Machine tool accessories are devices required for a machine's regular, stipulated range of work and are supplied and priced with the base machine, whereas attachments are supplementary devices used only occasionally to extend a conventional, general-purpose, non-automatic machine tool (lathe, drilling machine, shaping machine, planing machine, milling machine) beyond its stipulated operational range, ordered and paid for separately as needed. Attachments are economically justified specifically where dedicated single-purpose or fully automated/flexible machines (e.g., CNC machining centers) are unavailable or unaffordable, production volume is too low (job/piece production rather than mass production) to warrant a dedicated machine, and the required operation is infrequent; as flexible automation becomes more accessible, the need for attachments progressively diminishes. This belongs to manufacturing/production engineering, within the study of general-purpose (conventional) machine tools and their capability extension.
Machine tool accessories are devices required for a machine's regular, stipulated range of work and are supplied and priced with the base machine, whereas attachments are supplementary devices used o…