Help Us Help You: Support Our Research

Help Lifecycle Insights’ research efforts into machining practices and technologies by completing our online survey. Findings will be reported in this community as blog posts. You’ll also a receive a complimentary copy of one of our latest eBooks. Thank you for your support.

In the past few years, we’ve seen a lot of advances in machining technology. High-speed machining promises to boost throughput. Feature-based machining aims to automate the process by which tool paths are created. Innovative new methods are emerging that combine 3D printing and machining, enabling the production of parts that were previously infeasible.

All that is well and good, but here’s the rub: how much of it is really in use? Have many gotten away from manually editing g-code? Are there shops leveraging semantic PMI to automatically generate tool paths? Do production organizations have one or five CAM software applications on average?

All those are intriguing questions. But here’s the real kicker: do these advances yield any real advantages and benefits?

Therein lies the purpose of Lifecycle Insights’ most recent research effort: The 2016 NC Machining Study. It not only looks at which technologies have been adopted but also asks about performance in key technical and business metrics. That lets us correlate one with the other. In short, it lets us truly test if technology does have an impact on the success, or failure, of machine shops.

Why post about it here? This is where you come in.

In short, we’d like to have you participate. The survey has 24 questions and should take approximately 15 minutes or less to complete. In return, you get two things of value:

• A complimentary copy of Lifecycle Insights’ eBook, Working with 3D: The Contract Manufacturer’s Key to Profitable Growth.


• A series of blog posts in this community reporting back the key findings from the study.

All individual responses, of course, will be not be shared with anyone. Findings will only report on responses in aggregate.

We’d love to have you participate by taking the 15-minute online survey, and get involved in the discussion once we report back the findings.

Take care. Talk soon.