Machine tool is a power-driven machine used to cut or form metals or other materials into useful shapes. Machine tools can perform operations with far greater precision than hand tools can. Some machine tools use mechanical force to bend, cut, drill, grind, hammer, plane, and squeeze metal into desired shapes. Other machine tools use such nonmechanical power sources as electrical or chemical energy, heat, magnetism, and ultrasound. People who operate machine tools are called machinists.
Machine tools are used to make parts for automobiles, appliances, computers, TV sets, and thousands of other products. Machine tools are also used to make parts for the machinery used in mass production (see Mass production). Most machine tools can be set up or programmed to produce a wide variety of parts.
There are hundreds of kinds of machine tools. Some perform a single operation, such as grinding or drilling. Others, called machining centers, carry out several kinds of tasks. Machining centers have automatic tool changers and may use more than 100 tools.
Machine tools can be linked together to form a flexible manufacturing system (FMS). Each of the tools in an FMS performs a different metalworking operation. The metal being machined, called a workpiece, is moved from one tool to the next by conveyors, robots, and other automatic equipment. A single FMS can manufacture a variety of parts.
Machine tools come in a wide range of sizes. A machinist's choice of size is based on the size of the largest workpiece to be machined.
