All boom and no bust with Cleveland Machine and Esprit

Texas’ Cleveland Machine is a highly specialised shop that serves the state’s major oil and gas industry. When we say ‘highly specialised’, we mean it. Cleveland Machine manufactures only type H back pressure and two-way check valves, which are installed in the wellhead to hold pressure during routine maintenance and repair of drilling equipment.

Although the company limits its work to type H valves, each wellhead often requires hundreds or even more than 1,000 pieces – so efficiency is one of Cleveland Machine’s top priorities.

On the Cleveland Machine shopfloor, you’ll find an Okuma Captain L470 lathe, an Okuma Space Turn LB4000EX lathe, an Okuma Genos L400E lathe, an Okuma MX-55 mill with rotary table, a Leadwell MCV-1100i mill also with rotary table, two Okuma LB3000 MYW mill-turns, and an Okuma MB-56VB mill.

Although the shop features an impressive line-up of machine tools, programming them hasn’t always been smooth sailing. Cleveland Machine’s plant manager, John Buckaloo describes some initial pain points: “We had issues with programming our first Okuma mill-turn, specifically the live tooling aspect.”

In addition to helping streamline the programming process, Esprit CAM software plays a valuable role in research and development at Cleveland Machine. “I use Esprit any time I design a new item as well as when programming the Okuma mill-turns,” Mr Buckaloo says. “We were very unfamiliar with programming the live tooling in addition to picking up with the sub-spindle. Although it is relatively simple to manually program those, Esprit was critical when the time came to contour surfaces and machine awkward radii.”

John Buckaloo and the Cleveland team first encountered Esprit at an open house and they were immediately struck by its efficiency. “Victor from our local Esprit reseller Shape Design Technologies did a great job showing us the software and touted the power of good post processors,” says Mr Buckaloo.

“The timing couldn’t have been more opportune. We knew we were going to have issues programming the Okuma mill-turn and I already had experience programming with other CAM software. Once we saw Esprit in action and talked with the reseller, it was clear that Esprit would be the best option for effectively programming our mill-turns.”

In the years since first implementing Esprit, the program has met initial expectations. “We use Esprit for programming helical movements, rotary milling, and especially engraving. Recently, I’ve been using engraving quite often. This is nearly impossible to do without some sort of CAM software,” Mr Buckaloo explains. “Esprit outputs flawless code to our mills time and time again. We recently did our first thread mill operation and without Esprit, I would have been clueless on how to proceed with the programming involved.”

As Cleveland Machine continues to fulfil the evolving needs of the oil and gas industry, Mr Buckaloo is confident that Esprit will keep the future bright. “Whether making one-off pieces or large volume R&D creations, Esprit has saved us a ridiculous amount of programming time and has also prevented quite a few machine crashes,” he says.

“We will likely continue to make the same parts we make now, but we intend to branch out to more and more items as our capabilities increase. Esprit, in conjunction with new machines and machine technology, is necessary to help us complete that goal.”

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