The 8760 philosophy
The number 8760 represents the number of hours in a year. 365 days x 24 hours = 8760 hours.
This is the working time available in a year – if you want it. Automation makes it possible to get close to the full 8760 production hours.
A study conducted in the 1970s in Europe showed that for manually operated machine tools, the actual cutting time was approximately 2% and for NC machine tools approximately 10% of the annually available hours. The utilization rates have improved as CNC technology has developed and machines can operate without continuous human supervision. However, according to the latest studies, only 20% of the 8760 hours were used for metal cutting in the 1990s.
The best flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) have reached over 7200 production hours a year in continuously changing batch production. 70% of this was cutting time, so the comparable cutting time ratio is 57%.
