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Industry Market Barometer Reveals Hopeful Future

August 4, 2011 by  
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Twice a year, ThomasNet releases their Industry Market Barometer which is a survey that helps to get a better idea on how different buyers and sellers are feeling about their businesses and what they are doing to overcome challenges. This particular survey asked nearly 3,400 buyers and sellers of industrial goods a series of questions to gauge their success moving forward.

The majority of those surveyed are from small companies—fewer than 100 employees and less than $10 million a year in revenue. What was found in the survey is that there is a growing optimism toward things and that they are anticipating more demand for their goods.

Two groups, specifically, that emerged in this survey are the “Outperformers” and the “Optimists.” The “Outperformer” is someone who had growth in the second half of 2010 and had anticipated more growth by June 2011. The “Optimists” anticipated growth by June 2010, but experienced a steady or declining growth in the second half of 2010.

Across the entire industrial marketplace, 45 percent of industrial companies are continuing to grow in comparison to 18 percent who aren’t. In every region and every sector of business, these numbers are true.

This growth can be attributed to two things: a heavy reliance on customer retention and service and utilizing their websites and the Internet to market their company.

The IMB revealed that 68% of respondents found customers cutting back or closing shop to be their top challenge. To try and prevent this from being a challenge in the future, 31% of companies are hiring customer service positions.

Demand is up, according to these companies. Thirty-seven percent of respondents anticipated hiring new employees through June 2011. Of those companies, 43% are hiring skilled trade workers and 36% are hiring engineering staff. Demand is, as these numbers would show, up and that is something that will convert into jobs.

Many more companies are realizing the need to move online and market themselves there. By utilizing their own website and a directory such as ThomasNet, companies are finding an increase in revenue growth. Of all IMB respondents, 76 percent reported that their website made a contribution to growth from July to December 2010.

Over half of the “Outperformers” revealed that their website opened up new sources of business which resulted in new revenues.

There are still things that need to be to make the online experience more worthwhile. Buyers are looking for websites that include product comparisons so that purchasing is easier. More importantly, they want to see the prices and product information to ensure that the product they are getting is exactly what they want.

The economy is obviously hurting and companies are hesitant to hire. However, what the IMB shows is that there is growth in the industrial sector and companies are beginning to add people to ensure that they can reach the demand presented to them by their customers.

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Haas To Host National Demo Day September 14

August 4, 2011 by  
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Haas Automation Hosts National “Multi-Tasking Turning Center” Demo Day

On September 14, 2011, Haas Automation, Inc., will host a “Multi-Tasking Turning Center” Demo Day at more than 40 Haas Factory Outlets (HFOs) throughout the United States and Canada. This 18th national event will feature the new Haas ST and DS series multi-tasking turning centers with Y-axis and dual-spindle capability.

Off-Center Drilling

The Haas ST series Y-axis turning centers provide 4″ of Y-axis travel (±2″ from the centerline) for off-center milling, drilling, and tapping, and include high-torque live tooling and a servo-driven C axis for versatile 4-axis capability. The machines are available in standard and Super Speed configurations.

Haas DS Series Spindles

The Haas DS series dual-spindle turning centers provide the ability to turn both ends of a part in a single setup to minimize part handling, increase throughput, and reduce work-in-process. The opposed spindles support fully synchronized turning, and allow on-the-fly part pass-off to reduce cycle times. Adding Y axis, C axis, and live tooling to the machines creates powerful “done-in-one” machining solutions for any shop. The DS machines are available in standard and Super Speed configurations.

HFO Education

In addition to live demonstrations running on the Haas machines, each local HFO will host educational seminars on the latest trends for boosting output and increasing profits. Haas applications engineers – as well as representatives from major tooling, workholding, and CAD/CAM manufacturers – will be on hand to help customers adapt the newest machine technology and manufacturing strategies to their shop floor.

Thank You!

Those attending Demo Day 18 at their local HFO will receive a free limited-edition Haas T-shirt (while supplies last), and enjoy complimentary food and drink.

Built in the USA, all Haas machine tools are backed by the worldwide network of Haas Factory Outlets – the most extensive system of support and service in the industry. For more information about Haas Automation and Haas products, call 800-331-6746, or visit www.HaasCNC.com.

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Beating the Competition by Not Making Products

August 3, 2011 by  
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An emphasis on process rather than creating products is the goal for some metalworking companies these days. Given that manufacturing jobs are still being outsourced and domestic and overseas markets for U.S. manufactured products are continually shifting, manufacturing companies such as Sandray Precision Grinding Inc. (Rockford, Ill.) err on the side of caution and do secondary operations and advanced technologies for their customers’ parts, instead of creating their own.
Marc Gouker, president of Sandray, says there are no Sandray products. The company’s strategy is to work on their customers’ parts that require multiple, complex secondary operations, skill sets that can’t be found offshore or elsewhere, as well as advanced technologies.
“We do every kind of grinding possible,” Mr. Gouker says. “We do centerless, OD/ID, surface grinding, flash grinding, double disk grinding—you name it, we do it.” The company processes steel, alloys, aluminum, plastic and powdered metal in the markets of aerospace, automotive and off-road vehicles. Multinational manufacturers the company services include John Deere, Caterpillar and Cummins.
Mr. Gouker runs one of the largest grinding operations in the state of Illinois and has been in business since 1961. The company has 48 employees working in two side-by-side plants of 34,000 sq. ft. total and runs two shifts Monday through Friday that add up to 18-hour days.

Focusing on Unique Services

Sandray receives customers’ parts that need to be morphed into something else to be complete. About 99 percent of everything it does requires several operations. “We’ll do a centerless OD job where we actually chuck off the ID—jobs where we’ll stack as many operations into a single setup as possible,” Mr. Gouker says. “We’re pushing hard, especially on our CNC equipment. We may run 200 or fewer parts on a particular order, but we’ll load up as many operations in a single setup as we think we can (sometimes we take the CNC beyond its purported capability), and run the job. A single setup, faster throughput, closer tolerance and finish consistencies, repeatably perfect part characteristics—these are customer expectations.”
Mr. Gouker is guardedly proud of being a successful service provider. He knows that to remain this way, he must stay ahead of the competition. To do this, he has to invest in the latest advanced technology and always be tuned into ways to make his services increasingly more unique, which usually involves more advanced technology investment and a constant rethinking of how to process jobs.

Technology Perspective

With about 40 grinders in house (some domestics, most from the Far East), many manual machines, and an increasing population of CNC machines, Sandray has equipped itself to meet just about any grinding challenge. “We’ve bought 13 or 14 CNC machines over the past 4 to 5 years,” Mr. Gouker says. “I firmly believe in investing in the latest and best. It’s what keeps us ahead of the competition. The trick is that you’ve got to keep investing, keep learning and keep advancing.
“Our position is to continuously buy new technology that allows us to do what our customers require and our competitors can’t quite do. Our motto at Sandray is ‘to meet or exceed customer expectations,’ which we do by emphasizing quality through the elimination of human involvement and variability by the use of advanced technology. If you don’t keep an eye on the future—if you take a break from the competitive battle—the future will blow by you with a vengeance.”

The Lone Studer

One of the company’s latest investments is a Studer S151 (from United Grinding Technologies), a CNC internal cylindrical grinder for individual and small series production.
Mr. Gouker elected to go with the grinder for many reasons. He’d heard about its speed, accuracy and flexibility from other grinding shops and from customers. He also heard about the value of investing in a Studer from Integrated Machinery Systems (Itaska, Ill.) who sold the machine to Sandray in September 2010.
“This is one case where you really do get what you pay for and more,” Mr. Gouker says. “We knew about the machine’s flexibility. What we didn’t know is how to define this flexibility. We’re doing things on the machine that no one told us we could do.”
The pictogramming software allows the operator to string the individual grinding cycles together while the Fanuc 21i-TB control generates the ISO code. StuderGRIND is programming software for special applications such as form and thread grinding and profiling the grinding wheel for complex workpiece forms. The program is created on the PC and transferred directly to the machine control.
“I don’t do programming, but when we purchased the Studer grinder, I had the programming down in less than a half day,” Mr. Gouker says. “The flexibility is astonishing. If you can imagine a part, the shapes and geometries, the S151 will produce the part.”
Mr. Gouker describes a couple of jobs the company produces. One job is a tractor component for John Deere made out of 8620, heat treated to 53 RC. “We’ll grind an ID, come out of the hole, move over and put an indicating line on the OD, all in one setup,” he says.
A second part running on the grinder requires two concentric circles—a 3-inch diameter hole followed by a 0.5-inch diameter hole. “We use the first spindle, which is usually slower than the others, to grind the larger diameter. Then the machine automatically indexes the grinding spindle turret head 180 degrees to the second wheel head, which then grinds the small hole in the bottom of the large hole at a much higher rpm.
“We’re doing a job now on the Studer, which is not set up to do OD grinding,” Mr. Gouker says. “In the middle of the cycle, I stop the chuck, spin it backwards and move out and grind the OD. It’s like grinding an ID, but from the outside.”

Excellent Service

“I get impeccable service from IMS,” Mr. Gouker says. “I have the IMS service guy’s phone number right on the machine. I can call him anytime from 6 a.m. when I get in until 5 p.m. He’ll either pick up the phone on the first ring, or he’ll call me back in 5 to 6 minutes. It’s absolutely full support, which is very important when you run as many different jobs as we do, and deadlines get shorter and shorter.”
Mr. Gouker says the grinder is the only Swiss grinder in house, and it’s the only machine he’s bought through IMS. “Right now, the machine is still new to us. We’ll get error messages and don’t really know what we’re doing,” he says. “All I have to do is get IMS on the phone, explain the error message or problem, and they can walk me through the situation right on the phone. If that doesn’t work, they send someone out right away. Service like that in this day and age is a real blessing—having someone at your side who knows your machine inside and out and is available to you almost at any given moment.”

Fighting Back

Mr. Gouker admits there were many shops that did not survive the Great Recession because some weren’t positioned to survive and were not strategically diversified. Many had relied on one or two long-time customers doing basic parts—parts their long-time customers soon found beneficial to outsource for cheaper labor. This, then, left them with few options: Buy new advanced technology to make them more diversified and open to more complex jobs, sell the business, merge with another company, or shut the doors and walk away. This applied to shops that made products as well—raw material going in one end of the plant and finished parts coming out of the other.
“We have centered ourselves on diversification from the beginning,” Mr. Gouker says. “We believe the path to success lies in the investment in advanced technology and its creative use. We intend to buy more Studers over time to replace our manual machines and to become more attractive to customers who need multiple operations that we can do in a single setup.”
Mr. Gouker shares some sympathy with those who fell during the Great Recession. His larger point is to invest in the best, and then slug it out with the competition.
“Grinding has always been a very competitive business, even before the recession,” Mr. Gouker says. “However, for those determined, there is always a way through. Position yourself so you can do something your competitors cannot, which involves technology and imagination. Then fight—fight like it’s October 2007.”

 

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Dual Contact Tool Holders – Genius or Gimmick, Perception or Reality?

August 3, 2011 by  
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by Jay Pierson


I don’t remember when Dual Contact Toolholders first hit the market, but when I saw them I imagined they’d be a flash-in-the-pan product. At this point it seems like they’re more hit than miss and here to stay.

I’m know there are a lot of other engineers that are far smarter than me that have developed these products but there’s just something about dual contact holders that doesn’t sit right with me. I really don’t see how supporting the toolholder’s flange is going to increase rigidity. I also imagine that any chips or grime between the flange and spindle nose will interfere with the tool seating properly in the taper and vice versa. Are regular toolholders really that unstable that I need dual contact? Is the toolholder really the problem and not the 1″ tool that it’s holding? Does anyone else have these thoughts? Is this a case of good marketing over good product? It reminds me of a story that happened to me a long while back.

Was the Stem flexing or was it the rubber tire?
I once worked with a company developing a new line of handlebar stems for mountain bikes. The stem is the part of the bike that connects the steering tube to the handlebars. We developed a stem that was lightweight yet rigid thanks to the large diameter of the body. When we did rider testing, I found myself frustrated with what they perceived to be true. Since it was lightweight, they immediately imagined it would also be weak and/or flexible. Sure enough, one rider after another said they were experiencing too much “flex”. Bull! We built a test rig and measured that our design was among the stiffest and lightest on the market and definitely stiffer than any of the stems these test riders were currently using! The conversation with one test rider went something like this:

Me – So you really think it’s flexing too much?
Rider – Dude, totally!
Me – So let me get this straight, you’re wearing padded gloves while holding on to foam padded handlebar grips that are attached to 24″ wide hollow handlebars and you think the 3″ long aluminum stem is the part that’s flexing?
Rider – Yup.
Me – Ok let’s go over this… The stem is connected to a 4″ travel suspension fork that uses 0.050″ diameter spokes that connect with a thin aluminum rim that holds a rubber tire that rolls on unstable dirt. Are you sure what you’re feeling is the stem flexing and not one of the other components?
Rider – Dude, I know my bike. The stem has too much flex. I’M POSITIVE!
Me – Ok. Thanks for the feedback.
Rider – Don’t I get a T-shirt or something?

We ran a second round of tests but this time we hyped up the product beforehand by showing charts, graphs and fancy engineering terms. Guess what… the results were phenomenal. We took it a step further. We brought back the original group of test riders and took them through the same presentation. We told them their feedback was instrumental in improving the design. We used the exact same stems from the original test and once again the feedback was 100% positive. I specifically spoke to my original tester (Dude) to see what he had to say – “Dude, you guys really rocked it with this new design. Now do I get a T-shirt?”

This is a long story to get to my point – perception is reality. Are Dual Contact Toolholders really better or are we buying into better marketing? Hopefully I haven’t made any enemies, but I’ve definitely opened a can of worms. Let’s hear your comments below.

 

 

 

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Flex Hones for Deburring

August 1, 2011 by  
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Deburring cross-drilled holes can be an expensive and time-consuming operation. Electrochemical deburring (ECD) and thermal deburring may be effective, but they require electricity or heat along with chemicals and cleanups. ECD transmits electrical energy from an electrode to an electrolyte chemical, which then dissolves the burrs. Thermal deburring requires a sealed, pressurized chamber and a mixture of combustible gases. When this gaseous mixture is ignited, the burrs are burned away. Sometimes, however, intense physical or chemical deburring can damage small parts.

Burrs are Worse
Damaging the parts you’re trying to deburr is bad, but failing to remove the burrs can be even worse. Burrs can cause part misalignments, affect dimensional tolerances, and limit the overall efficiency of machined components. In the case of cross-drilled holes, burrs can also block the flow of cooling fluids, lubricants, and gases. Typically, these cross-drilled intersections are found in critical auto parts such as engine and transmissions components. For automakers and automotive suppliers, leaving burrs in-place is not an option.

What’s the Best Way to Deburr?
Flexible honing uses a low-temperature abrading process to blend edges, improve surface finish, and remove cut, torn, and folded metal. Because they are oversized for any given bore, flex hones “pop out” and into the intersection, removing the burrs without heat or electricity and creating a clean radius at the transition edge.

Flex hones are also self-centering and self-aligning, which means that these honing tools do not require complex setups. The only “chemical” that is needed is a blend of honing and lapping oils. Cleanup involves using a cylindrical wash brush with a detergent and warm or hot water.

Although flexible honing is used in industry, there are also applications for the at-home hobbyist with a hand drill. That’s not the case for electrochemical deburring (ECD) or thermal deburring equipment, of course, especially if cost is a consideration.

Additional Reading
Design World – Tools Automate Deburring of Chamfered Through Holes

Manufacturing Engineering – Better Ways to Deburr

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