Machinist or Machine Operator? You decide..

Hmmmmm, good thing too, I wouldn't really want a "thing" that anticipates my needs making decisions I might not like afterwards.

I would, however, like to see AI adapted to a 'phone answering service where the disembodied voice of the "person" at the other end actually does cater for my question when I ask a specific one instead of suggesting a number of option that I cannot relate to for my wants.

If a 'phone answering service data bank was expanded large enough it would make a dull day extremely interesting indeed, especially for those people who like to indulge in smutty questions to female 'phone service people....LOL, what a ball you could have with the huge and vast array of topics you could dream up.....and nobody at the other end gets offended with your questions.

What this has to do with operators and machinists I don't know, but it's apparent that when you start out in the trade you make the decision to hit the button or tell someone else to hit it when you say the word.

Perhaps a computer with a big data file of green for GO conditions "could" give you the nod to go for it and hit the green button.

It would be simple in that case, no need for a machinist who might have a hangover from the weekend party and overlooks that the stops were not set and crashed the head into the chuck.....with AI the machine sensors would detect an anomaly and block your attempt to go green, provided you gave the AI interpreter.....based up in the cloud..... enough info to make the right decision.

To get any form or reliability you would need to have a set up that employed a sensor bank for every position of a tool travel or machine component based on it's shape and form so that collision could not happen under any circumstances no matter how you wanted to move the tooling.

Malfunctions can happen and you would need a back up for your back up system ad finitum just to be safe, but what price is too high for a system without a Human interface.....we are talking about a watcher to watch the watcher actually, and how intelligent does an artificial intelligence have to be just to function.

I think AI needs to be specific for a particular application and not broad based for every occasion......a Dung Beetle does not need a degree in quantum physics just to get from the nest site to a pile of Bovine excrement and bring some goodies home, it's already endowed with enough intelligence to do the task and decide if the food is good enough to eat......the fact that the food may be otherwise tasty is probably beyond the scope of the beetle's knowledge of food.....even sh!t can look good and taste good if you are a dung beetle.
Ian.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mecanix

Put in a modern context (cnc) the machine is the machinist, the operator operates (or control) the machinist.

e.g I'm not a machinist, anymore, my automated machine-tools are. I am therefore an operator/programmer.

---

hy, if a car from today is more complex then it was in 12500bc, this does not mean that you are not a driver; you can not say that a driver is an operator, because it is still holding the wheel; selfdriven cars don't require a driver

if some tasks can be automated, or partially assited, and you are working 8h/day at that system, this means that you are at least an operator; being a machinist means understanding and adjusting more parameters than an operator

there is a ratio between machinists and operators, and this ratio is changed by automation; also, automation requires more knowledge for a machinist, and less knowledge for an operator

there is still a great need for machinists, especially because only 1 can prepare/debug etc, more machines, thus it can solve problems of more than 1 operators; in today cnc enviroment, machinists are still holding the 'wheel' / kindly :)

You become an operator when you push a button or crank a handle and the machine takes over the positioning and moving of the tools to shape the workpiece.

It doesn't matter if you are the one who sets up the machine and inserts multiple tooling...…..once you relegate the production cycle to create the movement of the tooling to the machine you are not a machinist......you could be called a setter or even a setter operator, but NEVER a machinist.

Anyone who kids themselves that they are now a machinist when in reality they are operators, even with years of experience, has my admiration in that they have more patience than I to stand and watch or work a repetitive machine all day long for ever.

I am a machinist, fully qualified in the art, and I have never just operated a machine...…... ever.

Machinists or operators....both have their function, but they will never be on the same level, unless by choice a machinist decided to operate a machine because the money is good......but an operator can never become a machinist if he just wanted to because the money was better.

There is also a big difference in how a person sees the work load...….operators get paid for piece work or volume output, that means they are selling their lives for money......the harder and faster they work the more money they will make.

To get more output, the employers invest in state of the art machinery that takes the skill out of the person and makes the machine the skill factor.
Ian.

Seems to me that this argument is obsolete, or at the very least seriously lacking.
What do you call the person who decides how the part should be machined on the CNC equipment available and then creates the program and the fixtures to create the part on the CNC machine? Seems to me that a lot of skill is required for this, skill which perhaps did not exist 100 years ago. Things evolve.

Cheers
Roger

Semi skilled?...…….a lot would depend on hi/her training program, but not an operator per se, that's for sure...…….back in the good old days we did a 5 year apprenticeship to get to a starting point in engineering etc.

With the rise of CNC all that has changed and now you get a combination of a person gaining basic machine skills of a very narrow spectrum, but still solely for a machine that does the actual work etc.

If you don't turn the handles that control the machine to produce the finished article you are an operator even if you did it for a 100 years.

Many years ago it would have been unthinkable to have a person programming and running a production machine, it's an evolution thing that gets to where you want to go by streamlining the process like going from cam controlled autos to peg board auto capstans then onto NC with punched tape and finally CNC with USB etc.

In the first instance with the cam auto, the operator would not have the skill to produce a cam or a fixture to enable the machine to function, but he is capable of watching a number of machines and bar feeding them as required once they are up and running.

Once punched tape entered the scene the machine changed to a quicker versatile change at will program orientated device, but the operator still lacked the skill to make the punched. tape...….the continuing evolution of getting more from a machine with less man input meant that the operator had to become more skilled at making the tape or writing the program and make the machine function too as part of the deal.

My late father was a tool maker, and during the war he set capstan lathes and mills for Women operators to work......and my mother worked on the presses as an operator in the same factory.

The main difference between an operator and a machinist is one just pushes buttons by nature and the other by choice.
Ian.

@Ian

I have a hobby of making very small, ultra-light, remote inverted canister stoves for walkers traveling in the snow. I have sold >150 of them (and paid off my CNC in the process). This is one of them.
Attachment 431052
But there is a critical point here: I am dealing with propane, which is dangerous stuff. It leaks and goes whoomp. My stoves are made to about 0.01 mm tolerances. They have to be for two main reasons:
* I require that the parts be fully interchangeable (for maintenance purposes etc)
* Working with compressed propane requires very tight tolerances for safety, especially as I sell these stoves to others.

I could not make 150 miniature stoves identical to 0.01 mm by hand on manual machines. I am not that good, and I am not willing to compromise on quality.
But I do write the CNC programs myself, longhand, without a CAD/CAM system, to get those results.
Attachment 431054
(20 stove bodies being machined.)
In addition, I have rebuilt parts of my CNC from scratch over the years, but that may be irrelevant here.

So: am I an operator, or a machinist? Or am I something else?

Cheers

Quote:

---

What do you call the person who decides how the part should be machined on the CNC equipment available and then creates the program and the fixtures to create the part on the CNC machine?

---

Quote:

---

Semi skilled?...…….

---

omg :) i see no reason why this couldn't be done by a semi-skilled average ...

by working, one can become a machinist

inside a shop, everything is there, depends how fast one is learning them:
... a machinist may invest a lot of time to understand, a he may remain dumb and curios even after several years :)
... an operator, who has his parts being count down by the boss, maybe is smart enough to leave

is easy to see who-is-who, especially by having a few tests during the interview, or checking previous work

is hard to see the learning curve, the inner battle of someone, and simply decide that he/she is not suitable for something, because it did not achieve whatever standard in x months ...

i have seen good people leaving, and ' hope-less ' operators having a major sudden change inside their learning curve

a machinist, or i would say a person who has experince, is seing the un-seen, is capable of predicting

Quote:

---

So: am I an operator, or a machinist? Or am I something else?

---

you are hungry, and you like to play with fire :)

you are hungry, and you like to play with fire
Yup!
Attachment 431064
Playing with fire...

And hungry
Attachment 431066
Well, not when I had finished, anyhow.
(Stove behind white gas canister)

Cheers
Roger

By definition....if you use a machine to produce work you have control over you are a machinist, but if you work on a machine to instruction you are an operator.

It would probably be more accurate to say that if you work on a machine that you set, adjust and have total control over you are a machinist no matter how long you have been doing it, but if you require someone else to set the tools for the machine so you can start work then you are an operator.
Ian.

nice :)

I have gone full circle in 28 years, back on a manual lathe, i would love to be back in the cadcam seat with a high speed mill, but those chances are too few in australia now. We all have to pay our bills and humble pie is fine with me.
Anyhow, cnc makes an interesting hobby out of an often repetitious job, i like it that way.

hello again, i saw an image a few days ago, and i decided to share it here :)

if you take 100 random actual "machinists/operators", and compare it to 100 persons from 1990-2000, i guess that on average actual guys are "soft heads", but there are a few actual peaks, thus a few actual guys are much more prepared then the peaks from the past

i don't believe that actual people are smarter or more capable then they was 30years ago, but technology evolved, and on average, more young people are getting out-of-focus ( too many cheap distractions these days, useless time-consuming ), but those who invest time in them-selfs, will find much more infos then 30years ago

the topic about women and micro-waves is too hot for me / kindly :)