MMS Blog
By: Michael Guckes 5. August 2018
Supply-Chain Improvements Continue to Lead Growth
Supplier deliveries was the only component in July to move higher while all other components indicated slowing growth. The employment reading, which until this month had indicated expanding growth fell sharply. Given the tight labor market, weakness in the employment reading may be more indicative of employers not being able to find new hires rather than weakening demand for labor.
The leading indices for July were employment and supplier deliveries, the latter of which has experienced record growth. In response to recent growth, the supply chain seems to have adapted to higher volumes.
According to Gardner Intelligence, while July was the fourth consecutive month of slowing growth after reaching an all-time high in February, June’s reading of 57.5 was still exceptionally high when compared to the index’s historical average reading of 51.0. The positive drivers of July’s index were supplier deliveries and production. Readings for employment, new orders, backlog and exports lowered the index’s average-based calculation. This is the third consecutive month in which new orders weighed down the overall index result.
Strong expansion in supplier deliveries suggest that the metalworking supply chain has and continues to grow to handle the robust demand for products, while the slowing growth of new orders and production suggests that we are well along the growth side of the business cycle. However, regular backlog growth since February of 2017 suggests that the industry should be well situated overall to handle temporary obstacles that would slow the industry’s expansion.
By: Peter Zelinski 4. August 2018
DMG MORI to Relocate U.S. Headquarters to Chicago’s South Side
The new site will serve as the company’s principal U.S. showroom. Seen here is the current showroom. The photo was taken earlier this year at the company’s Innovation Days event.
In a joint statement recently made with Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, machine tool builder DMG MORI announced its intention to relocate its headquarters from its current site in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, to Chicago’s South Side. No specific site has yet been chosen for the new building, but the company expects to locate its new headquarters and showroom on or near the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). DMG MORI USA President James Nudo says a temporary office will be established on IIT’s campus before the end of the year, and the new facility will likely be completed in 2021. I had the chance to speak with him about this move, the main reason for which can be stated in a single word: “Talent,” he says.
Ensuring a supply of engineering talent ready to meet the demand the company foresees is an ongoing concern. “We will need to hire at least 100 more application engineers in the next three years. Our customers want more automation and process engineering, and we want to give it to them.” But this need places DMG MORI in direct competition with other industrial employers facing similar needs. Taking up residence on-site or in proximity to IIT will offer a way essentially to move to the front of the line, becoming a daily presence in the lives of soon-to-be engineers. Among the staff at the new location will be an engineering recruiter ready to extend opportunities to promising candidates the company discovers through its interaction with students.
By: Julia Hider 3. August 2018
Collaborative Robot Gripper Design, Development: Four Trends You Need to Know
As collaborative applications for robots increase, grippers and how they influence safety are getting more consideration. Following this trend, Schunk has released the Co-act line of grippers, which are specifically designed for cobots.
Schunk’s Co-act grippers have a soft housing that eliminates sharp corners and pinch points, as well as limited gripping forces, in accordance with ISO regulations. A third party has also certified that these grippers comply with these regulations, taking some of the uncertainty out of the question of how safe they are for collaborative use.
Because cobot grippers, like the one shown here, have limited gripping force, their applications are limited. In order to safely increase gripping forces, cobot grippers will need to incorporate a variety of sensors.
Collaborative robots or “cobots” have an advantage in being able to work safely alongside humans. Some achieve this using sensor technology to slow and/or stop their motion when a person approaches them. Others feature built-in sensors that immediately stop cobot motion when they detect unexpected contact with an object or person. An increasing amount of attention is being paid to grippers and the role they play in cobot safety. According to Schunk Automation Group Manager Markus Walderich, these grippers are becoming safer, more trustworthy, stronger, more intelligent and easier to implement and use. He points to four trends that are shaping the design and development of cobot grippers:
Mr. Walderich says that while there is still uncertainty about the risks of human-robot collaboration in the market, ISO technical reports and standards that cover collaborative robots and grippers have become available to provide guidance for integrators and end users. ISO released the TS 15066 technical specification in 2016, which supplements previous safety requirements for collaborative robot systems. This report offers guidance to perform more sophisticated risk assessments for given applications. It also sets basic safety standards for cobot grippers, including the elimination of sharp corners and potential pinch points. It limits the gripping force to less than 140 Newtons so that if the gripper pinches someone, it will not cause injury. Schunk has developed a set of grippers, the Co-act line, which Mr. Walderich describes as “inherently safe” based on these standards. They have a soft housing with no sharp corners or pinch points, and their maximum gripping force is less than 140 Newtons.
By: Timothy W. Simpson 2. August 2018
Reuniting Manufacturing and Design for Effective AM
Figure 1: This test part, viewed from the front and rear, was designed by Andrew Coward and Dr. Karen Thole at Penn State for gas-turbine applications.
Figure 2: Warping and malformed fins (left) and support structures (right) are just some of the defects in the returned AM test parts
Figure 3: The AM test part that looked the best on the outside revealed broken piping on the inside via a CT scan.
As a machining professional or manufacturing expert, how many times do product designers or engineers tell you how to make a part? I am guessing rarely, if at all, just like you do not tell them how to design or engineer their parts.
Instead, they specify geometric dimensions and tolerances for each component that they want you to manufacture, and then you tell them the best way to make it to meet those specifications. Once they realize how expensive the components are to make with the current specifications, they tweak the tolerances and iterate until both parties reach a compromise.
1. August 2018
10 Lean Manufacturing Ideas for Machine Shops
Figure 1: On left, a machine shop’s initial Product-Process Matrix; on right, the final Product-Process Matrix after identifying and grouping by part families. (Courtesy of Strategos Lean Manufacturing.)
Figure 2: An example of material flows for a part family after implementation of a machining cell. Before, the parts machined followed a spaghetti diagram that sent them to different stations throughout the facility.
Lean manufacturing for the machine shop might mean segmenting the product mix into manufacturing cells responsible for different part families. Co-location of all the machines, personnel and support services relevant to a given part family can streamline and simplify material flows.
While metal removal rates remain at the top of mind when it comes to how machine shops invest in capital equipment, multifunction machines like the one pictured here on the shop floor of LeanWerks might better accommodate the lean cellular approach.
Inspection is often the real bottleneck in any machine shop. R&D Manco’s analysis of its machine-monitoring data revealed that first-article inspection was a bottleneck inhibiting its productivity with parts such as the one pictured. In response, it added equipment and staff to the inspection department. It is also experimenting with software for using the machine tool’s probe to perform first-article inspection right on the machine tool.
Lean manufacturing as it is traditionally practiced is of benefit to machine shops, but the extent of its benefit is often limited. The Toyota Production System on which lean manufacturing is based was designed for assembly plants that produce automobiles by the thousands. While an assembly plant focuses on low-mix, high-volume production, a typical machine shop focuses on high-mix low-volume production. A machine shop and assembly plant cannot expect to realize the same lean benefits with the same lean tools.
What tools are those? Today, many machine shops have realized the gains from implementing one or more of the methods listed in the “Lean Tools to Use” list below. In contrast, the lean tools in the “Lean Tools to Avoid” list are ineffective or inapplicable in a machine shop. They cannot handle the complexity of a high-mix low-volume shop, especially if it is a job shop!
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