Feature Article

Nowhere will you find more gold — i.e., profits — than by streamlining redundant or antiquated plant operations, according to Phillip Canipe, whose job it is to eliminate waste and redundancy at manufacturing plants.

At Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Americas Inc., holemaking success is about timing—finding the best sequence in which to perform manufacturing operations.

What would cause parts manufacturers not to want to extend tool life, increase speeds and feeds, enhance chip evacuation to avoid recutting, impart finer surface finishes and eliminate pecking when deep-hole drilling? Apparently, ignorance in the marketplace.

Visioneering Inc. employees stay ready to adapt to change as the Auburn Hills, Mich., aerospace supplier opens a new facility and adopts a new way to apply coolant.

Today's machine tool users have more spindle choices than just the steep-taper designs developed 40 years ago.n

Many — if not most — shops encourage employees to purchase their own measurement tools. Some even help by "financing" these purchases, allowing machinists to pay them off in small increments. And what machinist doesn't want his or her "own stuff" with which to do the job? But does allowing machinists to use their own measuring tools actually make sense?

To profitably machine high-quality parts, many manufacturers follow a similar path, beginning with tool selection and application and then solving any problems that arise in a reactive way. However, research suggests that manufacturers should examine the entire machining process before cutting begins, focusing on eliminating rejected parts and unforeseen downtime.

Numerous toolmakers provide free programs that will automatically generate G code for a specific thread milling application. The programs vary in sophistication and in whether they are online-only or downloadable, but all are useful tools. Among the suppliers of these apps are Scientific Cutting Tools Inc., Simi Valley, Calif.; Guhring Inc., Brookfield, Wis.; and Kennametal Inc., Pittsburgh.

Scrap happens. By scrap, I mean parts that are out of tolerance and, therefore, useless. Unlike other by-products of the manufacturing process, such as chips, shavings and drops, you generate scrap only through mistakes. nnSo the challenge of reducing scrap comes down to preventing mistakes.

Swarf, which is the result of particles being removed when grinding hard or difficult-to-machine materials, tells a story.

Metal laser melting has made possible a number of groundbreaking developments in the medical field. One example is a 3D-printed bone drill that, unlike some traditionally manufactured drills, is designed not to damage tissue during surgery.

Until a couple of years ago, the Food and Drug Administration required a unique identifier on each distinct assembly of a medical device in human- and machine-readable forms. That rule has changed. Now, every individual component in an assembly must be marked as well.