FEATURES

A Baker’s Dozen Of OSHA Moneymakers

The safety of our employees, precision and quality workmanship have always been guiding principles in the precision machining industry. What are the areas that we need to focus on for continuous improvement? Here is a baker’s dozen table of what the OSHA inspectors cited in our industry (SIC 3451; NAICS 332721 Precision Turned Products Manufacturing) for the last fiscal year (October 2005-September 2006). This data was current as of October 13, 2006.

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Planning For A Promising New Year

We asked the principals from eight successful shops about what they see for business in 2007. Here is what they had to say.

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Riding Out The Storms

After a machine setback in this shop, management got in touch with Ganesh Machinery Inc. (Chatsworth, California). This company offered a selection of machines that seemed to fit well with the needs of G&L, so the two companies worked out a deal on a multitask lathe with bar feeder—the model GH-25M.

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Selecting Brushes For Burrs

Deburring is often a practical necessity after cutoff operations. Wire brush systems provide a low-cost and reliable means of automatic deburring of barstock or tube stock.

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Automation & Robots

The New American Night Shift

Strong customer service is what has made this company successful. However, while keeping the customer happy is a primary goal for American Eagle, it is the customer service it has received that has made the biggest difference. Now, increased lights-out operations are allowing the company to be even more competitive by providing lower shop rates for the customer.

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Tool Life Means Spindle Utilization

It is this goal of keeping the machines running that Schwanog LLC (Elgin, Illinois) has set its sites on helping its customers accomplish. Since modifying its direction about 18 years ago to specialize in indexable form tools, the company has been increasing tool life and providing fast turnaround to help shops reduce machine downtime.

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