CNC Turning and Milling Machine Centers and CNC Swiss-type Screw Machines

CNC Turning is a manufacturing process in which bars of material are held in a chuck and rotated while a tool is fed to the piece to remove material to create the desired shape.

Milling centers are generally classified as vertical machining centers (VMCs) or horizontal machining centers (HMCs). The integration of milling into turning environments, and vice versa, began with live tooling for lathes and the occasional use of mills for turning operations.

A Swiss screw machine is a type of automatic lathe with multiple tool holders arranged radially about the spindle, and a tailstock coaxial to it. It is designed for rapid production of small, high precision parts.

Screw machines are specialized automated metalworking lathes that were first developed in Switzerland during the late 1800s to produce large numbers of identical parts such as screws. At that time, the Swiss were leading makers of measuring instruments, including timepieces and weigh scales as well as tools, machines and optics, such as microscopes and telescopes. All of these required precision-made parts including shafts, bolts, screws and pins. Without a reliable machine to mass-produce these critical parts, many products would have been far too expensive to manufacture.