Author: Miles Free

Mama’s Don’t Let Your Child Grow Up To Be

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America needs skilled manufacturing workers; Our children need Jobs. What's the problem?

Excerpted from Barberbiz Blog

Try This and See What Happens

Greg Knight, vice president of  PMPA member AMT Machine Systems,  suggests conducting a little experiment. In a social setting with a group of people, try suggesting that manufacturing just might be an alternative to a traditional four-year college degree.

“The reaction will be, ‘No, my kid needs to go to college.’ A career in manufacturing is not seen as a legitimate choice,” said Knight. “You cannot change ideas on this in a short period of time. This is about cultural change and it will take a lot of time and a lot of work.”

In the recently released “Public Pulse on American Manufacturing” by Deloitte, only 33 percent of parents would encourage their child to pursue a career in manufacturing, only 19 percent of school systems are perceived to encourage students to pursue careers in manufacturing, and only 17 percent of students report being encouraged by their parents to pursue a career in manufacturing.

Our Torn Views

It’s clear that Americans value a strong manufacturing sector. When asked which industries are most important to the national economy, manufacturing is always near the top of the list. If you were to poll economic developers nationwide and ask them if they could create 1,000 new jobs in their community with any new facility, you can bet that for most communities would choose manufacturing.

And yet, if you were to ask those same economic developers if they wanted their sons or daughters to pursue a career in manufacturing, what do you think the answer might be. Well, I think you probably already know the answer to that one.

So we are torn. We want manufacturing jobs, just for someone else. Deloitte’s public pulse study showed that out of seven key industries, manufacturing ranks second to last as a career choice. It remains perceived by most people as an unstable long-term career choice. And our future talent pool is none too thrilled. Among 18-24 year-olds, manufacturing ranks dead last among industries as a career choice.

That’s not good. We have our work cut out for us.

So mamas, your babies don’t have to grow up to be doctors and lawyers and such. They can have a good future in a modern manufacturing plant if they only pursue the training and develop the needed skills.

Nobody said it can or would be easy.

There are no guarantees in life, just better informed choices.

Manufacturing deserves another look.

(Speaking of Precision:I became acquainted with Dean Barber’s thinking through some online discussions  on LinkedIn groups. I thought his thinking reflected ours and was worth sharing.

You can read his full blog here.)

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Metals Thefts – Ohio Leads Nation

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The high price of copper and other base metals has led to an increase of metal theft incidents across the country, and Ohio leads the nation for insurance claims resulting from the crime. 

Copper thefts continue to rise. Copper from air conditioning stolen from this church.

Insurance claims linked to metal theft across the country jumped to 25,083 between 2009 and 2011, up 81 percent from the three-year period between 2006 and 2008, according to a new report by the National Insurance Crime Bureau.

The report showed insurance claims for metals thefts were up 81% from the last report covering 2006-2008.

The top five states generating the most metal theft claims

  •  Ohio (2,398);
  • Texas (2,023);
  •  Georgia (1,481);
  •  California (1,348);
  •  Illinois (1,284).

The top-five Core Based Statistical Areas generating the most metal theft claims:

  •  Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL (963);
  • New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ (921);
  • Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA (823);
  • Dallas-Ft. Worth-Arlington, TX (674); 
  • Detroit-Warren-Livonia, MI (587).

Copper theft is the most common item for the crime, and thieves have stolen copper piping and wiring from churches, abandoned homes and buildings, construction sites, cellphone towers and other unguarded properties, as well as from manufacturing plants.

Anyone with information concerning metal theft can report it anonymously by calling toll-free 1-800-TEL-NICB (1-800-835-6422), texting keyword “fraud” to TIP411 (847411) or by visiting our Web site at www.nicb.org. Or, iPhone or iPad users can download the NICB Fraud Tips app to make it easy to quickly send a tip and get a response

One Northern California Company provides a high tech  service to help protect property.

Video.

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OSHA Haz Comm-Your Work Is Just Beginning

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The new HAZCOMM 2012 ‘Right to Understand’ will impact 5 million businesses at an OSHA estimated cost of only $201 million dollars.

Thats just $40 per workplace to cover:

  • Cost of classifying Chemical hazards to meet the new GHS criteria;
  • Cost to revise Safety Data sheets and labels to meet the new format and content requirements;
  • Cost to train 43 million employeeson the new format and content of material symbols and data sheets;
  • Cost to management of those 5 million workplaces to become familiar with the new GHS requirements, assess, revise, develop and implement new compliance materials needed to adopt GHS;
  • Cost for printing new packaging and labels in color;

OSHA thinks that we can do it for $201 million a year- that’s just $40 per workplace!

OSHA says this is all it will cost your shop to adopt this new standard, become familiar with its requirements, reclassify all your chemicals, train your people, change all labels and data sheets. WHAT were they thinking?

Using Department of Labor enforced Federal Minimum Wages, $7.25 an hour, that means that they think that it will only take 5,5 hours to get a shop into compliance.

(Please, correct my math if I’m wrong!)

5-1/2 hours!

The PDF of the final rule is 858 pages!

Just to read that in 5.5 hours would mean reading 156 pages per hour.

At a nickel a page, just printing the final rule puts us over at $42.90.

Who the heck does these estimates? What were they thinking?

We really understand that regulations can provide a benefit to workers, companies and communities.

Especially where hazardous chemicals are involved.

But when the regulators underestimate the potential costs of adoption and compliance by such a large factor, it makes us wonder what other assumptions are they working under that are just as wrong?

P.S.  Do you think that OSHA or OIRA actually have  employee’s that can read 156 pages of federal technical regulation in an hour? At $7.25 an hour?

CNC Machining Is The Foundation Of Manufacturing- Peter Zelinski

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Zelinski: “Any product you pick up and touch, it’s not too many steps away from a machining process.”

Most of the parts in your car engine come from a CNC machine. Medical devices, your kitchen cabinets — CNC machine. Your computer case, your iPhone earbuds — well, no. But the mold that created them — CNC machine.

The growth of these machines represents the biggest change in manufacturing over the last 20 years. The people who run them are factory workers.

But they also have to be computer programmers. And they are in high demand.

Marketplace on  American Public Media /National Public Radio Closed with a story on the importance of CNC machining last night.

You can access the podcast and read the full transcript at NPR CNC STORY 

Bottom line : Skilled operators of CNC machine tools are in high demand.

High enough demand to make the national financial news on NPR.

Tip of the hat to Peter Zelinski at Modern Machine Shop magazine, for effectively describing and communicating the opportunity of CNC machine technology for our workforce.

Modern Machine Shop is the Flagship publication of Gardner Publications, who co-produce Production Machining Magazine with PMPA.

CNC Podcast

Photo credit Dustin Dwyer at MarketPlace

Manufacturing IS My Future- I Can Make More Money

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BREAKING NEWS:

PMPA Member W.H.Bagshaw Company and employee featured on CNN Money!

Making it in the USA.

Jonathan Pratt at W.H.Bagshhaw says: “I picked up newer manufacturing techniques quickly. I am learning new things every day. I think I can move up the ranks here and make more money.

Manufacturing is my lifetime career. There’s always going be a manufacturing job out there for me. I know my skills are in high demand.

We need more Americans on board with manufacturing. It’s steady and stable work. I really hope people grasp that and that Made in USA flourishes again.”

We couldn’t agree more, Jonathan!

Find yourself in a career in advanced manufacturing!

Parachute Jump From Outer Space

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This proves to me that all the fire and heat  associated with landing space craft is about slowing down from orbital velocity, not altitude.

Felix Baumgartner prepares to jump at 71,580 feet- that's almost twice as high as commercial airliners at 35,000 feet!

On March 15, 2012, Austria’s Felix Baumgartner jumped out of a space capsule from an altitude of approximately 71,580 feet as the Red Bull Stratos project moved forward into the manned flight stage in New Mexico. The 42-year-old rode the space capsule attached to a giant helium balloon above the so-called “Armstrong Line.” The goal of the Red Bull Stratos project is to see Baumgartner attempt a record-breaking freefall from 120,000 feet this summer where he’ll potentially become the first man to go supersonic without the support of a vehicle.

Anybody know who made the fittings and components for the space capsule, space suit, and breathing systems?

Precision machinists did!

Felix Baumgartner and Red Bull Stratos Team put them to quite a test!

Happy Landing!

See the video here:

Story:

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How Plastic Deformation Makes Machining Possible

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If steel did not have the property of plastic deformation, the only ways to make parts from it would be casting  or cutting into shape.

No deformation processes like cold heading, cold rolling, swaging etc. would be possible.

Slip planes in the metallic crystal explain Plastic Deformation and Plasticity in Steel. This makes cold working processes like cold drawing possible.

If one subjects a piece of steel to a heavy load, the material will measurably stretch. When the load is removed, if the steel goes back to its original dimension, the deformation that it underwent when the weight was applied is called “elastic deformation.” In this case, the steel did not take a permanent “set.”

If one subjects a piece of steel to a much greater load, if, when the load is removed, the steel does not ‘spring back’ or recover to its original dimension, the new shape or dimension is a permanent deformation. (It is often said to have ‘taken a set,’)  This is called “Plastic Deformation.”

Plastic Deformation is explained by the movement of planes of atoms from their normal positions.

Steel and most industrially useful metals are able to withstand a great deal of this Plastic Deformation before they break.

Brittle metals will just fracture under such loads;

Cold drawing of steel is a process that applies a load to the metal to make the atoms in the steel take new positions with respect to each other, resulting in lowered ductility, increased  tensile and yield strength and new dimensions or shape. These in turn, are often helpful in improving the machinability of the steel, allowing you to more economically produce the parts and components that are essential for our current technologies.

Most people think of steel’s hardness as its main advantage. The facts of the matter are that it is steel’s plasticity or ability to plastically deform that makes it such a useful and versatile material for humankind.

LCCC Where Your Skilled Workforce Comes From

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High schools aren’t graduating people with skills that can add value in your shop.

Lorain County Community College is!

LCCC Fab Lab- Year of the Dragon was a great CAM project for their students.

From my encounters in retail with recent graduates,  just making change without a cash register is a difficult task.

Let alone using the Pythagorean Theorem to control geometry, runout, and cosine error.

Four year college graduates lack the skills we need in our shops more often than not.

Nothing wrong with being able to quote Yeats, but does it pay as much as being able to set up and operate this equipment?

Yet we have openings for people with skills.

Last night, 26 Northern Ohio Chapter members of the PMPA attended an open house of the advanced manufacturing labs at Lorain County Community College:

  • CAD Lab
  • Fab Lab
  • CNC Machining Lab
  • Welding Lab
  • Computer Integrated Manfacturing Lab
  • Manual Machining Lab

Our attendees were impressed with the equipment; they were quite impressed by the instructors.

They were delighted to sense the confidence, understanding, and capability shown by the students at work in the labs.

We may not know where the entire skilled workforce for our precision industry will come from, but we know  some local programs where we can find some skilled technicians.

The Nord Advanced Technologies Center at LCCC.

And the Entrepreneurship Innovation Institute at LCCC.

Three Key Factors to Understand Machinability of Carbon and Alloy Steel

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The machinability of steel bars is determined by three primary factors. Those factors are 1) Cold Work; 2) Thermal Treatment; 3) Chemical Composition.

Machinability is the result of Cold Work, Thermal Processing and Chemical composition- as well as the ability of the machine tool and the machinist.

Cold Work improves the machinability of low carbon steels by reducing the high ductility of the hot rolled product. Cold working the steel by die drawing or cold rolling results in chips that are harder, more brittle, and curled, prodcuing less built up edge on the tools cutting edge.. The improved Yield to Tensile Strength ratio means that your tools and machines have less work to do to get the chip to separate. Steels between 0.15- 0.30 wt% carbon are best machining; above 0.30 wt% the machinability decreases as carbon content (and hardness) increase.

Thermal Treatment improves the machinability of steel by reducing stresses, controlling microstructure, and lowering hardness and strength. While this is usually employed in higher carbon steels, sometimes a Spheroidize Anneal is employed in very low carbon steels to improve their formability. Stress Relief Anneal, Lamellar Pearlitic Anneal, and Spheroidize Anneals are the treatments applied to improve machinability in bar steels for machining.

Chemical composition is a major factor that contributes to the steel’s machinability or lack thereof. There are a number of chemical factors that promote machinability including

Carbon- low carbon steels are too ductile, resulting in gummy chips and the build up of workpiece material on the tool edge (BUE). Between 0.15 and 0.30 wt% carbon machinability is at its best; machinability decreases as carbon content increases beyond 0.30.

Additives that promote machining include

  • Sulfur combines with Manganese to form Manganese Sulfides which help the chip to break and improve surface finish.
  • Lead is added to steel to reduce friction during cutting by providing an internal lubricant. Lead does not alter the mechanical properties of the steel.
  • Phosphorus increases the strength of the softer ferrite phase in the steel, resulting in a harder and stronger chip (less ductile) promoting breakage and improved finishes.
  • Nitrogen can promote a brittle chip as well, making it especially beneificial to internal machining operations like drilling and tapping which constrain the chip’s movement.
  • (Nitrogen also can make the steel unsuitable for subnsequent cold working operations like thread rolling, crimping, swaging or staking.)

Additives that can have a detrimental effect on machining include deoxidizers and grain refiners.

Deoxidizing and grain refining elements include

  • Silicon,
  • Aluminum,
  • Vanadium
  • Niobium

These elements reduce machinability by promoting a finer grain structure and increasing the edge breakdown on the tool by abrasion.

Alloying elements can be said to inhibit machinability by their contribution to microstructure and properties, but this is of small impact compared to the factors listed above.

How Value Engineering Saves Money on Machined Part Costs- Fairchild Auto-Mated Parts Inc.

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You could just send your part CAM files to one of those online services to just make the parts and ship them to you. Sounds pretty high tech. Sexy. New school. No humans involved.

Or you could send them to a company that actively involves its human engineering talent to add value for you, the customer. Old school. And worth it!

Imagine the cost of both the material lost by turning and the machine time to remove it if this were made from barstock of the greatest diameter.

Two of the major contributors of a part’s cost are material and machining time.

Value engineering at Fairchild Auto-Mated  involves engineers evaluating each part to seek ways to reduce these cost factors.

Imagine, engineers getting involved in evaluating your part before production begins.

Decidedly Old School. And decidedly worth it.

The valve component shown above was presented to Fairchild made as one piece carved out of oversize barstock in an single piece.

Fairchild’s engineers studied the design, application, and function.

They determined that this part would be less expensive to produce as two separate items assembled and staked together to form this single part.

This design eliminated the costly stock removal of large diameter  (expensive) stainless steel, and reduced the amount of (expensive) stainless steel chips produced to generate the stem.

There was no need for the disk portion of this part to be stainless, and so less expensive and more machinable brass was selected for this part of the component.

What was the pay off for value engineering versus the “download the file over the internet and have it go straight into production” process path.

At $1.00 saved per part, the Customer saved one of these for every 100 parts they purchased thanks to Value Engineering.

The savings identified by Fairchild’s value engineers resulted in a total cost savings of over $1.00 per part.

End result for the customer: $48,000 in savings the first year…

If you just want to email your part file to someone and have them make it with no humans involved, well, that is certainly your perogative.

But if you would like to have the benefit of a value engineering teams design review that can find, say, $1.00 per part in cost savings- then you probably ought to make a different decision.

Old school shops like Fairchild have been able to survive through all of the ups and downs in the market- because they continue to add real value and identify real savings for their customers.

And in quantities of 50,000 or more per release, that value engineering can add up to real money.

How do you know your part is optimized for production?

How do you identify real cost savings besides just having jobs rebid?

Do you have a process to involve your suppliers in value engineering?

Or do you just go with lowest bidder for the part as drawn on the print?

Why?