Month: January 2010

Free PDF on Cost of Occupational Fatalities

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Okay, This probably won’t be the most exciting read of 2010. But there are some quite interesting facts to  help you understand your specific vulnerabilities.

Free Download-Interesting Facts

According to The Costs of Fatal Injuries to Civilian Workers in the United States, 1992-2001, by NIOSH:

  1. From 1992–2001, there were 51,684  civilian workers who died from injuries sustained while working in the U.S., generating a total societal cost of just over $43 billion (Table 1).
  2. By state, the greatest number and total societal cost of occupational injury fatalities occurred in California (5,173; $4.5 billion), Texas (4,438; $3.8 billion), Florida (3,287; $2.8 billion), New York (2,509; $2.0 billion), and Pennsylvania (2,165; $1.8 billion) (Table 2).
  3. One age group, 35–44 years of age, had the largest share of occupational fatalities and the largest share of the total societal cost of occupational injury fatalities (25%, 32%) closely followed by those who were 25–34 years of age (22%, 27%) and those who were 45–54 years (21%, 22%) (Table 5).
  4. Homicides had the highest total societal costs by external cause of death for four of eleven occupation divisions—Executives/ Administrators/Managers, Sales, Clerical, and Service occupations—during 1992–1998 (Table 27).
  5. For Executives/Administrators/Managers, motor vehicle incidents had the highest total societal costs for 1999– 2001. For the remaining occupations, homicide (Sales and Service), falls (Precision Production/Craft/Repair and Handlers, Equipment Cleaners/Helpers/Laborers), machines (Machine Operators/Assemblers/ Inspectors) and air transport (Technicians/ Related Support) had the highest total societal costs (Table 28).

Looks like  all of us  who manage, administer, or execute  need to be a lot more careful driving.

We especially liked seeing our Probability of Surviving an Additional Year by Age, Race, and Sex in Appendix VII.
It was 0.98891, thank you very much.
You can download this 131 page report from NIOSH as a .pdf  here.
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Our 100th Blog Post!

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This is our 100th blog post!

100 Posts! Over 20,000 views. That's Speakingofprecision!

Since we went live last August, we’ve had over 20,000 page views of our material.
We’ve seen it translated into different languages courtesy of Google.
And we’ve started to see a few comments.
Which is what we wanted to create, an ongoing conversation about the things that are important to all of us as machining professionals, entrepreneurs, citizens, and caring professionals.
In order to celebrate our 100th blog post, we’re sharing with you a free ebook.
Its 86 easy to read pages to motivate, challenge, educate, and incite you.
My favorites (and probably yours) are pages 15,16, and 20.
Pages 21, 22, and 25 are pretty powerful stuff, too.
Which of these are your favorites? Which inspired you to “do?”
Happy 100th post!
Thanks for sharing your eyes. And your attention.
It continues to be our pleasure to keep-
Speakingofprecision.
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Real Change- Rebuild American Manufacturing

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and  America’s Standard of Living
Guest post by Jeff Wiltsie, Vanamatic Company
On July 4, 2010, the United States will celebrate 234 years of freedom from tyranny as written in the Declaration of Independence.   The strength of our nation and the foundation for which it was built ushered in a manufacturing revolution building the greatest economic powerhouse in the world.  A free people, unencumbered by the excesses of government, built the American powerhouse through hard work, determination, sacrifice, ingenuity, innovation and the desire to be extraordinary.  Our manufacturing processes have been copied, stolen, used, and improved throughout the world in an attempt to build a competitive economic powerhouse, yet, none have succeeded.
Today, we face new challenges at home and abroad.  Our manufacturing base has declined from 27% of GDP in the 1950s to 12% in 2008.  Some projections show manufacturing below 10% of GDP by 2013.  Along with the decline in manufacturing is a decline in the American standard of living.  Government spending is now a bigger percentage of the GDP than manufacturing.
No matter what they say in Washington, the decline will continue as long as their actions don’t measure up to their words.  They say we need to rebuild manufacturing with new higher paying “green technology” jobs; then turn around and write legislation to implement a “Cap and Trade” energy policy which will increase the cost of energy.  Who uses the most energy in America, “manufacturing or the service sector”?  The net effect of this policy will be the loss of more manufacturing jobs.
President Obama promised to eliminate unfair tax advantages for multinationals who offshore jobs and import goods to the United States.  A significant portion of the manufacturing decline in America can be attributed to high corporate taxes and these tax loopholes.  S.829 – Patriot Employers Act is the President’s version to close the loopholes.  It has been referred to the Senate Finance Committee for review.  The majority of bills and resolutions never make it out of committee.
The Healthcare fix is about to be put in place; it will reduce healthcare costs for manufacturers, if the calculations are right!  Let’s look at the history of Medicare as an example of government run healthcare.  The following excerpt is from an article written in 1993 by Steven Hayward & Eric Peterson title “The Medicare Monster, A Cautionary Tale”.
“The cost of Medicare is a good place to begin. At its start, in 1966, Medicare cost $3 billion. The House Ways and Means Committee estimated that Medicare would cost only about $ 12 billion by 1990 (a figure that included an allowance for inflation). This was a supposedly “conservative” estimate. But in 1990 Medicare actually cost $107 billion.”
Congress and the administration are legislatively hand picking future economic winners and losers.  Most manufacturers will not be winners.  It’s time for Real Change – Rebuild American Manufacturing and the American Standard of Living.  Contact your Congressional Delegates.
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Why Free Trade Is Failing America

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 Guest Post by Peter Morici 
No economic policy could better serve Americans than genuine free trade but open trade policies are failing Americans. Free trade is a compelling idea. Let each nation do more of what it does best, and specialization will raise productivity and incomes. Americans are not sharing in those benefits because President Obama, like President Bush, permits China and others to cheat on the rules, unchallenged, to the detriment of the U.S. interests he was elected to champion. 
The World Trade Organization has greatly reduced tariffs, prohibits virtually all export subsidies, and regulates other national policies that could subvert trade, such as health and product safety standards arbitrarily slanted to favor domestic suppliers. 
For these rules to optimize trade, raise productivity and boost incomes, exchange rates must adjust to reasonably reflect production costs. To buy Chinese televisions, Americans must be able to purchase yuan with dollars; however, an artificially strong dollar that overprices U.S. tractors and software in China will unravel the benefits of trade by denying Americans opportunities to export to pay for those televisions. 
Exchange rates are established in currency markets, created by businesses trading through major financial institutions. Unfortunately, China and several other Asian governments blatantly manipulate those markets without a credible U.S. response and with ruinous consequences for American workers. 
The United States annually exports $1.6 trillion in goods and services, and these finance a like amount of imports. This raises U.S. gross domestic product by about $170 billion, because workers are about 10 percent more productive in export industries, such as software, than in import-competing industries, such as apparel.
 Unfortunately, U.S. imports exceed exports by another $400 billion, and workers released from making those products go into non-trade-competing industries, such as retailing, where productivity is at least 50 percent lower. This slashes GDP by about $200 billion, overwhelming the gains from trade, and requires workers displaced by imports to accept lower wages.
Imports exceed exports.

 The trade deficit creates an excess supply of dollars in international currency markets, as Americans offer more dollars to purchase foreign products than foreigners demand to purchase U.S. products.
 Simple supply and demand should drive down the value of the dollar against the yuan and other currencies, make U.S. imports more expensive and exports cheaper, and reduce or eliminate the trade deficit. But the Chinese government subverts this process by habitually printing and selling yuan for dollars in currency markets, keeping its currency and exports artificially cheap.
 Currency manipulation creates a 25 percent subsidy on China’s exports, and other Asian countries are impelled to follow similar policies, lest their exports lose competitiveness to Chinese products.
 Also, huge trade imbalances between Asia and the West, perpetuated by currency mercantilism, create an imbalance in demand-a shortage of demand for the goods and services produced in the United States and Europe, and artificially robust demand for products made in China and elsewhere in Asia.
Who's on top?

 Consequently, to keep the U.S. economy going, Americans must both borrow from foreigners and spend too much, as they did through 2008, or their government must amass huge budget deficits by borrowing from abroad, as it is now does thanks to stimulus spending and the TARP.
 In the bargain, the United States sends manufacturing jobs to Asia in industries that would be competitive, but for rigged exchange rates. The trade deficit slices $400 to $600 billion off GDP, and Americans suffer unemployment above 10 percent.
Effect of policy inaction.
 China grows at nearly 10 percent a year and makes American diplomats look like fools for advocating free markets as a growth policy.
 Campaigning for the Presidency, Barack Obama promised to do something about Chinese currency manipulation. Instead, like a good supplicant, he now thanks Chinese officials for buying U.S. Treasury securities.
 China’s development policies make its leaders look smart but nothing makes them look like geniuses better than an American president who appeases their beggar-thy-neighbor policies.
 It will be impossible for the United States to create the 9 million jobs needed to bring unemployment down to pre-recession levels without taking on China’s currency manipulation and other unfair trade practices. 
For that Americans may need to wait for a better president-one with the courage to stand up to China. 
Peter Morici is a professor at the Smith School of Business, University of Maryland School, and former Chief Economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission.

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Manufacturing Growth Confirmed by December Data

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The December ISM Purchasing Managers Report confirms that manufacturing continues its recovery and growth – the PMI was up 2.3 points to 55.9%.
 “The manufacturing sector grew for the fifth consecutive month in December as the PMI rose to 55.9 percent, its highest reading since April 2006 when it registered 56 percent. This month’s report is quite strong as both the New Orders and Production Indexes are above 60 percent. The sector may be benefiting from an excessive destocking cycle as indicated by the recent performance of the Customers’ Inventories Index. Customers’ inventories have been ‘too low’ for nine consecutive months, and this month’s index is the lowest reading since the inception of the index in January 1997. Overall, the recovery in manufacturing is continuing, but there are still some industries mired in the downturn as evidenced by the seven industries still in decline.”
Fabricated Metal Products (NAICS 332)*  is one of those  seven industries “still mired in the downturn.” In December  the fabricated metals respondents reported decreases in  backlog,  employment,  customer inventories, and lower prices for materials. On the bright side, both production and  export orders grew for this sector in December 2009.

Fabricated metals may not be out of the woods yet, but...

We may not be out of the woods yet as an industry,   but the sustained low employment and low customer inventories for our industry tell me that the overtime production machine will be gearing up and starting to hum for many of our shops this month.
Bottom Line: Dr. Ken Mayland of Clearview Economics had this to say about the ISM Composite Report for December:
“…if the current reading were to be sustained, that would be consistent with 4.6% real GDP growth.  Folks: that’s “good” growth!”
* Precision Machining  Industry is NAICS 332721, and thus a segment of Fabricated Metal Products Sector.
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4 Ways Nitrogen Affects Your Shop

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  1. Nitrogen strengthens ferrite.
  2. Nitrogen improves surface finish.
  3. Nitrogen improves production rates.
  4. Nitrogen can contribute to cracking during cold working.

Well 3 out of 4 ain’t bad.

"Three out of four ain't bad"

Nitrogen is a chemical element that can contribute to improved surface finish, especially on side working tools. It does so by strengthening  the chip, resulting in a crisp separation from the workpiece. The bulk hardness of the material increases with increased Nitrogen as well.
Nitrogen is an important factor, especially in free machining steels. Like 1215 and 12L14.
As Nitrogen increases, so does hardness.

Nitrogen is higher in electric furnace melted steels than in steels produced in Basic Oxygen Furnaces.
The down side of higher Nitrogen is that it can result in cracking during cold work- operations such as staking, swaging or crimping.
Nitrogen is “implicitly” specified whenever purchasing chooses a  steel supplier. That supplier’s melt process is a major factor on determining the Nitrogen content that you get in the shop.
For a more complete discussion of the role of Nitrogen and how it can affect your precision machining operations, see our article  in Production Machining here.
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