Hi,

We are a lighting company in Australia, custom designing a range of generally small-ish (20~60mm OD, 50~300mm length) components that are currently machined or cast+machined in Asia and imported. For a number of reasons including cost, quality control, time-to-market etc, we are considering acquiring an Okuma LB-3000-EX MYW-800. This is the model that's been recommended to us by the Okuma rep. We need the milling capability and Y-axis to ensure we can machine the widest possibly range of designs as automatically as possible. We have no in-house experience with CNC machining at the moment, but will be hiring an experienced person to manage the setup and programming etc. Most of our parts are quite simple.

Anyway,

1. Can anybody with experience of this machine or similar give an opinion as to the virtues of the Okuma?
2. Are we looking at a Rolls Royce when a Toyota would suffice?
3. Would [insert other brand here, eg. DMG-MORI] offer more (or less) features at the same price point?
4. Are there particular quirks to the Okuma that should be noted? (I appreciate the programming approaches differ between brands).
5. Is a CAM system suggested or will IGF/AOT system be enough for most parts?

Thanks for any input offered - I appreciate any advice at all!

Nick