More than just a presetter: A strong partner

In addition to the presetter, Bassett has since also purchased ZOLLER tool holders and, following IMTS 2022, the »powerShrink 600« shrink-fitting machine. “We’re still in the early stages, but we’re already seeing significant improvements in tool life as well as in cutting speeds and feed rates,” he says. “Our tool life has roughly quadrupled.”

Alex Bassett is also enthusiastic: “The tool runs more smoothly—no wobbling, no chatter marks—and the surfaces are significantly better. It simply has a positive effect on everything.”

According to Dietmar Moll, many companies discover additional solutions from the ZOLLER portfolio after purchasing a presetter, which further improve their processes. “The presetter offers the best cost-benefit ratio—low investment, big impact,” says Moll. “But with ZOLLER, you’re not just buying a machine; you’re gaining access to a complete ecosystem of smart manufacturing solutions—and to a strong partner who shares in the customer’s success.”

Convincing Employees of the Added Value

Although the numbers were convincing, Bassett also had to convince his machinists of the new system’s benefits. Until then, everyone had been using their own methods—with feeler gauges, 1-2-3 blocks, or paper strips.

“When they check concentricity, it takes one to five minutes per tool—with 15 tools per job, that quickly adds up to 45 minutes,” explains Bassett. “With ZOLLER, we’re done in under five minutes.”

One particularly skeptical employee was allowed to make the comparison: He was supposed to probe his tools “the old-fashioned way” and compare the results with those from the presetter. “I said: Prove to me that the machine is wrong,” Bassett recalls with a laugh. “After a week, he wasn’t probing anything manually anymore.”

Today, the entire team trusts the »smile 420«. “It simply takes work off our hands,” says Alex Bassett, shift supervisor and son of the company’s founder. “You have so many things on your mind—so it’s good to know: ZOLLER is right. That gives us peace of mind and confidence.”

Precision and Repeatability

Today, tool presetting with the »smile 420« is the first step of every job at ProCam. In addition to significant time savings, the device delivers repeatability that cannot be achieved manually. The high-precision SK-50 spindle, optics, and image processing camera provide exact data with every measurement.

“We used to have major deviations between shifts,” says Bassett. “The day shift measures differently than the night shift—and that leads to quality issues or rework. With the ZOLLER, that doesn’t happen anymore because every measurement is identical.”

The measurement data is automatically transferred to the machine control system—typos are eliminated. Bassett even developed his own program to transfer the data to multiple machines simultaneously. “The system is now so deeply integrated into our process that we’re much more flexible than before,” he says. “I can’t even imagine working without it anymore.”

Are presetting devices suitable for high-mix, low-volume operations?

Bassett’s current opinion differs significantly from his earlier one. For a long time, he was convinced that presetting devices were unsuitable for operations with many different, small orders and frequent changes.

Since its founding in 1995, ProCam has positioned itself as a flexible contract manufacturer that excels with short lead times and the highest quality. Employees process 20 to 30 different orders daily—for industries ranging from aerospace and automotive to agriculture.

The 3,500 m² facility is equipped with eight milling machines (3-, 4-, and 5-axis machines, both vertical and horizontal), three lathes—including one with six axes—and two CNC milling centers. This equipment enables maximum flexibility for a wide variety of materials and batch sizes.

“Some customers call in the morning because their equipment has stopped working—and by the afternoon we’re already delivering the replacement part,” says Bassett. “We usually only have about a two-week backlog because we get through orders so quickly.”

Every minute spent on setup is a minute the machine isn’t making money. No wonder, then, that according to Gardner Intelligence’s 2019 Top Shops Survey, more profitable companies use presetting devices more frequently. According to the survey, 55% of companies with more than $180,000 in revenue per employee (an indicator of high profitability) use a presetting device—compared to just 29% of the least profitable companies.

Bassett did the math himself: How much time does his team spend each day probing tools and checking concentricity? The result: 30 to 60 minutes per job. Multiplied by the number of jobs per day and machine hours, this amounted to a massive loss of time—and correspondingly high opportunity costs. “At first I thought, that can’t be right,” he recalls. “But then it became clear: We simply have to have this device.”

If you ask a group of machine shop owners about their goals, they will likely all want to reduce setup times, speed up changeovers, and increase machine uptime.

But if you ask those same business owners which technologies they use to work more efficiently, the answers vary widely.

As the ongoing shortage of skilled workers in the manufacturing industry fuels interest in productivity-boosting solutions, more and more small and medium-sized businesses are recognizing the cost-saving potential of tool presetting devices. These external measuring systems capture tool lengths, diameters, and offsets before the tools are installed in the machine.

“It’s not uncommon for us to encounter shop owners who mistakenly believe that presetting devices aren’t for them,” explains Dietmar Moll, sales manager at ZOLLER Inc. in Ann Arbor, Michigan. “But as soon as the device is in their shop and they see the results, we often hear them say, ‘We wish we’d bought this sooner.’”

That’s exactly what happened to ProCam Services LLC, a family-run CNC contract manufacturer founded by Tom Bassett II nearly 30 years ago in western Michigan. Initially skeptical of presetting devices, his doubts quickly vanished after he purchased the ZOLLER »smile 420« about five years ago and integrated it into the workflow of his busy operation.

The device measures cutting tools with micrometer precision—and does so in just a few minutes. Internal ZOLLER tests show that measuring with a presetter is at least 45% faster than using the machine control system. External setup relieved the machine operators, who previously spent valuable spindle time probing the tools. Now, an operator can measure the tools for the next job while the machine is still running—thus, ProCam gained additional production time.

Already in the first year after introducing the presetter (2019), revenue increased by $300,000, and by another $700,000 the following year. Bassett attributes most of the $1 million increase to more efficient processes and increased machine productivity.

“I don’t think I’ve ever purchased a piece of equipment that has changed our work so fundamentally,” says Bassett. “There are many things where you think: We should have bought that sooner—but nothing has had as much of an impact as the ZOLLER.”