March/April 2003 ISSUE
Quick-Change Tooling For Swiss-Style Machines
The productivity of new Swiss-style machines has increased in recent years as faster spindles, more rigid bases and improved controls have made it possible to dramatically increase metal removal rate. But while cycle times have been substantially reduced, the time required to change cutting tools has stayed largely the same.
FEATURES
A Look at Today's Cast Iron
This article explores a variety of factors affecting machinability of grey and ductile irons. Choosing the right combination of metal and cutting tools can have a dramatic impact on the cost of a part.
Ahead of the Curve
As the 1980s drew to a close, Tad Korndoerfer knew that if his Long Island, New York-based company was to survive, it was going to have to undergo a paradigm shift in the way it did business. No longer, he felt, could Action Machined Products be content to compete in the commodity-type business on which it had grown up. Price pressures from the consuming industries were eating the margins of Action Machined Products. Plus, while low cost foreign competition was just starting to become a factor in the precision machined products industry, it was obvious which way things were headed. Action Machined Products, which up until then produced the lion’s share of its parts on aging Brown&Sharpe machinery, needed to evolve to the next level.Parts Cleaning
Automated Parts Washer Keeps Up With 140 Screw Machines
This company had trouble meeting stringent cleanliness specs at such a high volume with aqueous cleaning.
Software
Can You Afford To Ignore Tool Monitoring?
In production, eliminating variability is the key to making good parts consistently. Cutting tool condition is a critical variable in the process. With a return on investment, in many cases, of less than a month, in-process tool monitoring is a cost-effective way to help plan and verify a shop's cutting tool strategy.
Turning Machines
Converting An OD Pickoff To An ID Pickoff
It's easy to make equipment purchasing decisions when the customer commits to a fixed number of parts, but it's something else entirely when there is no such commitment and the job could go away at any time.Davenport Coming Back
I was standing on the dock at the Fort Lauderdale boat show when my cell phone rang. It was Andrea from Tajmac in Milan offering me congratulations on the purchase of Davenport. I told him I hadn’t bought it, but I was trying like hell. He said at that point he didn’t know whether to offer me congratulations or condolences! About an hour later my chief operations officer, Andy Laniak, called to say that indeed, we were the highest bidder, and it looked like we were going to succeed in acquiring the assets of the company.
Family-Owned Businesses: Is There A More Difficult Type Of Business To Run?
Running a family business creates a unique challenge for the founders/parents: to rear their children into mature adults and into mature business people as well. This is quite a tall order, to be sure.
Hello, It's Me. Again.
Ask these questions as an exercise to identify what information your site needs to grow closer toward what really is needed by researchers, specifiers and buyers researching you via the Web.
How To Impress Young Recruits: Take Them To PMTS
Jerry Eighmy sees the world in a different light. Where others may see a potential problem, he sees an opportunity. While some in the precision machined products industry believe the labor pool for talented young adults is thin, Mr. Eighmy is working to increase the size of the pool.PM News: Not The Right Time
Gildemeister AG (Frankfort, Germany) recently decided not to acquire the machine tool operations from ThyssenKrupp AG (Düsseldorf, Germany) due to a lack of financing.
Quick-Change Tooling For Swiss-Style Machines
The productivity of new Swiss-style machines has increased in recent years as faster spindles, more rigid bases and improved controls have made it possible to dramatically increase metal removal rate. But while cycle times have been substantially reduced, the time required to change cutting tools has stayed largely the same.Single & Multi-Spindles
Selecting The Right Shaft Coupling
When designing machinery, how do you begin to select the right coupling for a drivetrain application? How do you find one that will not only compensate for misalignments in the joined shafts but will also provide the flexibility, torque capacity, corrosion-resistance and other performance capabilities that the application requires? Here’s a case in point that provides some of the answers.
