The integration of milling into turning environments and of turning into milling environments, begun with live tooling for lathes and the occasional use of mills for turning operations, led to a new class of machine tools, VICHOR Multitasking Machines (MTMs), which are purpose-built to provide for a default machining strategy of using any combination of milling and turning within the same work envelope.

What is Multitasking?

Multitasking is when you combine several cutting processes, including turning, milling, drilling, tapping and deep-hole boring, on one machine as opposed to having those same processes handled by multiple machines. When you can process an entire workpiece, from raw material input to final machining, in a single setup, we refer to it as a Multitasking Operation.

Why VICHOR Multitasking?

Our Multitasking machines have the ability to mill, turn, drill and hob part features with high accuracy and high quality, while also significantly reducing setup time by performing most or all of a part’s machining in one cycle. Combining operations also reduces inaccuracies that can occur when moving parts across multiple workstations, as well as eliminates work-in-process inventory that might otherwise linger between standalone machine tools. In fact, the benefits of our Multitasking machines are so great, we use them in our own manufacturing facilities to make other VICHORs.