PM Blog

These five safety topics should be a focus for your shop’s safety training in 2020, according to Miles Free, director of industry affairs, Precision Machined Products Association (PMPA). The first four topics are based on top Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) violations in General Industry. The last topic is often overlooked, Free believes, but is foundational to an effective safety program.

Look for your October issue of Production Machining for the full article on how to make safety a part of your machine shop culture, or check back here on our blog to read the article after Oct. 1. 

If your company cleans machined parts, the 2020 Parts Cleaning Conference is worth your time. The conference is the best way to stay abreast of the latest parts cleaning technologies, processes and practices, and this year, you can do it all from your desk. The Parts Cleaning Conference will be presenting a webinar series as part of IMTS Spark, beginning Wednesday, Oct. 7 at 1 p.m. EDT. The weekly conference series is presented by Production Machining, Products Finishing and Modern Machine Shop.

Learn from these cleaning industry companies about how to clean and protect metal parts safely and provide solutions and support to your shop:

The inverted vertical turning machine platform has been offered by Emag since 1992 with its VSC 250. This design is unique in that the spindle is able to load and unload parts itself. In a sense, it serves as its own robot.

Since then, the company has expanded its offerings creating modular designs that can be customized per a specific application. Its latest is the VLC 350 GT which is designed to perform hard turning and grinding of chucked components, especially for transmission and engine production applications. This enables parts such as gears to be completed in one setup.

The International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) has launched previews of IMTS Network and IMTS spark, two digital destinations to connect and educate the manufacturing technology marketplace at a time when travel and gatherings are limited.

IMTS Network, which will broadcast live September 14–18, provides an entire channel of original programming — more than a dozen different shows in all — that features powerful ideas for productivity and inspiring stories from the people who shape the future of manufacturing. Programming will remain available on-demand at IMTS.com/network.

In my early days as a laborer in the steel mills, I was laid off with considerable regularity. In fact, I was asked by my congressman to testify as an expert witness on unemployment, as I had more time on layoff than on the job. But I stuck with manufacturing, as I loved knowing that the steel we were making was needed to make the autos, appliances and everything else that modern living required.

One of the lessons I learned though, from each and every layoff, was the need to grow my “portfolio,” reach for more responsibilities and train to gain new skills. Later, in university business classes, I recognized that I had lived Peter Drucker’s advice, “If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old.”