The Difference Between Microalloy And Regular Alloy Steels

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As machinists, we seldom encounter microalloy steels. but what do we need to know?

Microalloy steel is manufactured like any other, but the chemical ingredients added at the initial melt of the steel to make it a microalloy include elements like Vanadium, Columbium (sorry, Niobium for us IUPAC purists), Titanium, and higher amounts of Manganese and perhaps Molybdenum or Nickel.
Vanadium, Columbium Niobium, and Titanium are also grain refiners and aggressive Oxygen scavengers, so these steels tend to also have a very fine austenitic grain size.
In forgings, microalloy steels are able to develop higher mechanical properties (yield strengths greater than say 60,000 psi) and higher toughness as forged by just cooling in air or with a light mist water spray.
Normal alloy steels require a full austenitize, quench and temper heat treatment to develop properties greater than as rolled or cold worked.

Since microalloyed steels are able to get higher properties using forging process heat- rather than an additional heating quenching tempering cycle- they can be less expensive to process to get improved mechanical properties.
The developed microstructure ultimately makes the difference. The microstructure developed in the steel depends on the grade and type.

Pick_Maddin_Martensite — Tempered martensite for normal alloys.

Normal alloy steels require a transformation to martensite that is then tempered in order to achieve higher properties.

bainite2 — Bainite comparable hardness improved toughness.

Microalloy steel precipitates out various nitirides or carbides and may result in either a very fine ferrite- pearlite microstructure or may transform to bainite.

For machinists, if the steel is already at its hardest condition, the microalloyed microstructure of either ferrite pearlite or bainite is less abrasive than that of a fully quench and tempered alloy steel.
P.S. The non- martensitic structures also have higher toughness.
We don’t tend to machine prehardened steels in the precision machining industry, but if you ever are part of a team developing a process path for machining forgings, or finish cuts after induction hardening, these facts might be good to know.
Martensite.
Georges Basement Bainite 1000X

Lessons for Industry Courtesy of the Gulf Oil Spill

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Oil-Spill-Satellite-View_53490467NASA — Satellite image of oil spill in Gulf. (NASA)

Here are a couple of tips to keep in mind when your company becomes involved in a crisis.

Communicate. At the very least, make a fact sheet of basic company information and your products. Answers to”Who, What, When, Where?” is a great template for a fact sheet.
Use your website to keep insiders and outsiders informed. Your website is on 24/7 worldwide. Why not use it to help you provide facts and minimize rumors.
Don’t oversell quality. Zero defects has an almost magical ring to it. But the fact is that in complex systems even redundant backups don’t always work. Statistically, outlying events can and will occur.
Do demonstrate your sincerity, and discuss the steps that your company is taking to identify the problem, get the problem contained, and the immediate and long term corrective actions that your team is working on.
Don’t speculate on “Cause” nor “Blame.”

As of noon May 3, 2010, Cameron International’s Website has nary a mention of the fact that their company’s Blow Out Preventers may be involved at the BP- Deepwater Horizon spill ongoing in the Gulf of Mexico.

The first quarter earnings release conference call seems to be the only “newsworthy” item on Cameron’s webpage.
No mention of any work or involvement by the Cameron Team to get the situation in the Gulf fixed.
No “Who, what, when, where?” information. No spokesperson.
The Washington Examiner meanwhile reports that Cameron has been named among other companies in “lawsuits seeking damages.”
The AP reports Cameron is the manufacturer of the “fail safe device on the well that is spewing crude into the Gulf” and that Cameron has “$500 million in liability insurance for legal claims.”
That would have probably been good info to have on their own site…
The website provides a company with a powerful means to get the facts out. To show their customers, their employees, other people who may be affected what efforts are being taken to get things under control and restore normalcy.

BP Web — Guess what BP is talking about on their website?

The best bargain in education is when you learn from other people’s mistakes.
Watch how this one works out.
Meanwhile, how about sitting down with your team and asking “What if this happened to us?

What Are Your Top Concerns?

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Here are some results of a survey of plant engineers and managers by Reed Business Information taken last month. Results are listed in decreasing order of frequency of response:

Increased Operating Costs
Keeping Qualified Employees
Downsizing
Environmental Concerns
Finding More Qualified Employees
Customer Demands
Manufacturers Moving Off Shore
Outsourcing
Manufacturer Consolidation
Supplier Competition
Mergers and Acquisistions
Other

worries — Where does it say new government regulations?

What surprised me was no mention of access to credit, hurdles to continuous improvements of process, nor mentions of maintaining safety and morale among the remaining employees.
The above list looks to me like respondents were very much concerned with “defense,” not “offense.”
How about you? What are your top concerns?
Are you puzzled that “Keeping Qualified Employees,” “Downsizing,” and “Finding More Qualified Employees,” all made the same list?
What does that say about our industry these days?
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Plastic Pallet Maker Wants Federal Rules On Wooden Pallets

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Lets add one more federal burden to beleagured manufacturers. At least, thats what iGPS, a manufacturer of plastic pallets is calling for. They want to see federal standards to prevent fires from wooden pallets. They claim over 15 wooden pallet fires last year.
According to http://www.greatdreams.com/wildfires-2009.htm there were 32 000 widfire in the first 5 months of 2009. No call for congressional action that I can recall.
In my freshman economics class, my professor called this sort of thing “rent seeking.” Here’s the Wikipedia version:
Rent seeking generally implies the extraction of uncompensated value from others without making any contribution to productivity, such as by gaining control of land other pre-existing natural resources, or by imposing burdensome regulations or other government decisions that may affect consumers or businesses.
We had lots of clever analysis and cool pictures here, but we’re taking them out to bring you this update:
This just in : Material Handling Management Magazine reports
“the National Association of State Fire Marshals (NASFM) has officially abandoned all efforts to develop code enforcement guidance regarding fire safety and pallet composition.”
It sent a letter to Bob Moore, CEO of plastic pallet supplier iGPS, confirming that the organization has permanently dropped all efforts to pursue the “controversial project.”
It also says, “NASFM does not recommend the use of wooden pallets over plastic pallets, nor does the association recommend the use of plastic pallets over wooden pallets,”
Shuman wrote. “Any suggestion to the contrary in the draft documents (including a statement that consumers using plastic pallets should switch back to a wood pallet) does not represent NASFM’s position.”
Most interesting is the word used in the link for the letter as posted on MMH’s website. it captions the letter as “settlement.”
Careful reading of the letter gives us a story of mystery, intrigue, and possibly leaked or misused documents, litigation? Who’d have thought the pallet business was so exciting?

Manufacturing Video Gets It Right

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I recently started following Ryan on Change The Percepton–Devoted to Building a New Respect for Manufacturing.

Another voice for manufacturing.

Last week, Ryan posted a link to the Next Generation Regional Manufacturing Center website where they have embedded an excellent flash VIDEO ABOUT MANUFACTURING.
This video is very well done and makes a positive case about how relevant manufacturing is today.
Please click on the video link above to see this outstanding video. It will not waste your time.
Thanks Ryan, and thanks Next Generation Regional Manufacturing Center.
Your video does a great job of showing what we mean when we are Speaking of Precision.
More info about the NGRMC here.

21 Ways Offshoring Medical Parts Manufacture Is Bad Business

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Setting up and operating offshore manufacturing doesn’t save money on a total cost basis, but trying to do so may compromise quality, delivery and product development, which could otherwise provide real cost reduction and the pursuit of new high-profit opportunities, like mass customizing of products.

DSCF9363 — Is the deciding factor really just low cost of labor?

Rather than weakening operations with the burdens of offshoring, local operations could pursue more effective cost reduction by designing low-cost products, eliminating waste through Lean Production, lowering the cost of quality and setting up flexible factories that could build standard products and mass-custom versions on-demand without the costs and risks of carrying inventory.
This article in Orthoworld will give you 21 thinking points to understand why offshoring will actually work against your company’s and customers’ best interests and bottom line.
21 Tools for better sensemaking.
Our job here at pmpaspeakingofprecision.com is to help you find “Tools You Can Use” to keep your medical shop competitive and sustainable.
We think getting you the ideas in this thoughtful article is best use of our blog today.

EPA Caves In On Greenhouse Gas

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We reported that the California Energy Commission requested the US EPA to delay rules requiring permits for Greenhouse gases here.

natural Gas power plant — No permit needed, it's only GREENHOUSE GAS in tonnage quantities!

This struck us as both hypocritical and ironic. Why shouldn’t gas fired boilers used for power in California that belch out 25,000 tons or more of greenhouse gas be required to have an EPA permit?
I mean 25,000 tons of greenhouse gases seems like a big enough number to merit tracking.
Private industry has been filing reports on some substances for quantities as little as 10 pounds.
10 pounds!
EPA caved in, according to my read of a report by John M.Broder in the Tuesday March 30, 2010 New York Times. According to his story, Emily Litella Lisa Jackson said the timetable for permits was “a calibrated plan to begin to apply the Clean Air Act to major stationary sources of heat trapping gases.”
Apparently by waiving the need for power plants to be permitted.

NevrMind — Lisa Jackson greenhouse gas- Never mind!

Do you think it’s right that industry has to file reports on as little as 10 pounds of some substances, while the California Energy Commission gets a “Never Mind” waiver on power plants emitting 25,000 tons of greenhouse gases from Emily Latella Lisa Jackson at the EPA?
Here’s a song for you, Ms. Jackson.
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Chinese Currency, U.S. Continues To Be The Fool

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Guest Post by Peter Morici, Professor and former Chief Economist, US Trade Commission.
The Washington Post reported on Friday morning that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan were close to a deal that would permit the Chinese yuan to appreciate by 3 percent this year.

sucker_cookie — 3%! Woo Hoo! We're REALLY Impressed!

This is wholly inadequate and would do little to resolve the U.S.-China trade imbalance, which was $227 billion in 2009 and 60 percent of the total U.S. trade deficit. The balance was largely oil.
China’s yuan is likely overvalued by 40 percent, and Beijing accomplishes this by printing yuan and selling those for dollars to augment private transactions. In 2009, those purchases were $450 billion or about 10 percent of its GDP and 28 percent of its exports of goods and services.
The U.S. trade deficit with China and on oil causes a shortage of demand for U.S. made goods and services and stifles investment in U.S. export industries, which are the most productive and R&D-intensive industries.
In 2010, the trade deficit with China is reducing U.S. GDP by more than $400 billion or nearly three percent. Unemployment would be falling rapidly and the U.S. economy recovering more rapidly but for the trade deficit with China and Beijing’s currency policies.
Longer term, China’s currency policies reduce U.S. growth by one percentage point a year. The U.S. economy would likely be $1 trillion larger today, but for the trade deficits with China over the last 10 years.
A three percent revaluation of its currency will do little to change those numbers. In fact, because of Chinese modernization, the intrinsic value of China’s currency rises each year. Hence, a three percent revaluation over the next year would not even amount to the change in yuan undervaluation.
As the U.S. trade balance with China grew worse, Beijing could say “see exchange rates don’t matter.”
Beijing is playing the Obama Administration for fools.
Peter Morici is a professor at the Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, and former Chief Economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission.
Sucker.

Materials Prices Increase-Through The Roof

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Prices of raw materials used to make precision machined products are up substantially, ranging from 44% to 114% from March 2009- March 2010 for 6 of the 7 materials we track.
Low inventories, increasing demand, idled production facilities, are among the factors involved here in North America.
As are the historic iron ore agreement and continued high demand in China.

through%20the%20roof — We think this trend will be around for a while...

Fuel price increases also impact freight, which is an important factor in our business.
We will not be shocked to see monies paid for steel in May to be $80 per ton higher than they were in April based on already announced price increases and the current price on #1 busheling which determines surcharges.
Read more and download the .pdf report here.
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It's All About Execution

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energy_kinetic — Either you can execute, or you can't...

Don’t You Agree?
It’s not about ability to promise.
Heck, that’s pretty easy.
It’s not about ability to plan.
I’ve seen (and made) some pretty nice plans in my day.
But plans that aren’t executed are- well, not much more than recorded dreams.
I think that it’s all about execution. That is, meeting and exceeding our customer’s expectations every day.
Every day! Every Customer! Every transaction! Every touch!
What is the secret of execution?
There are a couple. But the most important is your company’s commitment to continuous improvement.
Continuous improvement is what helps you keep your service and processes leading and sustainable.
The minute you stop improving, you reduce your chance of successful execution.
Every year, PMPA produces a NATIONAL TECHNICAL CONFERENCE.
We execute. But the reason we produce this conference is so that our member companies can drive continuous improvement of their key people. The people who make a difference- in their shop, in their culture, and to their customers.
I am looking forward to meeting the industry’s executioners in Pittsburgh at PMPA’s NTC.
Because it’s all about execution. Isn’t it?
Register.
Hotel.
Execution is the key. PMPA’s National Technical Conference drives execution by giving attendees tools they can use for continuous improvement.
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