One of my pet peeves is to walk into a shop and see, on each and every horizontal bench surface next to a machine, a handful or two (or three!) of used, burnt, failed, worn and unidentifed carbide inserts.
It’s like they are the nest of an invisible shop bird, who builds nests everywhere in hope of raising a family.
I never see any eggs in these nests though. just plenty of carbide.
The materials in these inserts needs to be recycled. DO IT NOW!
On my last trip to the West coast, I stopped in to visit the local Sandvik Facility in Cypress, California.
Machining Applications Engineer Grant Hughson showed me some of the advanced work that they were doing for customers. (It involved making large chunks of Titanium submit to the will of the engineers through some highly unusual milling pathways using some unique inserts. And they demonstrated an acoustic dampening system that attenuates vibration while in the cut. And a whole bunch of other cool, use it to make the Death Star kind of technology.) And he showed me the Sandvik Carbide Recycling program.
Recycling carbide makes sense for your shop and the environment.
But the simple elegance and utility of the Sandvik Recycling Program hit my nerve.
I JUST HATE seeing unidentified, partially used, or completely used carbide inserts just lying around in a work area.
NO GOOD THING CAN HAPPEN WITH THEM IN ONE’S WORKSPACE.
So take Grant’s advice and get that used carbide collected, contained, and recycled.
Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Dr. David Michaels will speak at PMPA’s Management Update Conference in Glendale, Arizona on Friday, February 15, 2013.
We have scheduled an hour and a half interactive discussion of workplace safety issues with Director Michaels. I will be moderator of the discussion.
What questions would you like to ask the Director of OSHA and number 2 at Department of Labor?
What thoughts would you like to share with him?
I will do my best to make sure that the most relevant and timely issues are discussed, but first I would like to know what is on your mind?
“Manufacturing transforms more than materials into products. It transforms individuals into craftspeople. It transforms communities into global trade partners. It transforms companies into engines of human growth. It transforms our quality of life for the better.”- Darlene Miller
We were not surprised that the Manufacturing Institute recently selected PMPA member and 1st vice president Darlene Miller to be an inaugural STEP awards honoree.
Permac Industries’ Darlene Miller visits the White House Thursday February 24, 2011.
Manufacturing Institute: “…honored because they each made significant achievements in manufacturing through positive impact on their company and the industry as a whole.”
That’s a bit of an understatement.
Darlene’s leadership success reaches across the country and across organizations as she personally mentors at risk young women through Hope for Tomorrow, served as a member of the President’s Council for Jobs and Competitiveness (PCJC), and founded the Right Skills Now program to help meet the need for trained high skill workers in advanced manufacturing. She serves on a number of important committes for the U.S. Chamber Small Business Council, and is a frequent invitee, and presenter at various policy forums including the Clinton Global Initiative, The Atlantic Council and others. She promoted the nationwide adoption of the Right Skills Now training program and supported the creation of the 10,000 Engineers program, created to spur engineer retention by providing student internships. She advocates tirelessly for NIMS certifications and a credentialed workforce. She continues to work with additional schools across the company to make Right Skills Now readily available to potential machinists.
Darlene was named Small Business Person of the Year by The U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 2008, and the SBA in 2006 currently serves as Vice President of the Precision Machined Products Association, and was selected by her peers to be the association’s first female President in 2014.
We are proud to see our vice president and member Darlene Miller recognized for her efforts to promote manufacturing in North America. To promote manufacturing as a career. And to be recognized for her work at the national level to make a difference in the lives of talented but unemployed persons who are- thanks to her work with Right Skills Now- finding a career in advanced manufacturing.
PMPA extends our congratulations to Darlene Miller. And to the thousands of other individuals like her that are trying to make a difference in advancing our craft, our employees, and helping all find their highest and best use through careers in advanced manufacturing.
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
About 55,000 tourists visit Liechtenstein every year. This blog was viewed about 190,000 times in 2012. If it were Liechtenstein, it would take about 3 years for that many people to see it. Your blog had more visits than a small country in Europe!
If you have anyone moving up from shop operations into estimating, quoting, or engineering, I think that this tutorial will make them error proof on conversions. Bookmark this one.
Guest post from NotUrOrdinaryJoe on CR4 Engineering Forum:
Although we don’t do homework here, I thought it would be nice to offer a tip that was very useful. Frequently the point in which students become bogged down is nothing more than getting some answer into the terms that is required. This technique is rather obvious to some, but it couldn’t be any more straight forward.
When you have something like a rate of change of something in one set of parameters and you wish to convert it to another set of parameters the first step will be thinking of the rate as a fraction. So, if you take some rate such as:
X gallons/minute and you want to convert it to Y liters/second
On the left (above) is :
X
gallons
minute
Where the magnitude of the rate is X, the terms are gallons (in the numerator) and minute(s) in the denominator. Any step you need to use simply lists the conversion factor in the same way. So to convert you set it up like this:
X
gallons
3.785
Liters
minute
minute
gallon
60
seconds
Note that the number 3.785 is the magnitude of Liters per Gallon, and 60 is the number of seconds per minute. The word “per” is the clue to draw your horizontal line to seperate the numerator from the denominator.
Next, since like terms cancel, you can draw a line through both sets of terms “gallons” and “minutes” leaving only:
X
gallons
3.785
Liters
minute
minute
gallon
60
seconds
The magnitude is X times 3.785 divided by 60
and the left over terms verify that you ended up where you wanted. That is to say that the left over terms (the ones that did not cancel) are Liters per second.
I still remember how easy this became when I first treated it like multiplying fractions together. And it checks your work by looking at the remaining terms. Good Luck and no, we don’t do homework problems.
We were pleased to see this post on CR4 Engineering Forum, Where we have participated for many years. There is only one caveat: the Factor Label Method only works on converting units that share a constant ratio, (linear relationship) rather than a constant difference. For example, it doesn’t work on degrees Fahrenheit to Celsius. See the Wiki link for why.
What indispensable but easy to use technique do you have that makes your technical work easy to do? We’d love to post and share it as a best practice for our craft.
If you have stationary reciprocating internal combustion engines (gasoline or diesel) for standby generators, pumps, etc, these January 14, 2013 final revisions to the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants may apply to you.
New rules finalized January 14, 2013 for these…
Keeping up with the latest changes in regulatory issues is just one way we provide value to our members. The new requirements are posted on our website under Knowledge and Tools Regulatory Reference Information. Here is a shortcut.
If you have stationary internal combustion powered equipment at your shop, whether diesel or gas, you need to take a look at what we have posted.
Had a great discussion with a colleague about “Hope.” He defined hope as being “earnest expectations”- as opposed to all the nebulous, touchy-feeley stuff that most people seem to think it is.
This is NOT what hope looks like in my book!
I considered what he said, and offerred, that to me, hope is more than just earnest expectations.
Hope is Positive Earnest Expectations!
Here are my 5 Positive Earnest Expectations for 2013:
Automotive market will continue to strengthen.
When I worked at a steel barmill, it was certain knowledge that automotive was the most important driver of bar steel sales. “No one would build a bar mill for steel if it wasn’t for automotive.” Said Everyone. To. The New Guy. (Me.) We see estimates of a 15 million auto sales for 2013. That may be a little high, but if housing continues to strengthen too, well, tradesmen will need pickup trucks and vans. And THAT could be a boost to auto sales.
Housing market will continue to strengthen.
It merely has to revert to the mean. We continue to see a number of positive indicators and comments from people who follow housing. But it’s pretty simple, really- houses are currently cheap; there is a lot of cash around in the hands of people and their parents who have jobs. People who have not spent the last 99 weeks on unemployment are seriously starting to think about picking up a bargain in real estate. Not to flip, but for the long run.
If you want to get a well paying job- consider precision machining.
Our industry recognizes its need for talent and skilled workers. 66 percent of our companies reporting in December expect employment opportunities to remain the same. (Most every shop I know has at least an opening or two for a skilled operator even in today’s market.) An additional 10 percent expect them to increase. While the balance, 24 percent feel that employment opportunities will decline, the fact is that demographics, politics of the past few years, and the fact that several of our markets are recovering tell me that if you can do the math, and are interested in technical work, you could get a well paying job in precision machining. Career link.
Technology will continue to improve in our industry.
Just saw a breathlessly optimistic special report on robotics by Kiplinger Reports. I continue to see robots being deployed in the shops I visit, and integrated into machines for chucking as well as for removing finished parts. The people that we hire today aren’t going to be hired because they can move parts. They will be hired because they can think. solve problems, and create value. We’ll leave the mindless moving from point A to point B to the robots as we continue to face increased employment and regulatory costs.(Tip, learning about robotics and their controls is a great career strategy as I see it…) Kiplinger Robots Slide Show
PMPA National Meetings will be ‘Hugely Successful’ this year.
Our Management Update Meeting in February is loaded with critical intelligence insights to help you intelligently manage risk. (More than enough risk being faced every day.) Regulatory risk, hiring risk, healthcare risk, organizational risk. And sessions covering leadership, high performance collaborative work, and organizational improvement. (It’s not enough to manage risk, you also must continuously improve!) Our National Technical Conference and PMTS in April will feature programs that will enable your attendees to immediately apply new knowledge to problems they face daily in your shop. Understanding materials. Understanding GDT. Better use of macros. And about another 24 or 25 other hands- on topics of interest to operators, leadmen, engineers, quality and management personnel.
Positive Earnest Expectations. That is what I think hope looks like.
Stronger markets for cars, trucks, and housing. Employment opportunities for people looking for a career that puts them at their highest and best use – and growing daily.
And a successful year for your association, as we continue to deliver what you need to stay competitive, sustainable, and off the regulatory systems radar.
What are your Positive Earnest Expectations for 2013?
Four of the top five manufacturing sectors by added employment in 2012 were key markets served by precision machining; Transportation Equipment, Motor Vehicles and Parts, Fabricated Metal Products, Machinery.
(The fifth market was Food Manufacturing, and yes, some of our companies make parts for food service too- think blender parts, nozzles and components for food dispensing, preparation and packaging equipment.)
Graph courtesy Chad Moutray, National Association of Manufacturers, NAM.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of Jobs in Manufacturing increased by 180,000 in 2012.
“In December, manufacturing employment rose by 25,000, with small gains in a number of component industries. In 2012, factory employment increased by 180,000; most of the growth occurred during the first quarter.”
“In December, the average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls edged up by 0.1 hour to 34.5 hours. The manufacturing workweek edged up by 0.1 hour to 40.7 hours, and factory overtime was unchanged at 3.3 hours.”
While there are signs that manufacturing employment gains have slowed down in the second half, those were connected to the economic uncertainties tied to the Presidential Election, Fiscal Cliff, and Global Economic Slowdown. Two of these three special causes are now behind us.
As the graph above shows, Manufacturing is the place to look for employment gains.
The softness in manufacturing employment in the last half of 2012 belies the demand that our industry will have for talented workers going forward. As the BLS workweek hours indicate, Manufacturing currently is using overtime to meet its needs. Given demographic trends, current lean staffing, and the push to reshore production, any economic upturn at all will be strongly bullish for employment prospects in Manufacturing in 2013.
Improvements in Housing Markets are already visible and a 15+ million auto sales forecast are two indicators that suggest if you want to find a well paying job in 2013, Precision Machining (Advanced Manufacturing) is a great place to apply.
For information about careers in Precision Machining, check out our Career Resources Page on the PMPA Website.
I continue to speak with instructors, counselors, and officials at local community colleges across the country. They are unanimous in saying that their machining students “have multiple job offers before they graduate.”
Seth Godin has just published his latest book, The Icarus Deception.
It is a challenging read for all of us who are finding that keeping our heads down, staying under the radar, and blindly complying are no longer even “safe behaviors” in today’s economy.
For those of us who heed the old rule to not fly too close to the sun.
Read this book!
Are you following (or even worse enforcing) the old rules in your shop?
Playing it safe
Better safe than sorry
Stick to the plan
Blend in
Seth shows the new truths we need to master today. It is better to:
Be sorry than safe
Perform rather than fit in
Fly higher than to stay in our comfort zone
Many readers will find a disconnect because they don’t think of themselves as ‘Artists.’ And because Seth says that industrialism is dead- and we make our living in manufacturing.
But as craftsmen, we embody the attitude of the Artist in our work every day:
The vision of what is needed to be done
The knowledge of how to do it
The ability to make it so
More importantly, we have the courage to do our thing.
