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Efficiency isn’t a mere buzzword for sustainability. It’s a cost-saver, for OEMs as well as for shops. Across an organization, a focus on efficiency can improve communication between departments, reducing delays and eliminating confusion over objectives. In a facility, prioritizing efficiency can decrease energy costs and help ensure employees are working on tasks worth their time. And even on a machine-by-machine level, machines designed with efficiency in mind can see higher uptime, lower coolant and energy use, and even smaller footprints. As DN Solutions showed at the opening of its new U.S. Technical Center the company is tackling efficiency improvements in all these areas simultaneously.

DN Solutions’ U.S. technical center currently showcases 16 machines. Staff at the center plan to rotate out smaller machines every few months.

Process Hub

DN Solutions held an event celebrating the opening of its new facility from April 29 to May 1. The company bought the building for its new technical center in late 2023, with construction and remodeling starting in early 2024. While the company prepared the technical center for a soft opening during IMTS 2024 with 12 demo machines, it is now officially open with 16 machines, a spare parts warehouse, and offices for the company’s applications and service teams. All production on machine tools will still take place at the company’s South Korean headquarters, but lunch and learns, classes on FANUC controls, turnkey setups with robots, and test cuts for clients will all take place at the technical center. In short, the company’s U.S. operations and distribution will now originate from this hub, streamlining lines of contact and cross-departmental work.

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The parent company is also working to instill common work cultures and goals across its multi-national enterprise. DN’s intention here is to improve communication between each branch, enabling the Chicago tech center to work even closer with the South Korean headquarters and respond to changing customer demands with greater agility.

DN Solutions is currently focusing its efforts with the technical center toward aerospace customers. Though the company has hired sales and applications experts specialized in different industries, a large proportion of these hires focus on the aerospace industry. The emphasis on this market also comes through in the choice of machines on display at the facility, which include several five-axis machines and mill-turns equipped with accessories and systems that increase process efficiency.

Improving Uptime on the Machine

In particular, DN Solutions spotlighted its DNX and SMX lines of multi-axis mill-turns at the open house, as well as its DVF line of five-axis mills. The SMX machines are general-purpose simultaneous mill-turns with twin turrets and twin spindles, and Director of Application Engineering Michael Chalawa says that its skiving and five-axis capabilities make it a good fit for aerospace jobs. By contrast, the DNX does not include a lower turret, but the company says it is a powerful multitasking machine equipped with a B-axis milling head and dual spindles. The company also says its DNX delivers high precision and simplifies setups for complex mill-turn operations.

The DVF line, meanwhile, saw a refresh with the second-generation DVF 5000. Chalawa says that the new model of this machine has a smaller footprint than its previous iteration, even as its machining envelope has increased in size. This is not the only time I heard about compactness being a primary advantage of a machine, with the DNX mill-turn line also emblematizing the company’s move toward greater capabilities in more compact space.

DN Solutions is stockpiling as many machines and repair parts in the U.S. as possible before tariffs begin to impact trade with South Korea. The U.S. technical center will continue to equip these machines with turnkey integrations of partner technologies.

DN Solutions also took the opportunity to showcase its in-house digital twin software and its linear pallet system (LPS), which serves as the basis for its in-house machine monitoring system. The digital twin is a model-based system compatible with multiple levels of detail, from the highly abstracted to something more accurate. It works with machines’ controls to simulate programs, ensuring users don’t waste time, energy, and material on unsuccessful operations.

The LPS instead relies on automation to improve spindle uptime. Users manually load the pallet system, which can deliver up to 72 pallets to multiple machines, depending on the length of the system. Users can rely on photos of the properly set up fixture and work, and the system can handle complex programs where pallets must return to the loader for changeover between operations. This enables machines to work much longer on a much wider range of parts, improving throughput and efficiency per machine. DN Solutions’ LPS at the open house was also equipped with a Vektek Guardian 2.0, a wireless system that ties into the control to monitor vise pressure. By doing so, it prevents insufficiently tightened vises from going into the machine and reduces the risk of chatter.

DN Solutions also introduced its DLX line of powder bed fusion (PBF) additive manufacturing machines and accompanying software at the open house. These machines were too new to be present at the open house, with the company estimating that DLX machines should begin arriving stateside in July or August.

Facility-Wide Efficiency

Both DN Solutions’ digital twins and its LPS have helped to make the technical center’s test cuts and in-house projects more efficient, but this is far from the only step the facility (and the company as a whole) has taken to maximize efficiency. As part of the construction on the Chicago building, DN Solutions improved the effectiveness of its heating and air conditioning systems, and it is actively looking to improve energy efficiency and adopt renewable energy where possible. In doing the latter, the facility would follow in the footsteps of DN’s headquarters, which uses solar energy to power its buildings whenever possible.