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Above and beyond

06/01/2016
Author:
Kip Hanson
Value-added services shorten lead times and increase sales opportunities for parts manufacturers. The decision to bring traditionally outsourced services in-house can be an expensive and scary proposition—one with the potential to either transform a company or send it into bankruptcy. Yet that’s exactly what many manufacturing companies do, and often they are pleased with the results. That proved true for the four companies profiled in the following pages.
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Spanntop Workholding System

The HAINBUCH SPANNTOP high-precision workholding system offers users the option of converting the basic chuck for OD, ID and 3-jaw clamping operations with a change-over time of 2 minutes or less. Equally important, in each mode, the chuck delivers proven performance and high repeatability, according to the company.

Manager's Desk: Impacted by illness

05/01/2016
Author:
Keith Jennings
I generally consider myself to be a positive person. However, these past few weeks have tested my resolve. It’s not the roller-coaster daily life as a machine shop owner, but the stark reality of losing employees and friends to serious illness that’s been especially hard to take. Thankfully, illness doesn’t always mean death. 
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Challenges in the micro-EDM world

05/01/2016
Author:
Kip Hanson
Say “EDM” and most manufacturing folks think mold, tool and die work. Yet sinker, wire and hole-popping EDMs are often employed in conjunction with, or as alternatives to, traditional part-making processes, such as milling and turning. 
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Benefits of micromachining with lasers

05/01/2016
Author:
Kip Hanson
Lasers are good for far more than slicing sheet metal and defending against alien space invaders. Without them, many of today’s high-tech products would be impossible to manufacture. Microfluidic devices, integrated circuits, medical stents and catheters, automotive fuel injector nozzles are all drilled, milled, surface-textured and ablated via laser micromachining. 
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Growing demand for microparts challenges suppliers, users

05/01/2016
Author:
Kip Hanson
Ever machined parts so small that they not only fit on a penny but can sit on old Abe’s nose? Cutting parts and part features in this Tom Thumb world often comes with Titanic-sized challenges, such as unexpected cutting tool breakage, deburring parts the size of typical burrs and machine tool spindles speeds that come up short. Sometimes just handling ultrasmall parts is a gargantuan task. 
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Slow business can have a silver lining

Doug Wetzel, managing director at contract manufacturer Protomatic, Dexter, Mich., is finding business to be slower than he wishes. Like many other U.S. job shops, the 45-year-old company is experiencing a slowdown caused by tumbling oil prices and worldwide political and economic uncertainty. The difference is Wetzel isn’t too worried. His advice to fellow manufacturers is to not let market uncertainty paralyze them from seeing a slowdown’s silver lining— namely, time to prepare for the inevitable upturn.