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TCI Precision Metals has announced support for lights out manufacturing with close tolerance materials that are said to be Machine-Ready for Production (MRP) Guaranteed.

According to TCI, MRP Blanks are custom made to order and eliminate the need for in-house sawing, grinding, flattening, squaring operations and outside processing. Each blank is said to arrive deburred, clean and to the customer’s net specifications as close as ±.0005" dimensionally and as close as .002" flatness, squareness and parallelism.

TCI says shops can choose from four different types of MRP Blanks to best suit their machining centers and established processes:

1. are made flat to ±.002″ and designed to stay that way. Parts are said to arrive stress free to avoid movement during machining;
2. are close tolerance square, flat and parallel precision blanks that are custom made;
3. reportedly maximize four- and five-axis milling throughput with custom sized material that includes a pre-machined dovetail to match the brand and model of dovetail work holding to be used;
4. have custom features added to save time in roughing, stepping, hog outs, drill, bore, turn, mill and more.

“MRP Blanks are consistent part-to-part and suitable for lights-on, human interaction, lights-off robotic handling or anywhere in between,” says Ben Belzer, president of TCI Precision Metals. “Shops are reporting increases in throughput of 25% and more using MRP Blanks. It really comes down to improving both productivity and quality, lights-on or lights-out.”

Orders can be delivered all at once or in time to match customer production schedules.