July 2008 Edition

CUTTING TOOLS

It’s the Thought that Counts

The job shop is becoming the thinking-man’s game

Bob Olree, Publisher

It’s almost counterintuitive that something as abstract as thought can impact something as concrete as profits, but it can. Entrenched ways of thinking limit innovation. Approaching problems with a different viewpoint can streamline processes and boost profits.

A seminar, "Sheet Metal Design," presented by Annette Doyle, training manager, Trumpf USA, Farmington, CT, not only described the company’s advancements in lasers and bending technology, but provided insights into changing standard ways of fabrication thinking.

While shop owners recognize that outdated equipment limits the ability to excel, few examine their own thought processes to avoid outdated approaches.

For example, one of the first things a shop does when it receives a request for a quotation is to determine the best way to produce the part: Which machines are best suited for manufacture? Which tools will be most efficient? What processes are best for fabrication? These, and other factors, are what owners use to determine the edge over their competitors.

An owner examines a proposed part until everything about it is known. But, the owner may ignore one of the most important factors: examining the design. Rather than accept the same-old-same-old process, the seminar showed how to take a step back to look at the part to retain the requested functionality, but save time, material, weight, processes, and, most importantly, money.

Stuck in a Rut

Too often, we all have the "that’s how we’ve always done it" mentality. Almost every shop has encountered files from a customer for a part that would be impossible to make as designed. Most shops work to resolve the problem with work-arounds, doing what the customer’s engineer wants. There are alternatives: changes in thinking that Doyle described.

Doyle provided an example in the seminar that showed attendees a heavy structural steel bearing support bracket. Its primary purpose was to mount a bearing that supported a through-shaft, but it also served as a mounting point for a light sheet metal tray to catch paper clipping waste from the host machine.

If the shop owner quoted the job as presented, the bid might have been successful, but an opportunity to become the engineer’s hero by simplifying construction and cutting costs would have been missed.

Access the Inner Two-year-old

In her example, Doyle showed the audience how advanced approaches to thinking produced a savings of 58 percent in the manufacturing of a part, compared to the processes specified by the customer’s engineer. Besides that example, there were others, such as a machined aluminum bracket to hold small, interior wire bundles.

As designed, the part would require a lot of material removal, drilling of two mounting holes, as well as other small holes for the wire ties. The part didn’t require precision machining, but that produced a handsome piece.

In this case, the shop owner asked "Why?" questions, then redesigned the part for use with standard sheet metal fabricating processes. The money-savings was significant.

Trumpf runs its three-day Sheet Metal Design workshops in Connecticut, or can present the workshops onsite. Shop veterans will find how to take best advantage of the capabilities of new equipment to stay ahead of the competition by offering added value to customer requests. Trumph

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What do you think?
Will the information in this article increase efficiency or save time, money, or effort? Let us know by e-mail from our website at www.ModernApplicationsNews.com or e-mail the editor at pnofel@nelsonpub.com.