The companies that are still here today have already made the adjustments needed to be sustainable.
Since these businesses have a sustainable foundation, they will further improve productivity and profitability as their managers focus on operational issues.
It is also much easier to deal with customer pushback on price when the order at hand is not a make or break the company issue.
Not being as distracted by ‘existential issues’ should unleash a lot of management ideas for improvement of operations.
And give sales the courage to not accept orders that fail to reward companies for their invested capital.
Why are you optimistic about the outlook for precision machining?
Author: speakingofprecision
It is difficult to make money making small metallic parts. Just ask the folks who make money over at the US mint. (And they have a monopoly!)
The unit cost of producing and distributing the penny: $0.0179
Back in the day, these were over 90% copper, today they would cost about 2.5 cents.
According to the 2010 US Mint Annual Report, the penny, nickel and dime made up 87.7 % of total shipments- 5,399,000,00 circulating coins produced in 2010.
You think you have raw material price increases?
The per unit cost of the blanks for nickel rose 2.3 cents over 2009, increasing total nickel cost by 52.9 %.
So what did it cost the mint to make that 2010 nickel in your pocket?
$0.0922
Thats 9.2 cents
Fortunately, they make it up with volume, on the dime and quarter, which cost $0.0569 and $0.1278 to produce and distribute respectively.
If there is a lesson in all this, it just might be that “nobody, not even a government monopoly, makes any money producing the cheap metallic parts. Even in high volumes.”
P.S.: And hats off to the production and management team at the U.S.Mint. They did it while experiencing a 15 year low in injuries and illnesses- a record year for safety.
Penny Photo Credit.
Nickel photo credit.
It’s that time of year again: Time to post your company’s OSHA 300A Summary of Work Related Injuries and Illnesses 300 Log. Employers with 11 or more employees must post a summary of the prior calendar year’s injuries and illnesses. It is not enough to complete this report, you must post the summary in a visible place, from February 1 to April 30 each year.
In addition PMPA provides our online Occupational Injury and Illness Survey so that you can compare your shop’s experience with that of Fabricated Metals, Machine Shops, and Precision Turned Product Manufacturing. If you have completed the survey in the past, a comparison report on your company data is also available.
Here’s the link : www.pmpa.org/safety/
For more info on OSHA 300 go to the OSHA Recordkeeping Handbook:
Photo credit
Integrity. Motivation. Objectivity. Ability. Audacity.
Integrity is the foundation of our technical profession. Without credibility, how can we expect others to rely on our work?
Motivation gives us the passion to see the work through. The discipline to do the impossible difficult calculations, to find the answer in the data available. To complete the assignment. And verify our solution.
Objectivity is the greatest tool of our profession. Learning, understanding, and applying the facts to a situation that we have analyzed, and anticipating the consequences is our objective work. We rely on facts and data.
Ability is how we execute. We have served our apprenticeship, learned our profession. We have spent time with the books. We have learned to do the math, and understand which mathematical relationships apply to the situations we are asked to solve. We have rolled up our sleeves. Used the tools. And learned from doing.
Audacity is the engineer’s greatest gift to mankind. How audacious- to seek a better way. How daring to invest time and effort to solve the difficult problem. How dare we tackle the greatest problems facing humanity- safe water systems, safe transportation systems, safe medical devices, utilities and technologies to make our world a better place.
How dare we try to find a better way?
Photo credit: Thanks to the Audacious Engineers of NASA Apollo 8
“A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. “ – First Law of Robotics, Isaac Asimov
So what is going on here? 
According to an Article in New Scientist, “in Slovenia a powerful robot has been hitting people over and over again in a bid to induce anything from mild to unbearable pain – in apparent defiance of the late sci-fi sage’s famed first law of robotics, which states that “a robot may not injure a human being“.
It’s all for a good cause, though, and one in keeping with Asimov’s First Law: “Even robots designed to Asimov’s laws can collide with people. We are trying to make sure that when they do, the collision is not too powerful,” Povše says. “We are taking the first steps to defining the limits of the speed and acceleration of robots, and the ideal size and shape of the tools they use, so they can safely interact with humans.”
“Determining the limits of pain during robot-human impacts this way will allow the design of robot motions that cannot exceed these limits,” says Sami Haddadin of DLR, the German Aerospace Centre in Wessling, who also works on human-robot safety. Such work is crucial, he says, if robots are ever to work closely with people.”
We’re OK with the idea of testing, but we’re not sure that volunteers’ perception of “pain” after say the first 12 or 13 hits is an objectively verifiable response variable.
But if its my arm, I’m not sure I’d like “stitches” or “bruise area” to be the measureable either…
Full story.
“Competers are usually so caught up in meeting their day to day challenges that they can only worry about the future, while innovators see the present only as a stepping stone they can use to a biogger and better future.“- Daniel Burrus, Technotrends, Sept 2010, www.Burrus.com
Of course we have to do what we have to do right now. Now is where we live, Right?
I call this short term focus “the tyranny of the urgent.”
Must get truck loaded and shipped. Must get paperwork issued, must get…
When I look at companies that are growing and profitable, I find that they seem to have a different focus. They are the ones that are using a long term time focus.
Long term focus = profitable!
What is that different focus? LONG TERM THINKING
“Everywhere you look in this country, it seems that we are suffering from the consequences of too much short term thinking. Google doesn’t have this disease.” Paul Saffo, Discern Analytics,
“The time is ripe for long term thinking, with memories still fresh of a financial meltdown- a byproduct of Wall Street’s demands for companies to deliver ever-higher profits every three months and meet earnings targets set by analysts.” – AP Article
So if we were playing Barbara Walters, and we asked you “If you were a time measuring device, what time measuring device would you be?”
Would you be a stop watch, or a calendar?
And who on your team is the the other?
After all, we will be living in Tomorrow, in just another day…
Stopwatch
5 Year Calendar
Gasp
Silicon plays many roles in steel but its most important is deoxidation; it is detrimental to tool life, machinability and surface quality in low carbon and free machining steels.
Silicon makes up about a quarter of the earths crust. It is mined as sand, quartz, mica, talc, feldspars, vermiculite, and others; silicon is a key ingredient in glass, computer chips, and certain gemstones- rock crystal, agate, rhinestone, amethyst. Opal.
The human body contains approximately one gram of silicon, ranging from 4 ppm in blood, 17 ppm in bone, and up to 200 ppm in various tissues. Cereal grains are our primary source of dietary silicon.
Silicon is seldom found as a pure element, because it has a high affinity for oxygen. It is this ability to scavenge oxygen that makes silicon important in steelmaking.
Silicon’s primary role in steel making is as a deoxidizer. It makes steel sound, by removing oxygen bubbles from the molten steel. The percentage of silicon in the analysis was related to the type of steel, rimmed and capped steels (made by the ingot method) had no silicon intentionally added. Semi-killed steels typically contained up to 0.10% max silicon, and fully killed steels could have up to 0.60% maximum. Commercial practice in the US and Canada throughout my career was 0.15-.35 % silicon in SAE carbon and alloy steels.
In addition to deoxidiation silicon also influences the steel five different ways:
- Silicon helps increase the steel’s strength and hardness, but is less effective than manganese in these functions.
- In electrical and magnetic steels, silicon helps to promote desired crystal orientations and electrical resistivity.
- In some high temperature service steels, silicon contributes to their oxidation resistance.
- In alloy grades, silicon also increases strength (but not plasticity!) when quenched and tempered.
- Silicon also has a moderate effect on hardenability of steel.
But there are always less desireable aspects of any element in an alloy
Bottom line, on plain carbon and alloy bar steels, silicon contents of 0.10, 0.15-.35 weight percent are typical; On resulfurized , and resufurized and rephosphorized free machining steels, silicon analysis above 0.02 wt % is cause for concern, due to potential surface quality and certain tool life issues.
Silicon metal photo
Opal
“The jobs crisis has brought an unwelcome discovery for many unemployed Americans: Job openings in their old fields exist. Yet they no longer qualify for them.”
According to an article in the New York Times (link below) this is
- A trend that took root during the recession.
- Companies became more productive by doing more with fewer workers.
- Some asked staffers to take on a broader array of duties – duties that used to be spread among multiple jobs.
According to Mark Tomlinson, executive director of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, “there are jobs available, but the worker just has to have more skills than before.”
The trend means “employees increasingly must be able to run the computerized machinery that dominates most assembly lines. They also have to carry out additional tasks, such as inspecting finished products,” said Tomlinson.
It’s no longer “I just show up and do my job and someone tells me what to do.”
Human resource specialists say employers who increasingly need multi-skilled employees aren’t willing to settle for less. They’d rather wait and hold jobs vacant.
HR specialists have a nickname for the highly sought but elusive job candidate whose skills and experiences precisely match an employer’s needs: the “purple squirrel.”
“There are lots of requests for purple squirrels nowadays,” said Joe Yesulaitis, chief executive of Aavalar Consulting, an IT staffing firm.
One of my favorite quotes is by Robert Heinlein, from his “Notebooks of Lazarus Long”
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
I’d hire the person Heinlein is describing!
Are you a Purple Squirrel?
Here is a link to the article: NYTIMES
Purple Squirrel
Built Up Edge (BUE) is the accumulation of workpiece material onto the rake face of the tool. This material welds under pressure, and is separate from the chip.
In school we were taught that this is because the first material to contact the tool workhardens, and we did hardness tests to confirm this.
Because BUE changes the effective geometry of the tool, it can have either positive or negative effects.
Positive effects
- Less tool wear
- Lower power requirements
- Less contact of the workpiece with the tool (It contacts the BUE instead)
- Better surface finish and improved process capability
These effects are only beneficial if the BUE is thin and stable. Machining additives such as sulfur combine with manganese to form manganese sulfides. Manganese sulfide helps to control BUE because of its anti weld properties. On resulfurized steels, BUE is usually stable and not a problem.
Negative effects
- Poor tool life
- Poor and variable surface finish ( As the BUE sloughs off the tool, it can weld to the workpiece)
- Loss of statistical capability on dimensional control
- Loss of uptime trying to troubleshoot the process
I have found that BUE is more likely on alloys that work harden.
In order to get BUE under control, the steps that you take depend on the tool material.
For Carbide
- Decrease the feed. (Pressure welding usually is the culprit)
- Increase the speed
- Increase the rake angle or “hook”
- Get a better metalworking fluid (including get the fines out of your existing MWF!)
- Get a different coating
For High Speed Steel (HSS)
- Reduce speed
If the tool is High Speed Steel (HSS) you may think you are in oppositeland when you discover that slowing down the speed reduces the build up. I have found on HSS that as speed (heat increases) so does the tendency to form BUE.
Graphic.
Guest post by James Pryor
We like to make parts. That is the nature of our business. When we think of workplace safety we generally think in terms of accidents related to the fabrication of machined parts such as hand and eye injuries.
However, the most frequently cited threat (Current OSHA data) safety violation for machine shops is the Control of Hazardous Energy (Lockout/ Tagout). – OSHA 10/09 -09/2010.
Lockout / Tagout OSHA standard 29 CFR 1910.147 requires all employers to provide protection for employees performing maintenance and servicing on equipment or machines from the accidental start up or release of energy which could result in an employee being injured.
- When was the last time you reviewed your control of hazardous energy procedures?
- When was the last time you performed an audit to assure they are being followed?
- Does someone review the requirements for control of hazardous energy whenever there is a change in your systems such as the introduction of new equipment?
Training on these changes is a federal requirement.
The following review questions are provided to help you assure that your control of hazardous energy covers all the bases.
- Do you have a written company policy on the control of hazardous energy? Is the role of management clearly defined?
- Have supervisors been trained in lockout/tagout procedures?
- Have authorized employees been trained in lockout/tagout procedures?
- Have affected employees been trained in lockout/tagout procedures?
- Have other employees been trained in lockout/tagout procedures?
- Are the approved locks and tags in place and in use?
- Is there a written lockout / tagout procedure and have employees been trained?
- Does this plan include warnings, testing and positioning of equipment and procedures for restoring machines and/ or equipment to normal production operations?
- Does the plan include procedures for more than one person?
- Does the plan include shift changes?
- Does the plan include an annual audit of authorized employees?
- Does the plan include procedures for multiple energy source equipment?
- Does the plan include minor tool changes and adjustments?
- Does the plan include emergency lock removal procedures.?
- Does the plan include provisions for qualified employees?
- Does your company enforce the plan and document enforcement?
- Does the plan allow for re-training?
- Does the plan clearly define roles and responsibilities?
Control of hazardous energy is the most cited failure in our industry, we hope that these review questions will help you keep your workers safe and your program in compliance.