Random Thoughts About Reshoring and Buying American
What will be the effect of the supply chain disruptions of recent years? Here are several observations related to where companies produce and how we think about a manufactured product’s origins.
#zaxis
Why Towns Want Manufacturing Plants
A manufacturing facility can harness and focus the native ability of people growing up in a town, and channel this into livelihoods and homes for the town’s next generation. Is this something we lost sight of and are now seeing again?
#zaxis
4 Steps to a Cobot Culture: How Thyssenkrupp Bilstein Has Answered Staffing Shortages With Economical Automation
Safe, economical automation using collaborative robots can transform a manufacturing facility and overcome staffing shortfalls, but it takes additional investment and a systemized approach to automation in order to realize this change.
#zaxis #Basics
Can Connecting ERP to Machine Tool Monitoring Address the Workforce Challenge?
It can if RFID tags are added. Here is how this startup sees a local Internet of Things aiding CNC machine shops.
#successionplanning #workforcedevelopment #zaxis
The Tension Between Current and Coming Markets Cannot Be Resolved
A healthy business needs to keep that tension alive. That observation is one of several I have come to through my role during the past several years.
#zaxis
Does Metal Additive Manufacturing Belong in a Machine Shop? The Answer Is Mixed
Machining is a necessary capability for metal part production through 3D printing, but succeeding with metal AM demands a role and procedures much different from those of many machining providers.
#zaxis
Cutting Tool Inventory: A Big Concern for Small Shops
A job shop might have an amount of money tied up in tooling equal to a significant share of its investment in CNC machines. Here is how one shop owner thinks about tool management.
#zaxis
Will the “Great Resignation” Become an Opportunity for Manufacturers? Get Ready for the Returning 3 Million
The Great Resignation will become a Great Reapplication when employees currently able to stay out of the workforce return to it looking for something better. Machining employers that are already evaluating candidates for fit, without demanding specific skills coming in, might be positioned well to draw upon this wave.
#zaxis #successionplanning #workforcedevelopment
IMTS 2022 Review: Attention to Automation Extends Beyond the Robot and the Machine
The advance toward increasingly automated machining can be seen in the ways tooling, workholding, gaging and integration all support unattended production. This is the area of innovation I found most compelling at the recent International Manufacturing Technology Show.
#imts #metalworkingfluids #zaxis
Building a Better Business: Lessons for Machine Shops From an Unexpected Source
Learning how to be a great manufacturer by listening to the insights of a different industry, homebuilding (which perhaps is not so different after all).
#topshops #zaxis
5 Reasons Why Machine Shop Ownership Is Changing
Mergers, acquisitions and other ownership changes are an effect of Boomer-age shop owners retiring, but only in part. Also important: The way we think about machining has changed.
#Basics #zaxis
5 Tips for Getting the Most From the Historic Return of North America’s Biggest Manufacturing Event
Plan. Explore. Think of the future. And oh yeah, the shoes. Here is how to get the most from the major manufacturing event that none of us have experienced in four years, and that many will be experiencing for the first time.
#imts #Basics #zaxis
What Are the Limits to Make-to-Order Manufacturing?
Automated storage and retrieval system maker Modula produces a product with 2,000 parts and hundreds of variations that has to be completed within a customer’s site. Here is a picture of what is possible in making a product tailored to the customer.
#leanmanufacturing #zaxis
New Ways We Cover the Choices and Challenges of Machining
Recently added: a new resource for machining-related process challenges, and a new video series appreciating the distinctiveness of different shops.
#zaxis
The Secure Channel: ITAR-Compliant Link Connects Machine Shops and Machining Advisors
Confidentiality concerns plus a shortage of experienced staff can leave shops isolated from expertise. How a system developed by two companies might change access to specific, real-time advice on machining challenges.
#zaxis
Can Transparency Bring More Efficient Sourcing?
A resource that aims to be free for machine shops asks detailed capability information so parts can be matched to producers, and OEMs can target RFQs to shops that are ready to run the work.
#zaxis
How This Motorcycle Startup Will Succeed With U.S. Production
Land Moto is the founder’s second motorcycle company. The first time, production was in China. This time, several factors help advance the effort to produce a low-cost bike in the United States. One of these is the way electrification opens doors to suppliers.
#zaxis
Do Modern CNCs Call for a New Programming Paradigm?
Complex workpieces such as AM parts present demanding toolpath challenges. But meeting the challenges reveals how much precision we’ve had all along — we just need the measurements and methods to use it.
#zaxis
10 Topics We Plan to Cover in 2022
We are looking for machine shops with stories to share in any of these areas. Contact us if we can report on your shop’s success.
#zaxis
10 Characteristics of a Valuable Machine Shop
What is your machining business worth? A recent event focused on machine shop ownership change revealed what machine shop buyers look for in making this evaluation.
#zaxis