Zero Setup Time: Inside Norbert Kempf CNC-Technik GmbH’s 23-Machine Automated Shop | Ep. 49

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Eric opens this episode describing a dream he had. A shop with no standalone machines. Three hundred and nine pallets moving 1,600 times a day. A central tool system holding 5,500 tools, five Fanuc robots shuttling up to 800 of them daily, and not a single crash. The punchline is that it wasn’t a dream. He’d just walked through it.

That shop is Norbert Kempf CNC-Technik in St. Ingbert, Germany, a 100-person contract machine shop that runs simple to highly complex parts in batches of one to 500. We caught up with owner and managing director Stefan Kempf on his own floor, along with Risto Niemi of Fastems, who has spent 28 years helping shops rethink how they grow, and Yanick Müller of swissMODULAR, who thinks about work holding the way most people think about religion.

The number that stops you is this one: Setup time inside the machine is zero. Every tool arrives staged, every pallet is built offline, and the price a customer pays is the same whether they order ten pieces or a thousand. Utilization sits above 90 percent every single day, across 23 four-axis horizontals split between two buildings and joined by a bridge with a robot running tools across it. Any machine can run any part, so there is no bottleneck to schedule around.

What makes this more than a hardware story is how Stefan got there. He spent three years preparing the business before the first flexible manufacturing system arrived, standardizing machine brands, tool interfaces, and pallets into what he calls a monoculture of machines. Then he built a bonus system that pays the whole company on utilization and measures it every shift, so a bad night is just a bad night and tomorrow is a fresh chance.

If you’ve added machines and watched your utilization fall, this is the conversation to sit with. Stefan, Risto, and Yanick each leave you with one tactic you can act on, and none of them require a new building.

What’s Covered in this Episode

• (0:00) Eric’s dream: a shop with no standalone machines, 309 pallets, and not one crash
• (0:58) Inside Norbert Kempf CNC-Technik in St. Ingbert, Germany, and its CNC 4.0 concept
• (6:48) Risto Niemi of Fastems on 28 years of helping shops rethink how they grow
• (8:53) Stefan Kempf on taking over his father’s 1970 turning shop and building what stands today
• (10:21) Yanick Müller of swissMODULAR on selling a philosophy, not just a vise
• (12:02) 1990 to 1999: one machining center becomes ten, and utilization goes the wrong way
• (13:18) Monoculture of machines: standardizing brands, tool interfaces, and pallets
• (13:54) Why Kempf builds its own machine pallets and now sells them worldwide
• (15:25) MakingChips, DN Solutions, and Kennametal are giving away a fully tooled SVM 4100
• (16:09) The frustration that started it: walking in to the same errors every single day
• (18:00) Risto on why buying another machine is the easy answer and usually the wrong one
• (19:24) Yanick on using the full envelope you already paid for
• (20:58 A decade-long vision and three years of preparation before the first FMS
• (23:19) Inside the CTS: five Fanuc robots, 23 horizontals, tools staged before the cycle calls
• (24:41) The IMTS Industrial AI Conference, September 16 in the South Building
• (25:29) Zero setup time inside the machine, and what that does to a quote
• (27:37) How good business relationships help makes everyone stronger
• (29:42) The bridge between two buildings and the robot that runs tools across it
• (32:27) Tiny parts, big parts, 100 on a tombstone, and why every machine runs every job
• (35:00) One operator for two machines, one troubleshooter for all 23
• (36:07) Navu adds AI chat to your website, trained on your own content
• (37:19) Multi-skilled people, the Swiss apprentice system, and unmanned nights
• (41:03) A bonus system tied to utilization and measured every shift
• (46:07) One tactic each: tool management, spindle up time, and never stop learning

Resources Mentioned

• Norbert Kempf CNC-Technik GmbH
• Fastems
• swissMODULAR
• MakingChips Machine Giveaway
• IMTS
• Navu
• Hennig

Connect with Stefan Kempf, Risto Niemi, and Yanick Müller

• Norbert Kempf CNC-Technik GmbH
• Fastems
• swissMODULAR