall and cut up all the wiring harnesses and whatever else traveled through each piece so they could take each apart in their typical 4 pieces. Some were packed in shipping containers and went overseas to other companies but most went to the scrap yard.

[TylerBeer]

I've seen first hand 'millwrights' cut through robot cable packages worth $10k on their own, about 3" from a latched multi-wire disconnect

[Incogneeto]

Some people can lift a ton but can't spell it....

Isn't it Tonne??

[gcode]

I've seen first hand 'millwrights' cut through robot cable packages worth $10k on their own, about 3" from a latched multi-wire disconnect

yup a several years ago management was all hot and bothered about "machining cells"
they moved a big HBM about a 100 ft to make things "more efficient" and used a low ball
rigging outfit instead of the company we usually use.
I watched a kid look around, pull out a pair of sheet metal snippers and mow through a wiring harness
about 2" in diameter that ran from the control into the X axis casting.
It took about 9 months to get that machine running again. Between the actual cost of the move
,the lost opportunity cost of the machine sitting for nine months and the cost of flying techs in
from Japan to build and install a new wiring harness, I'll bet it cost a half million to move that
machine 100 feet. Not to mention, the machine never fully recovered from the move. It's been a hanger queen
ever since, despite a recent ground up retrofit

[gcode]

No comeback?
Could you not sue the moving company for all costs to repair?

I have no idea what they did about that.
At the time I was just keeping my head down, trying to outlast the latest General Manager
Which I did.