PMPA staff has prepared a Conflict Minerals compliance guide  for our members based on our analysis and understanding of the SEC’s final rule.

That’s 356 pages worth of time we won’t be getting back- but that we can save you!

Saving you the pain...
Saving you the pain…

Our two page summary provides

  • a link to the final rule;
  • an overview of the potential impact of the rule;
  • explains the SEC’s determination of what constitutes “Conflict Minerals” as applies to our precision machining shops;
  • clarifies the “necessary to production question” that concerns many people.  (If the conflict minerals are in my shop’s tools, machinery, or computers, do they need to be reported?)

In addition to identifying the 4 focus minerals that are encountered in our industry, our report provides 5 questions to help you make sense of  and formulate your reply to each job and request for documentation from your customers for Conflict Mineral Status.

Finally, our document provides both the means to determine and suggested language to warrant that your product is “DRC Conflict Free” to your customer.

Effective associating through PMPA means that our members get a clear plain English tool they can use document to make sense of their obligations under Dodd Frank.  And guidance on how to respond and educate your customer.

Where do you go to get sensemaking on newly emerging regulatory requirements?

PMPA members know that we provide them with REGULATORY ASSURANCE.

PMPA provides assurance  to you in the high stakes world of regulatory compliance.
PMPA provides assurance to you in the high stakes world of regulatory compliance.

Our diligence on identifying regulatory issues and sensemaking on regulations help PMPA members assure compliance and avoid draconian penalties. And we provide tools they can use to respond effectively and confidently minimizing the impact and burden their shop.

That is Effective Associating!

Where do you go to get sensemaking on newly emerging regulatory requirements?

Not a PMPA member? Call Jeff Remaley 440 526 0300

Highwire

A relationship exists between the cutting speed and the cost per piece. Between the minimum total cost and the minimum time per piece is a high efficiency  machining range.

Minimum total cost and minimum time per piece are the boundaries of the high efficiency machining range.
Minimum total cost and minimum time per piece are the boundaries of the high efficiency machining range.

The accountants and engineers agree- this is the “sweet spot” of our operations.

We know the sweet spot when we encounter it!
We know the sweet spot when we encounter it!

Higher speeds permit quicker operating sequences, reducing time per piece; but higher speeds reduce tool life and increase down time.

Plotting both  Total Cost per Piece and Total Time per Piece as curves shows that the high efficiency range exists between the two curves’ minima.

Minimum time per piece usually occurs at higher speeds than minimum cost, providing higher operating efficiency.

If you have plenty of open capacity, you should aim for minimum part cost.

If you are capacity constrained, perhaps lowest cost per part is not optimum for your shop.

Sweetspot

Graph and discussion based on AISI  Cold Finished Steel Bar Manual 1968- what I trained on when I entered the market.

The economics of precision machining can be understood with just 4 factors- Machining Cost, Material Cost, Tool Cost, and Cost of Non-productive Time (Set-up Costs).

Since material costs and nonproductive costs are constant, they are combined into the fixed cost line at the bottom.
Since material costs and nonproductive costs are constant, they are combined into the fixed cost line at the bottom.

The line labeled “machining cost” (which is made up of labor and overhead cost of time per piece) reduces with increasing speed by reducing operating (cycle) times.

The cost for tools, on the other hand,  increases with increasing speed. This is because tool life decreases with increasing speed.

Since machining and tool costs vary with the speed of operation, a minimum total cost occurs at a definite set of conditions for material, tooling and operating speed.

Purchasing improved tools  is one way to move the machining cost and total cost per piece curves to the right and down. As is adding coatings, improved metalworking fluids and their delivery, etc..

As long as the gain in speed and the resultant drop in cost to produce are larger than the cost of the improved tooling, or other process improvements, you can improve or further optimize the economics of your production.

Our industry has benefited greatly from the many improvements in tool materials, coatings,  metalworking fluids and design improvements.

Are you taking full advantage?

Graph and discussion based on AISI  Cold Finished Steel Bar Manual 1968

The uhh- “techie” part of us is celebrating Pi Day at 1:59 pm today

Today 3-14 at 1:59  I will be celebrqting Pi Day. 3.14159 is the value of pi to 5 decimals...
Today 3-14 at 1:59 I will be celebrating Pi Day. 3.14159 is the value of pi to 5 decimals…

So besides being  the cause of much techie “irrational” exuberance, Pi Day  is a great way to get some engagement with students.

Marymount High School has several activities, last year they had a design competition incorporating pi; the students then made and sold buttons of each design, proceeds going to the Red Cross.

Hmm- math subject matter, design, production, sales, accounting.

Sounds like what we do in manufacturing.

Maybe celebrating Pi Day is not so irrational as first thought.

Pi day, is not just about the Pi(e), as much as it can be about showing relevance of math and integrating their skills  and engaging students differently.

How did you celebrate Pi Day? What are your plans for next year?  For 2015?

p.s., mine was Peach…

Cold work is defined as the plastic deformation of a metal below its recrystallization temperature.

In the precision machining industry, cold working processes can include thread rolling, thread forming, swaging, crimping, staking, planishing, and metal spinning.

And the steel bars that we machine are typically cold drawn (cold worked.)

Our suppliers use cold work when cold drawing a bar from hot roll to make it more machinable.

How to recognize a cold work process: No heat is added and no chip is removed in the process of moving the metal into shape.

Cold working of steel

  • changes its mechanical properties
  • and improves its surface finish.

Tensile strength and yield strength are increased by the cold work while ductility (as measured by % elongation and % reduction in area decrease.

See our post here.

Steels with low carbon contents, low residuals, low Nitrogen levels, and made by the Basic Oxygen Process readily cold work- think 1008, 1010, etc..

Cracks can develop after cold work is performed on machined parts.
Cracks can develop after cold work is performed on machined parts.

Intentionally adding nitrogen  can make predispose a part to cracking during cold work. If a part needs to be crimped, swaged, staked or otherwise cold worked after machining, You should make certain that the steel is not renitrogenized. (Nitrogen intentionally added during the melt process).

Also, make sure that the cold work in cold drawing was standard draft rather than heavy draft. Heavy draft reduces the ductility remaining in the bar- but makes the chips easier to separate.

We posted about these issues here.

More information on Nitrogen in free machining steels.

Lena ******** sent me an invitation to connect on LinkedIn 3 days ago!

If you can't be honest about who you are, What can you be honest about?
If you can’t be honest about who you are, What can you be honest about?

That Lena is a beautiful looking gal. I wonder why she wants to connect with me?

When I googled  Lena *******, I discovered that the name is a composite of the names of two cursed lovers in a fan fiction series.

It turns out that Lena is a the LinkedIn “disguise” of an Indian IT company with a sales office somewhere in the Southern U.S. (I am not sharing their identity, why give them the publicity?)

And despite her great looking photo,  her use of the English language on what seems to be a company LinkedIn page (and her indecisiveness as to whether she is an “I” or  a “we”) suggest to me that this company is a fraudster.

Or that they hire based on looks rather than ability to write clearly.

Maybe they are trying too hard to adapt to business here in the U.S., and not quite getting the culture thing right.

Either way- its a Fail. 

If you have to hide behind a photo of a model instead of being proud of who you genuinely are, don’t ask to connect with me.

Do you have an image on your LinkedIn Profile? What does it say about you? If you don’t, what does that say?

What about your brand? Are you operating under a disguise online? Or are you being genuine?

Be who you are.

If you can’t be honest  about who you are, what can you be honest about?

” If the costs of attaining a bachelor’s degree continue to rise faster than the benefits of having a BA in this labor force, more middle- and lower-income families might be better served by being strategic and aiming for an associate or online degree combined with some sort of targeted vocational program.”- The Atlantic

Before you go deep into student loan debt, make certain that your degree actually gives you a marketable skill.
Before you go deep into student loan debt, make certain that your degree actually gives you a marketable skill.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics  just completed a study on unemployment among recent college grads.

The unemployment rate of recent college graduates was 12.6 percent in October 2011, little changed from a year earlier. Despite modest improvement since a recent peak in October 2009, the unemployment rate of recent college graduates remains elevated above prerecession levels. Add to that the little known fact that:

 About 1.1 million, or 85.2 percent, of the 2011 cohort of recent college graduates were participating in the labor force in October 2011. (The labor force participation rate measures the proportion of the civilian noninstitutional population that is either working or looking for work.)

That means that 14.8 % of recent college grads aren’t even included in the unemployment figures since they “are not in the labor force..”

There are jobs for people with skills in advanced manufacturing and skilled trades. Like precision machining. These jobs allow you to earn while you learn, with many employers providing both training and tuition assistance so you can pursue a career and an education.

For facts about a career in precision machining, checkout our links, here, here, and here.

And our most popular post of late  Actually Skills  Do Pay The Bills

The reporter on NPR breathlessly gushed  about how the unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent.

What a great story!

They then cut to someone who attibuted the fall in the unemployment rate to ‘jobs picking up in construction.’

(Around 48,000 according to BLS)

Don’t get me wrong, I agree that a gain of 236,000 jobs in February is a significant improvement over the paltry 119,000 reported in January.

But it is nowhere  near the 363,000 needed each month to bring our official unemployment rate back down into the neighborhood of 6 percent.

What the reporters are not explaining to you is that in February,  the adult population grew buy 165,000, yet the labor force actually decreased 130,0000 as 295,000 additional adults chose not to look for work.

Over a  hundred thousand more adults fell out of the labor force in February than found jobs!

LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION RATE FEB 2013

Jobs haven't even begun to recover. This is the real unemployment story.
Jobs haven’t even begun to recover. This is the real unemployment story.

What does this mean?

It means that the real unemployment rate U-6 is 14.3 %

14.3 percent is the real number for total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force. Source- Bureau of Labor Statistics.

So that 7.7 % figure the breathless news reporters are giving you is wrong.

The reporters are understating by about 50% the actual unemployment rate.

7.7 percent is 54 percent of 14.2 percent.

46% is a fairly large margin of error or “understatement.”

There is hope.

There are jobs for people with skills in advanced manufacturing.

Here is a link to a quick video where I show a list of job openings posted at Cuyahoga Community College Advanced Workforce Center.

If you can take two semesters of skills training at a local community college, you could find yourself working in advanced manufacturing by the second semester.

Labor Participation Rate Graph

Professor Peter Morici of University of Maryland contributed some sensemaking to this post.

Repost from Automotive Newswire March 5, 2013.

Fat Boy motorcycles will be exported as kits to India for local assembly and sale.
Fat Boy motorcycles will be exported as kits to India for local assembly and sale.

“In a region dominated for decades by two-wheeled motorized travel it looked like the sun was about to set as Indian auto manufacturers set their goals toward getting Indians into four-wheeled vehicles with a roof.  The cheap Tata Nano was supposed to put an end to all of that two-wheeled transport and several auto manufacturers followed suit with new small cars developed for the Indian market and aimed at protecting those blue suede shoes from getting muddy.

“Whoops.  Indian’s don’t wear blue suede shoes.  And indeed, they love their motorcycles.  While Tata is revamping the Nano to attempt to make it successful, Harley-Davidson is expanding dramatically in India.

“Harley-Davidson announced this week that it will assemble the “Fat Boy,” “Fat Boy Special” and “Heritage Softail Classic models in India.  The cycles will be imported as kits and assembled locally offering a savings in import taxes.

“Assembly of the models will be done at Bawal, where Harley already assembles 12 other models for the Indian market.

Each Harley Davidson motorcycle represents  added value from the precision machining industry in a number of components. Export sales of Harley Davidsons are export sales of precision machined products.

This is good news.

Fat Boy

There are immediate jobs for people with skills in manufacturing today.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/GStpcos5Jm0]

You can get the skills in just a couple of semesters at your local community college.

PMPA has created a career database to help you find the skilled training program in your area.

We visited Cuyahoga Community College, where they have plenty of job openings posted from local employers as you can see in our video.