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We’re All Winners at the 2009 SkillsUSA Championships

No industry or business can sustain itself without a steady flow of properly skilled workers in its respective pipeline. Metalworking manufacturing is particularly susceptible to worker shortages in part because of the unique skills required and in part because of a general lack of proper technical education opportunities. The SkillsUSA competition and its sponsors offer a proactive program to keep the metalworking manufacturing pipeline filled.

In June, more than 5000 outstanding students from around the country competed in the 2009 SkillsUSA Championships in Kansas City, Missouri. For the fourth year, Haas Automation, Inc. sponsored the Precision Machining Technology (PMT) competition at the event, and once again, the majority of winners in the PMT category received their training at Haas Technical Education Centers (HTECs).
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Keep Your Eye on the Ball

Whether the goal is lights-out production or simply maintaining a more refined machining process, monitoring systems and software can contribute a great deal to accomplishing success. A number of approaches can be taken, including a combination of strategies to address various areas of the shop floor.

Monitoring can mean different things in a manufacturing environment. Tool monitoring can play a significant role in saving money by preventing tool breakage and reducing scrap. Some systems provide instant feedback of the results of adjustments to tools, cutting speeds, feeds, depths of cut and geometry. They can also stop the machine at the first sign of trouble.

General shopfloor monitoring involves collecting, reporting and charting cycle times, idle times, setup times and other process statistics. It can improve manufacturing by supplying accurate shopfloor productivity metrics to enhance operations and make better decisions.
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Gang Tooling Offers Increased Productivity

Gang tooling is a tooling method for CNC lathes in which multiple tools are chambered on a toolholder that is controlled by a cross slide. Rather than being indexed, as on a turret lathe, the slide repositions as each tool is engaged in the tooling sequence.

This tooling method is particularly effective for parts requiring repeat setups. Using a large-capacity toolholder, you can set up all the tools you need for a job at once, enter the offsets once, and run. Remove the entire block when the machining is complete, store the offsets, and repeat when needed.

The payback time on installing a gang tooling setup is generally short. The money saved in changeover time is the key—using gang tooling, you can minimize the amount of time changeovers take when switching between operations. READ MORE