OSHA inspections don’t just ‘happen.’ They are the result of some initiating circumstance that makes them a priority. OSHA inspection priorities follow the hazards faced by the public that OSHA is charged to protect. While no lapse is desireable in one’s safety planning and execution, the highest priority items for OSHA should also be your highest priority to eliminate.
Imminent danger situations. Hazards that could cause death or serious physical harm receive the top priority. As they should. Compliance officers (OSHA INSPECTORS) will ask employers to correct these hazards immediately. If the hazard cannot be removed, then the employees that are exposed should be. Imminent danger and serious physical harm should not be part of working in precision manufacturing.
Fatalities and catastrophes. My take on this is that a catastrophe is an incident that requires the hospitalization of three or more employees. We all know what a fatality is. You must report these to OSHA within 8 hours. You can expect the OSHA follow up right away.
Complaints. If someone alleges that a hazardous situation exists, you can bet the agency will treat it seriously. More seriously, in fact than referrals from other agencies.
Referrals from other agencies, organizations, or media. While these are not an assured way to initiate an investigation by OSHA, they are considered.
Follow-ups (abatement). Checks to assure that violations cited from prior inspections are a lower priority, but remain a class of inspections that you can expect. Best prevention- Don’t have prior violations.
Planned or programmed investigations. The current National Emphasis Program (NEP) on Recordkeeping is an example of this. These have been typically targeted at specific high hazard industries or workplaces that have high rates of injury and illness.
Whenever my team brought a problem in to me I asked them three questions.
“Was there a procedure?”
“Was it followed? “
“Was it effective?”
They always knew what the fourth question would be- Why not?
Do you have a procedure or system to assure that no imminent danger situations exist in your shop?
Do you have a system to assure that your people are instructed, trained, and their knowledge reviewed to assure they follow safe and best practices?
Are you leading by example and setting the highest standards for safety, just as you do for quality and service, in your shop?
You know what the next question is.
Author: speakingofprecision
“Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.”
“Qualität ist niemals Zufall, sie ist immer das Ergebnis hoher Ziele, aufrichtiger Bemühung, intelligenter Vorgehensweise und geschickter Ausführung.”
-attributed to Bob Desseker
Do you have a Quality Quote that sums it all up for you? Please share it as a comment by replying below.
ISM’s report of manufacturing’s expansion for the fourth , and economic expansion for seventh month in a row, combined with PMPA’s Business Trends Index improvement for 5 consecutive months, confirm that we are in a recovery phase, rather than the free fall we just survived.
What should we be doing differently in the recovery phase, compared to what we needed to do while we were free falling?
The latest Institute for Supply Management Manufacturing Report for November showed that Manufacturing expanded for the fourth month in a row. While the Purchasing Manager’s Index decreased from 55.7 in October to 53.6 in November, the fact that the November value is above 50 indicates that mnufacturing activity continues to expand.
The Precision Machined Products Association’s Business Trends Index of Sales for October was up for the fifth month in a row, to 85, its highest value for the year. Almost three quarters of PMPA Business Trends respondents expect industry sales to remain at current levels or increase.
This reinforces the signal from ISM’s New Orders measure, which climbed to 60.3 in November from October ‘s 58.5. (The tie-in for precision machined components and manufactured goods should need little explanation- our products are the enablers of multiple technologies in automotive, appliances, aerospace, electrical/electronic, heavy truck, off road, and medical products to name a few.
These are not the halcyon days of “ship it, ship it, ship it.,” that seem like distant, almost forgotten memories. But ISM’s report of manufacturing’s expansion for the fourth , and economic expansion for seventh month in a row, combined with PMPA’s Business Trends Index improvement for 5 consecutive months, confirm that we are in a recovery phase, rather than the free fall we just survived.
What are your doing differently now? What lessons have you learned? What is your new top priority every day?
Even if the cash box isn’t ringing with the sweet sounds of success, here is proof that our ‘tools of the trade’ can make sweet music.
Video1
Video2
Created by the team at dpmmfg
Thanks for the link contributed by Chris Koepfer and the folks at Production Machining.
Your contributions are welcome too!
Encore! Encore!
Family owned firms account for 89% of all businesses in the United States.
Family owned businesses employ 59% of the working population.
They are responsible for 64% of the U.S.’s Gross Domestic Product.
Family owned firms created 86 % of all of the new jobs over the last decade.
So when you look at the people invited to help shape our nation’s job recovery policy, you’d expect to see a significant number of – say- owners of family owned businesses, entrepreneurs, and small to medium enterprises. Right?
So who was invited to attend this job summit to share their ‘experience’ with job creation?
American Federation of Teachers Union President Randy Weingarten. His union gave the Obama campaign $1,997,735 back in October 2008. No idea how many jobs his organization has ‘created.’
Secretary- Treasurer of the Service Employees International Union Political Action Committee, Anna Burger, was invited. According to federal election records, that committee gave $29,442,016 to the Obama campaign between February 2008 and September 2009.
$29,442,016!
Several other union officials were invited as well, including Leo Gerard of the Steelworkers union. How many jobs have they created? Steelworkers are a minority in their own union.
A couple of Hollywood types as well as some green lobby spokespeople.
We understand the inclusion of officials from big companies like Boeing, Disney and Comcast. (Actually, we’ll be watching to see how many workers are laid off after the Comcast merger closes…)
And we understand the inclusion of academics, and economists, for sake of assuring a rich and constructive dialog.
But who did the Obama Job Summit ignore?
Family firms. Small to medium entrepreneurs in manufacturing. People like us. People with ‘experience’ creating jobs. Experience creating opportunities for employment.
We’re the people that make things.
We’re family firms,-not to be ignored.
Except we are being ignored.
We don’t have a seat at the table. Why?
Is it because
- Family owned firms account for 89% of all businesses in the United States.
- Family owned businesses employ 59% of the working population.
- They are responsible for 64% of the U.S.’s Gross Domestic Product.
- Family owned firms created 86 % of all of the new jobs over the last decade.
Why weren’t these real creators of jobs and employment be included?
Our industry works with some pretty amazing resolution and precision as our stock in trade. There are shops that look at tolerances in thousandths of an inch (0.001″) . The thickness of a sheet of copy paper is around 0.003″, and so a shop that can hold “half a thousandth,” is saying essentially, that their total variation is on the order of one-sixth of the thickness of that sheet of copy paper. One-sixth of the thickness of a sheet of paper!
Some of our shops look at tolerances in terms of microns- that is millionths of a meter. A human hair can be anywhere within the range of 50- 120 microns, the average hair is probably somewhere around 100 microns.
This means that the micron-calibrated folks are measuring at precision levels that divide a human hair in about a hundred thicknesses, and a meter in millionths. That’s pretty impressive.
So I ran into this item talking about about half a meter resolution, and I said, “Half meter resolution. Woo hoo- what’s the big deal? Thats no big deal.”
And then I saw what half a meter resolution looks like. From 684 kilometers (call it 425 miles ) up, taken while moving 7.5 km/second (thats 17,000 miles per hour, more or less.)
From Geoeye-1: The Dubai Air Show. (Go to this site, and keep clicking on the picture until you see it in all its glory.) Want to see the Hoover Dam?
So while I continue to be impressed by the accomplishments of shops whose tolerances are anywhere from say a third of the thickness of a sheet of paper to one one-hundredth of the thickness of a human hair, I have a new found respect for the resolution of, say, half a meter. And I think we’ll all certainly be a bit more careful when we’re laying out by the pool…
So what is your best “resolution” or tolerance that you can hold, or held, under any circumstances? We’re looking for your stories, so drop us a line.
Satellite Imagery from Satellite Imaging Corp.
All of us have many reasons to be grateful. To be thankful. To consider ourselves blessed.
Here is a link to an article that I wrote for the PMPA pages in Production Machining Magazine. The article will give you a sense of how our industry contributes to the joy and quality of every day life. I hope that you enjoy it. The photo above is what inspired my column.
Thank you for doing your best at whatever it is that you do that makes our world a better place for someone, somewhere.
In this post we’ll take a look at the significance of the last 2 digits of the steel grade designation. We will be discussing carbon, not alloy grades.
The first 2 digits give us an idea about whether the grade is a plain carbon or alloy steel. See our post here. So 1018 is a plain carbon grade; 1137 is a resulfurized carbon steel; 4140 is an alloy steel.
So lets look at those last two digits in the 4 digit AISI/ SAE grade designation, and what they mean in the carbon grades we see in our shops.
The secret to understanding real estate is location, location, location.
In steel, the secret to understanding is carbon, carbon, carbon.
Carbon is so important in understanding a steel’s characteristics, that in the North American nomenclature system, the last two digits of the grade are the average carbon content expressed as weight %. Carbon is the most important indicator or predictor of a steel’s properties and response to processing.
So in that 1018 steel, 0.18 weight % carbon (on average) is implied; in 1137, 0.37 wt % carbon (on average) is implied; in 1144, the average carbon content we expect is, you guessed it, 0.44 wt.%.
So what does that mean to us as machinists?
Very low carbon. Grade 1008-1010. The low carbon content makes these steels low strength and very ductile. Typically used for cold heading. Cold forming. The machinist would characterize these as gummy. Chips are stringy, continuous, and soft.
Low carbon. Grade 1018; 1022. Low carbon means low strength. The non alloys in this range are weldable, and all of these grades are cold formable with out the need for an anneal. Grades in this carbon range are often carburized to achieve a high surface hardness. Not a good choice for machining, difficult to get chip to break. Chips are somewhat continuous, and soft to semi-soft. Parts made from these grades tend to have low stock removal, and look like the bar that they were made from- bolts, light duty shafts, tie rods, pins.
Medium carbon. 1045, 1137, 1144. Medium carbon means medium strength. Usually cold drawn. Can be heat treated. Not recommended for cold heading. Welding requires special practices and residual control. (Do not weld 11XX grades due to high sulfur content!)
Chips are continuous and semi hard (1030), continuous and tough (1035), and continuous and start to become springy or hard (1045-1050). Small shafts, forgings, and kingpins are typical of these grades. Not usually annealed. Heavy draft (cold work) followed by a stress relief operation can get yield strengths into the 100,000 psi minimum. ASTM A 311 class B is one such designation, Stressproof (TM) is Niagara LaSalle’s trademarked name for a similar product.
High carbon. Above 0.50 carbon, most of us start to describe steels as “high carbon.” Depending on the application, and carbon content, an anneal may be required for processing. My rule of thumb for carbon grades is at 0.60 and above, an anneal is required prior to cold drawing. ( For alloys, generally annealing is required at 0.40% carbon.) So a 1060 bar would be annealed prior to cold drawing. The type of anneal for these steels would be called a lamellar pearlitic anneal. It would help to develop a predominately coarse lamellar pearlitic structure in the steel. Chips are continuous and range from hard (1060) to tough (1070) to springy (1080 and above).
Very high carbon. At 0.90 carbon and above, (drill rod and bearing steels) a different kind of anneal is called for. It is called spheroidize annealing, and results in a greater mean free path of ferrite between the hard carbide particles in these steels. Very high carbon steels are most machinable in the spheroidize annealed condition.
Adding sulfur to carbon steels is called resulfurizing. This addition provides a way to break up the chip, thus escaping the continuous chip that we get from 10XX steels. This is why 11XX and 12XX steels are so machinable.
Click here to learn how steel chemistry might have contributed to the sinking of the Titanic.
Photomicrograph from JOM, 50 (1) (1998), pp. 12-18.
The bill is H.R. 3548.
The House passed the bill yesterday and the President is expected to sign it today.
You should consult your tax advisor immediately, as this bill provides for immediate tax refunds on taxes that your business has paid over the immediate 5 years, instead of the the usual 2 years for the tax period 2008 OR 2009 (not both!) There are other terms regarding the fifth year that we will not get into here.
The existing law per the stimulus bill only allowed for losses incurred in 2008, the language that PMPA worked to get passed added coverage for 2009.
Thanks to all who responded to our Action Alert October 23. Your action and support of this important provision has made a difference!
Put this subject on your watch list…
This act charges the EEOC with issuing finalized regulations by November 21, 2009.
These regulations have not yet been finalized, despite the claims of purveyors of employment law posters who insist that you need a new poster…
Title I of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 prohibits discrimination based on genetic information in health coverage and employment. Title II prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of genetic information. Title III contains numerous miscellaneous provisions including updates to child labor laws as well as establishing penalties.
The law requires full compliance by employers with 15 or more employees, employment agencies, labor unions, joint labor-management training programs, and all federal employers. GINA also updates language from ‘Handicap’ and ‘Handicaps’ to ‘Disability’ and ‘Disabilities’ in the existing EEOC code. This law extends HIPAA protections to genetic information. Ted Kennedy called it “”the first civil rights bill of the new century of the life sciences.”
The implementing regulations from EEOC are not out yet, but here are some ‘tools you can use’ to prepare for the upcoming rules in November:
Fact sheet.
Final version.
As a .pdf.
Final note: If your health or wellness plan pays or incentivizes employees to submit a family history, that is likely to change!