Uptime+

With today's truly global market, manufacturers must maximize productivity to maintain a competitive edge. Success depends heavily on achieving consistent and reliable operation from every piece of equipment in your production system, enabling the flexibility, throughput time and cost minimization that your company needs to thrive. GF Machining Solutions Uptime+ empowers you to meet this challenge head on.

Training

In a competitive global market, manufacturers cannot afford to operate machines below their full potential — 100% performance is a must. Without the proper training and support, your machine's potential drops 50% on average.
To ensure your GF Machining Solutions machine is meeting its full potential, your operators must gain the expertise needed to capitalize on its capabilities. GF Machining Solutions training programs will transform your employees into productive and motivated experts.

  • Training courses are designed to convey the most practical and beneficial information.
  • Expert machinists are able to get higher levels of performance out of the equipment they are operating.
  • Increasing knowledge and skills satisfies and motivates employees and helps retain a highly skilled workforce.

Customers with GF Machining Solutions machines under warranty receive free training at any of our Technology Centers.

GF Machining Solutions Training programs offer:

Unique Expertise
A GF Machining Solutions expert team member serves as a facilitator who can answer your questions and act as a real-time link between the training environment and the engineers who designed your machine. Because most GF Machining Solutions engineers have experience in the job shop environment, and are continuously trained in GF Machining Solutions factories and R&D departments, we are able to provide you with the best solutions to all your application challenges.

Customized Training Programs
The exclusive GF Machining Solutions Profiler tool allows you to visualize and build a training program that meets your needs and develops your skills in the five performance areas of automation, speed, complex machining, precision and surface finishing. Each training program is designed with the customer in mind.

Machine Familiarization
This initial training focuses on the basic skills needed to ensure optimal machine use. New operators learn how to edit programs, simulate machining to produce simple parts, manage part files and tool paths and correctly maintain the machine.

Consolidation of Skills
These intermediate-level training courses improve and deepen an operator's knowledge. Tailored to experienced users, these training courses teach operators how to use advanced functions and optimize the machining process in EDM. For milling, courses are available to teach operators how to choose tools and coatings, as well as defining parameters.

Specializations
Designed for experienced users, specialization courses are offered to those wishing to hone their expertise in a specific area of machine performance, further deepening the operator's knowledge. Participants will learn advanced methods of preparing and adjusting machines to carry out complex operations that require extreme precision and skill.

Type Profiles of Your Customers' Needs
GF Machining Solutions takes training to another level by defining Type Profilers. These exclusive training courses identify, by machining type, the aspects of machine performance that must be mastered to meet your customers' unique needs.

Technical support

GF Machining Solutions Technical Support provides you with professional and responsive support through an experienced service network of experts.

Whether you need diagnosis of or assistance with technical challenges, parts identification, maintenance services or installation of upgrades, we are here to answer your questions and provide solutions as quickly as possible.

We are at your service

With over 100 highly trained service engineers in 27 states and Canada, you'll receive unmatched responsiveness, regardless of your location. Our Technical Support team provides:

  • Direct live response from an experienced service engineer
  • Extremely short, if any, "on hold" times
  • Extensive off-the-shelf parts availability
  • Conveniently located service engineers

Unparalleled application support
As part of GF Machining Solutions Technical Support, our application specialists will conduct feasibility studies and test cuts, giving you the confidence of having the right equipment and technology for your applications. You'll gain a competitive advantage throughout the life of your GF Machining Solutions equipment.

Service Map
For a complete list of service engineers in your area, contact us at (847) 913-5300.

Preventive maintenance

Studies show that 70% of machine downtime could be avoided through routine preventive maintenance. The GF Machining Solutions Preventive Maintenance Program makes it easy to avoid the high cost of lost productivity by keeping your machine in peak condition. One of our experts visits your facility and performs over 100 checks and adjustments to your machine. Following this, you will receive a full report suggesting which parts should be replaced to achieve optimum performance.

GF Machining Solutions Preventive Maintenance Program
  • Maintains the value of your equipment
  • Ensures maximum service life of your investment
  • Offers comprehensive evaluation and adjustment of your machine
  • Employs over 100 maintenance technicians locally and nearly 700 worldwide
  • Real-time, web-based links to all GF Machining Solutions facilities worldwide
  • 33 locations in North America

Machine warranty

We provide you with a warranty that shows we stand behind the reliability of our machines. Every GF Machining Solutions machine is warranteed for 12,000 hours of normal operation or 24 months, whichever comes first. Additionally, Uptime+ offers you the opportunity to upgrade to higher levels of coverage, ensuring complete confidence in your machine investment.

  • Uptime+ Level 1 comes standard with every new machine purchase and includes a two-year warranty of all parts not considered 'wear and tear' items, as well as a one-year labor warranty.
  • Uptime+ Level 2 offers the same coverage as Level 1, but expands it to include a two-year labor warranty.
  • Uptime+ Level 3 extends the coverage received at Level 2, to cover three years of parts and labor, instead of two.

For complete details on all warranty programs available to you,
Contact us at (847) 913-5300

Parts and consumables

GF Machining Solutions certified consumables and original wear parts ensure that your equipment is operating at peak performance.

Using GF Machining Solutions original parts and consumables minimizes the risk of machine breakdowns and provides the benefit of full warranty services. Our parts experts offer support in identifying the correct parts for your needs - ensuring the best results in terms of productivity, accuracy and reliability

  • Tested and certified exchange parts
  • Warranteed as new parts
  • When ordered by 4pm CST, in-stock orders are shipped same day
    Industry's largest variety in wear parts, EDM wires, electrodes, filters, and other consumables
  • State-of-the-art, fully-stocked spare parts and consumables hub for order processing efficiency

Quality replacement parts

GF Machining Solutions original wear parts give you the confidence to achieve the highest reliability, precision and productivity with your machine. Only authentic GF Machining Solutions replacement parts, identical to the originals, are guaranteed to be model and type specific, competitively priced, and ensure accuracy and high performance. With approximately $10.3 million in parts inventory, GF Machining Solutions guarantees quick delivery on parts from wire drive belts, threading nozzles and power contacts to wire choppers, seals and valves.

Certified consumables
With GF Machining Solutions certified consumables, you receive service, application support and the most advanced technologies to optimize your machine's performance.

We cooperate closely with leading manufacturers of EDM supplies to develop new and refine current products. The results are high-quality wire, resin, electrodes, drilling tubes, filters, dielectric fluids and lubricant carrying the GF Machining Solutions name.

Order Online with our NEW Online Catalog
Intech Parts & Consumables
Charmilles Online Parts Catalog

Stop waiting for deliveries
Built in 2007, the GF Machining Solutions North American Hub for Spare Parts and Consumables houses the largest parts inventory in the industry. The 32,000 square foot facility with 30 foot clear ceilings holds over 11,000 different part numbers. With over 300 daily outgoing packages, all in-stock orders placed by 4pm CST are shipped same day.

GF Machining Solutions takes efficiency to the next level with a barcode identification system and First In-First Out system (FIFO) for consumables which ensures shipping and inventory accuracy, as well as inventory age. An electronics repair lab is also located on-site to help get you back up and running fast.

Customer testimonials

The GF Machining Solutions Uptime+ program provides unmatched service and support to our customers. Uptime+ allows you to make the most of your machine tool investment, increases your productivity and gives you peace of mind.

Read about how GFMS Uptime+ has helped others achieve maximum productivity:

Brunk Industries
Brunk Industries is achieves true around-the-clock production uptime. When the lights go out at night, the precision stamping shop's GF Machining Solutions equipment continues working to help shrink lead times.

Continuously shortening lead times and initiating lean concepts have allowed Brunk Industries to expand and diversify into providing value-added services such as EDMing and high-precision and micro machining to its customers, the bulk of which are in the medical device market sector. The shop uses its GF Machining Solutions sinker and wire EDMs and Mikron high-speed mill to manufacture medical components and the sophisticated tooling needed for its production punch presses.

"We wouldn't be able to even begin to meet the delivery demands of our customers without the right processes or the advanced technology and support (Uptime+) from GF Machining Solutions," said Lars Brunk, president of Brunk Industries. "We are no longer quoting in weeks. That's not good enough. We need to quote in days, and soon enough, we'll need to quote in minutes. Together with GF Machining Solutions, we can continuously strive for as close to zero lead time as possible."

Brunk Industries is achieving 6,500 hours of annual uptime from its GF Machining Solutions EDMs.

Founded in 1960, Brunk Industries has continuously grown as a leader in the precision stamping industry. With well over half a billion components already delivered to the medical device industry, the shop is well known as one that produces some of the most complex parts in the world. Brunk Industries is a full service supplier of medical device components and assemblies and offers advanced R&D and rapid prototyping capabilities.

The company sets itself apart from the competition with its high-precision metal stamping operations and developing manufacturing solutions for the most difficult, complex part requirements. But most importantly, its ability to successfully transform costly machined components into higher quality, precision metal stampings at fractions of the costs of completely machined components.

For more information on Brunk Industries, Inc., please visit www.brunkindustries.com