PM Blog
Business Protection You Can’t Afford To Be Without
Contract review is a critical aspect of running a successful shop. APQP, FMEA, and PPAP—all of these contribute to the "no surprises, products meet all aspects" of the customer’s specification delivery experience. But what about the commercial side? The efforts you fail to make on commercial aspects of your obligations can have consequences just as serious as shipping nonconforming products to your customer.
Read MoreTechnical Member Profile: Champion Screw Machine Engineering, Inc.
Champion is a leading supplier of Acme-Gridley replacement parts, tooling and attachments. The company also stocks parts for Davenport, New Britain and Conomatic.
Read MoreTriple Jeopardy And Your Stored PCs
Because of the high initial cost and relatively short useful life (about 5 years) of most personal computers, many companies delay disposal of their old PCs. Yet, the consequence of maintaining a depot of used PCs actually increases the risk to a business in at least three areas: environmental, employee privacy and customer privacy.
Read MoreObsolete Federal Specifications
The reform of federal government acquisition processes has resulted in the wholesale demise of entire classes of specs, standards and commercial item descriptions. MIL-STDs and MIL-Specs once added up to 35,000 in the early 1990s.
Read MoreInternational Materials Data System Reporting
On September 18, 2000, the European Union established the End of Life Vehicles Directive to identify hazardous materials that were contained in cars. The directive was also designed to determine the content recyclability in vehicles at the end of their useful life. A reporting system called the International Materials Data System (IMDS) was established for standardizing the reporting of chemical compositions finding their way into automobiles.
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Staking A Claim In the CNC Multi-Slide Niche
The new TBC 42 multi-slide automatic turning machine by Brazilian machine-tool builder Ergomat may be made in South America, but its target market is clearly Western Europe and North America.
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Process Control System Hones Job Shop's Competitive Edge
After researching the available systems, this shop chose a knowledge-based, process control software developed for metalworking operations comply with customers’ Cpk demands.
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Workholding Collets And Factors That Affect Grip Force
The phenomenon of the staying power of the collet, in light of the rapidly changing technology in machine tool design, is attributed to the utility and the elegant simplicity of the device. The collet is a small but powerful component for the machine tool industry, incorporating all of the these features.
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Serrating On The Lathe
If you are one of those firms doing serrating as a separate operation, you’ll be pleased to learn that there is now a serration shave tool that enables you to perform the serrating as just another operation on your CNC lathe.
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Improving Quality Bit By Bit
Video measurement systems help this drill bit manufacturer keep a step ahead of the competition.
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Seeing A Multi Through Different Eyes
Sometimes if you don’t 'know' any better, applying technology in new ways simply makes sense. That’s partly what helped drive this family-owned OEM to acquire its first, and so far only, multi-spindle to help it get a better handle on production and inventory control.
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Lights-Out Machining Boosts Turning Capacity
A Colchester Tornado A50 CNC lathe, equipped with a bar feed, Renishaw probing, tool monitoring, pickoff unit, swarf conveyor and production-scheduling software, is providing lights-out production capability for Altex Engineering, a (Calne, Wiltshire) U.K. precision subcontractor that specializes in turning and milling in addition to sheet metal fabrication using laser cutting, punch press and folding equipment. With the new CNC lathe, Altex has increased productivity by more than 50 percent on a range of turned components, some 80 percent of which are now completely machined in a single setup.
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