Edward Vojcak P.E. was a colleague in the Technical Services Department at Bliss and Laughlin Steel, a cold finisher on Chicago’s South Side.
Today he is a Metallurgist and Professional Engineer with A. Finkl and Sons Co. in Chicago, as well as a leading contributor to LinkedIn’s Metallurgy and Material Science Group.
I was impressed with his response to a recent request on LinkedIn asking “Why are forged bars better than other bars for a piping application?”
Here is Ed’s reply:
“”Better” is relative. Best practice is to optimize cost, time and quality of performance. Forgings are typically more expensive than bar stock or castings because machined dies and furnaces are required – they are generally tougher because the deformation re-aligns the ever present non-metallic inclusions in metals parallel to applied stress – hence the improved quality. Bar stock can be machined into almost any configuration quickly and has most of the directional strength along its length.”
There are a lot of takeaways from this succinct paragraph, but the one I thought the greatest takeaway was this:
“Better” is relative. Best practice is to optimize cost, time and quality of performance.
Best practice is
There are a lot of takeaways from this succinct paragraph, but the one I thought the greatest takeaway was this:
“Better” is relative. Best practice is to optimize cost, time and quality of performance.
Best practice is
- Not to optimize only cost.
- Not to optimize only on quality of performance.
- Not to optimize only for time.
Ed’s statement gets to the crucial issue in selecting materials for manufacturing- selecting to optimize for several key issues.
Not just raw materials cost.
Thanks Ed Vojcak for the share.