Milling as an Art Form

When Kevin Lorch sat down to think about how to enhance his company’s image as a milling company, he came up with a unique concept that has taken the metalworking industry by storm and is being adopted by metalworking industries around the globe.

By now, many industry people in Canada know about Sandvik Coromant’s Modern Art of Milling event, a unique “show” that highlights milling techniques in an effort to help manufacturers improve productivity and efficiency in their operations.

Since its inception in June 2009, Lorch, who is project manager, business strategies and development for Sandvik Coromant, and his fellow “actors” (Sandvik Coromant employees such as Dave Andrews and Chris Gable in North America) have conducted 15 shows in Canada alone.

Lorch says that in total, more than 500 manufacturers across Canada have attended Modern Art of Milling events, which are typically held at various machine tool distributor facilities across the country, and have also been held at educational institutions such as the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT), the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT), and the BC Institute of Technology. He adds that he is looking at partnering with Ontario educational institutions such as Mohawk College, McMaster and Durham College for the event.

The most recent Modern Art of Milling events were held in May in Vancouver and Calgary at the respective branches of Thomas Skinner, and on June 30 at Sirco Machinery/Haas Factory Outlet in Toronto. Don Babineau, vp of operations for Thomas Skinner says that “the Sandvik seminars are extremely informative to our customers. Sandvik’s high quality tooling helps our customers create higher quality parts, faster and more cost effectively. We look forward to hosting these and more seminars again.”

Dan Ferko, president of Sirco Machinery/Haas Factory Outlet says that when Sandvik Coromant approached him about hosting the event he didn’t hesitate.

“I jumped on board because I think it’s a unique event. It’s not just a seminar to talk about tooling specs or machine specs. It’s about bringing in some new machining techniques for the industry to help customers improve their operations.”

The event has become so popular that it is now being held at locations around the globe.

“We had an event in Mexico three weeks ago. It was the first event and the group there wanted to test it," says Lorch. "Well they had close to 100 people attend. In Brazil the people there organized a two-day Modern Art of Milling event which brought in more than 300 people. We’re doing this in the UK, France, India and Germany.”

The events and the message—about being more efficient and more productive to remain competitive—are identical he adds, even if some of the presentations are in different languages.

Sandvik Coromant is building upon the success of the Modern Art of Milling event with a new series of Modern Milling Tips it is developing for its Sandvik Coromant You Tube channel. The company plans to unveil the new series at the upcoming IMTS. And it is considering using a similar model to promote turning and drilling techniques for specific market sectors such as aerospace, adds Lorch.

www.sandvik.coromant.com

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