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Derek Korn,
Senior Editor
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Keep It Clean
If you’re a regular watcher of American Chopper, then you probably know that Paul Sr. expects his Orange County Choppers shop to be clean. He’s had a few (more than likely staged) eruptions flared by old coffee cups lying around and debris littering the floor. So my question is: Are you just as passionate, but perhaps a tad less confrontational, about keeping your shop shipshape?
I’ve visited shops that I’d consider as clean as they realistically could be. Others, well not so much. Although machining is an inherently messy endeavor, taking strides to maintain a tidy workplace is beneficial in a number of ways.
Clean workplaces are safe workplaces. An epoxy-coated floor not only looks nice but makes fluid and chip cleanup easier. Plus, an organized workplace (including office and shipping areas) reduces waste on a number of fronts.
Keeping equipment clean can reduce maintenance and repair downtime. You don’t want to pay for the time it takes a service person to clean a machine before he or she repairs it, do you?
Remember that first impressions are powerful. An orderly environment housing equipment that’s not covered in muck is one that is both welcoming for existing employees and alluring to potential recruits.
Finally, consider individual cleanliness in the interview process for prospective employees. Before you hire people, look in their car. This can reveal a lot about their concern for cleanliness.
It’s everyone’s responsibility to maintain a clean shop. And employees must be willing to take the extra step to correct issues that are not necessarily their fault. That brings us to the image of the egg rolls. Click them to link to a recent column from Wayne Chaneski that highlights the importance of eliminating the “it’s not my fault” mentality from shop employees. You’ll see what egg rolls have to do with machine shops.
ALSO In this issue...
Your Thoughts: Where does cleanliness rank?
Tricks Of The Trade: Inexpensive organization
Metalworking Mojo: Goodbye to a metalworking visionary
Our Next Issue: Advances in medical machining
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Share your views, win a prize
How high does maintaining shop cleanliness rank on your list of priorities? If it’s near the top, what are the prime reasons and benefits? Do you have specific procedures in place or do you just tidy up as you go along?
Please share your thoughts on this topic. If we publish your response, you’ll receive your choice of one free title from the Hanser Gardner bookstore (www.hansergardner.com).
To respond, send your e-mail to Derek Korn (dkorn@mmsonline.com)
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TRICKS OF THE TRADE
Shop-developed innovations
Shop cleanliness and organization go hand in hand. And neither has to cost that much. The photo to the right is an example of one shop’s method of implementing an organizational technique that is as effective as it is inexpensive.
Within this machining cell at C&S Machine in Buchanan, Michigan, an employee uses two layers of cardboard as a layout template for storing hand tools and measurement devices. The employee humbly joked that this was a prototype design, and that another version might be made of wood. However, cardboard both serves the organizational purpose and is easier to modify than wood. |
METALWORKING MOJO
Personalities making parts
Last month, the metalworking community lost one of its most influential and forward-thinking members -- John Parsons. Mr. Parsons invented numerical control. His obituary, excerpted here, offers a glimpse of what made this man so extraordinary.
Mr. Parsons was born in Detroit in 1913. He grew up on the shop floor in an era when American industry was young and visionary. His first memory, at age 3, was filing a piece of iron. He learned to differentiate metals by their smell, in much the same way others distinguish flowers. He was intrigued by the physical world of metal and machinery. And he envisioned a new world of manufacturing -- metalworking using numerical control.
Mr. Parsons, both a religious man and a romantic, remained active in numerous church and civic organizations. He loved to dance; played handball; drove too fast; corresponded with his favorite poet, Robert Frost; played the violin, mandolin, piano, trumpet and accordion; bought six P-38 fighters and two helicopters; and constantly whistled or sang.
For 40 years, Mr. Parsons worked at Parsons Corporation with a creative group of men and women, each of whom he knew by name. He led that company to become the world’s largest producer of helicopter blades. He received numerous awards and accolades over his career. Perhaps his biggest was being recognized by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers as the “Father of the Second Industrial Revolution.”
The impact of Mr. Parsons’s manufacturing vision should be obvious to us all. Think of Mr. Parsons the next time you walk past one of your CNC machine tools on the shop floor.
OUR NEXT ISSUE
Advances in medical machining
The June issue of Modern Machine Shop highlights shops that use innovative ways to produce complex medical components from difficult materials. The cover story profiles a job shop owner who places parts machined by his shop into his mouth at night. His shop makes components of oral orthotic devices that improve breathing. The same device relieved his sister’s multiple sclerosis, letting her walk again without a cane. Now, this shop’s strategies for unattended machining of titanium are key to improving access to this therapy by bringing down the price.
Another story offers practical advice for machining polyetheretherketone—aka PEEK. That material is increasingly used in medical device applications. Yet another article profiles a shop that adopted an atypical machining platform for producing complex parts in one setup -- bar-fed, five-axis machining centers. The photos to the right and the paragraph below explain how this is accomplished.
A bar feeder pushes barstock a precise distance into the machining zone to allow turning and milling on five sides of a part. Once that is completed, a backworking device clamps the nearly completed part (shown in the middle photo). After the part is sawn from the barstock, the backworking device pivots 90 degrees clockwise to allow the machining spindle to access the final side of the part. A collection chute then receives the completed part from the backworking device.
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And if you’d like to read other articles related to medical machining, visit Modern Machine Shop’s medical machining
zone at: www.mmsonline.com/medical.
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