Joseph Machine Cracks the Code on Flexible Machining
- Shane Novacek
- 13 minutes ago
- 7 min read
OEM draws upon 40 years of experience to create the jFlex SFMC, a truly flexible machining center powered by PC-based control, EtherCAT, and modular drive solutions for window and door profile manufacturing
Engineers often channel their best ideas into a sketch. When Joseph Machine Company printed its first brochure in 1986, the company laid out an ambitious machine concept in a highly detailed drawing: a flexible window and door profile machining center capable of adapting to new products and production needs without rebuilding the machine from the ground up. For decades that vision lived in concept and on paper. After years of advancements in controllers, drives, and automation software, it was time to fully realize this concept to the quality standards of Joseph Machine.
The company’s vision of the flexible machining center now has more clarity than ever. But to make the concept real, the company had to embark on a rapid migration from a traditional control system, that reached its limits, to advanced PC-based control and EtherCAT-enabled servo technology from Beckhoff. The goal was to enable high throughput, multi-axis machining centers with coordinated motion control that are highly modular, serviceable and adaptable in ways that were previously out of reach. “It took 40 years for the automation and controls technologies to catch up to this flexible machining center concept with 30 axes of motion or more,” says Anthony Pigliacampo, owner and CEO of Joseph Machine.
Sketching out the solution for a rapidly changing industry
Joseph Machine’s core business is straightforward in description but complex in execution. “Our ‘start to finish’ solutions can cover every aspect – from fabrication, cutting, punching, welding, glazing, hardware insertion, and cleaning – to cost-effectively assemble window and door frames made of PVC, Fiberglas, or aluminum in under 60 seconds,” says Tom Vajdic, Vice President of Sales at Joseph Machine.
While these tasks must be executed at speed, the machines must maintain precision and the ability to rapidly changeover materials, product types, and process flows. The window and door industry, one of Joseph’s primary markets, typifies the problem: product designs and end user requirements change much faster than they used to, and manufacturers need machinery that can evolve along with them rather than becoming obsolete the moment the industry shifts. “For decades, machines were configured for the product the end users knew they’d make for the next several years,” Pigliacampo adds. “That’s no longer the case. End users need truly flexible machines that can be retooled and reprogrammed quickly as new products are developed.”
The problem, Joseph found, was that the automation system was often the limiting factor. Traditional motion control systems forced designers into complex fixed mechanical solutions and made coordinated multi-axis motion difficult, slow, or unreliable – even when high axis counts were promised by vendors. Processor bottlenecks from outdated controllers and slow fieldbuses produced unpredictable behavior at full speed and complicated diagnostics. Ladder logic programming models were rigid and cumbersome to change. Field wiring and control cabinet complexity created long commissioning cycles and maintenance headaches.
With those constraints in mind, Joseph’s engineering team set strict parameters for a new control platform: it had to offer high-performance, tightly coordinated motion for potentially hundreds of axes; it had to support a single software engineering environment up and down the control stack; it had to simplify commissioning, wiring and service; and it had to be open to freely integrate third-party sensors and devices. After an exhaustive evaluation in 2022 that examined many of the major names in industrial controls, Joseph locked in on a solution. “We evaluated many manufacturers, and Beckhoff checked all the boxes,” Vajdic says. “It’s a fully integrated system in all aspects of hardware, software, and networking with a level of support in the U.S. that gave us all the confidence we needed.”
To speed up engineering, Joseph took the extra step of partnering with Beckhoff USA’s Special Projects Team (SPT). After building an internal testbench in early 2024 and proving concepts, Joseph ramped up to a 32axis, jFlex SFMC fab center with four independent CNCs and dual pushers by Q3 of 2024. “We knew the 32axis jFlex would be a big undertaking, so we had one of our senior software engineers work intensively with a Beckhoff SPT engineer for a couple months to develop the machine controls,” Arustamyan adds. “The Beckhoff SPT team truly understood what we were doing, and the collaboration compressed the timeline to a much better machine at the end of the project.”
A control stack layered with flexibility
Joseph’s new machines such as the jFlex and the jFlow PVC welder/cleaner are now based on Beckhoff’s PC-based controls and EtherCAT, which cover all areas of automation and motion control. On simpler machines with fewer axes, Joseph uses CX7000 Embedded PCs with ARM® Cortex®-M7 and integrated I/Os. For high-end applications, Beckhoff’s fanless C6025 ultra-compact Industrial PCs with processors up to Intel® Core™ i7 (4 cores) provide the necessary computing power to run complex, many-axis motion on machining centers.
There is no communication bottleneck for the controls as EtherCAT delivers deterministic, highspeed communication and synchronization across dozens of axes and distributed I/O. Beckhoff’s openness to multiple protocols, EtherCAT’s broad industry support and the availability of gateways and bus couplers have been major enablers. “With our previous system, integrating IO-Link sensors required unwieldy custom file management and cumbersome firmware updates,” says Albert Arustamyan, Controls Engineering Manager at Joseph Machine “With EtherCAT and TwinCAT, it’s much more straightforward.”
The Joseph team found additional benefits in the IP67 rating of the machine mountable EtherCAT Box modules. EtherCAT P and One Cable Automation reduce wiring complexity by combining power and communication lines into one, reducing the cable count significantly. “Our move to EtherCAT P cut our cabling by roughly 50 percent and eliminated laborious field wiring.” Arustamyan says. “All EtherCAT Boxes feature standard M8 and M12 connectors that sped up I/O system cabling and removed the need for screwdrivers and wire strippers to install I/O modules.”
As the motion control aspects of the new machines were mission critical, Joseph Machine embraced Beckhoff’s drive technology such as the AX8000 family of servo drives and AM8000 series servomotors with One Cable Technology (OCT) paired with Beckhoff gearboxes. The built-in AX-Bridge technology to feed power to all connected servo drive modules meant Joseph could substantially reduce the wiring and number of required fuses compared to the previous drive system. Additionally, energy-saving AA30x3 Electric Cylinders allowed Joseph to replace power-hungry hydraulic and pneumatic solutions, most notably in punching processes that were historically hydraulic. “Hydraulic cylinders present many safety complications along with maintenance and cleaning requirements,” Arustamyan says. “With servo-based punching via electric cylinders, we gain speed, safety, energy efficiency, and flexibility in force profiles and retraction behavior with minimal maintenance and cleaning requirements.”
Joseph has also begun implementing cabinet-free motion control technology with AMI8100 series compact integrated servo drives. This series combines a servomotor, servo drive, and fieldbus connection in a space-saving motor design in the power range up to 48 V DC. AMI8100 integrated servo drives are suitable for all motion requirements up to 400 watts. These drives can be placed directly on the machine outside of control cabinets and without upstream I/O. “With the AMI8100 series, we can implement high-performance motion control and save space in more cost-conscious applications,” Arustamyan adds.
Beyond the hardware, TwinCAT 3 automation software delivered additional engineering efficiencies. With many Joseph machines requiring dozens of axes of motion control, TwinCAT 3 NC PTP is used to cover development for up to 250 NC axes per machine. The company’s software engineers gravitated to structured text programming and TwinCAT’s motion libraries, kinematics, and camming. TwinCAT Motion Designer tools allow the entire Joseph software team to specify and configure different drives, motors, and other mechanical components without requiring a core motion specialist to do all the work.
The ability to write modular, reuseable code blocks and apply CNC paths with variables rather than recreating code across hundreds of locations changed how the company approaches machine development. “Now we can do coordinated, interpolated motion that’s smooth and precise, and if we need to change a radius or a start point, we edit it once in the G code and it takes effect on every fabrication the machine performs,” Arustamyan says. “TwinCAT code reusability from machine to machine allows us to focus more on software development, so we can introduce more exciting feature extensions.”
The switch to Beckhoff has enabled Joseph to realize tangible performance enhancements. The most visible improvement is in the motion capabilities: Joseph can now execute truly simultaneous, overlapping process steps and tool actions that were previously sequenced serially. The platform supports concepts like “tied tooling,” where multiple tools hit a dimensional location simultaneously, and multitrack operations that process multiple parts at once — enabling impressive throughput gains without sacrificing product quality.
The 40-year vision, realized
With the jFlex SFMC and jFlow, Joseph Machine has translated a longheld ambition from paper to the plant floor. These machines give window and door manufacturers equipment that is reliable, reusable, and adaptable for high-throughput production. Joseph is already planning the next steps such as an upcoming jCNC machine center with pusher-based infeed that leverages TwinCAT Kinematics for its 5-axis CNC tooling in a single track or multi-track design. The solution also features tool changers, saw cutting, variable angles, and easily movable clamps. “High-speed, coordinated motion from Beckhoff is crucial for successfully introducing a powerful new machine like the jCNC,” Arustamyan says.
The simplification of commissioning and the cabinet-free approach to I/O and motion control have created positive ripple effects across Joseph Machine’s business. Labor, commissioning time, and cabinet size have all been reduced. “By minimizing cables, terminal blocks, and real estate from machine mountable EtherCAT Box I/O and drive technology, we have been able to downsize electrical cabinets by an estimated 15 to 20%,” Arustamyan says. Another avenue under consideration at Joseph is Beckhoff’s MX-System for cabinet-free automation. “It’s clear that the fully machine mounted MX-System can add a lot of value on machines where floor space is at a premium,” Arustamyan adds. This would dramatically extend the gains already made from cabinet-free I/O and motion control.
With each new system Joseph Machine ships with PC-based control, the payoff for that 40-year-old flexible machining center sketch becomes clearer: streamlined designs, improved performance, smaller footprint, and more reliable machines. Pigliacampo summarizes: “We’re very happy that we chose this path – working with Beckhoff feels like a true partnership and an extension of our team. Our machines are now built with the right building blocks for the future of flexible machining – and ultimately that’s a gamechanger for our customers.”
Ready to turn your most ambitious concepts into future-ready machines? Contact your local Beckhoff sales engineer today.
Shane Novacek is the Marketing Communications Manager at Beckhoff Automation LLC