The competitive advantage of our shops is the talent and tribal knowledge of our skilled craftsmen and women.

Continuing the education of our top talent is a priority at PMPA’s 2013 National Technical Conference April 14-16 2013.

Certificates will be awarded to attendees of our three certification workshops

  • Gaining Confidence with GD&T
  • CNC Programming Workshop- Macro programming
  • Metallurgy for Machinists

If you want Blah Blah Blah, I suggest you check out Bob Loblaw’s Law Blog here

If however you are interested in advancing the skills, capability, and talent of your people, we can’t think of a more effective way than to bring them to our NTC.

Develop your talent with PMPA's Three Certification Workshops
Develop your talent with PMPA’s Three Certification Workshops

Gary Griffith of Griffith Training has been a highly rated speaker  as well as authority in GD&T at past NTC’s.

Dan Murphy and Ron Gainer of REM Sales  will lead the Macro programming workshop.

Kevin Armanie from Kaiser Aluminum, Bob Drab from Corey Steel and yours truly Miles Free will present the Metallurgy for Machinists session.

Hope to see you, and more importantly, your best people at our NTC in Columbus.

Speakers and sessions

Register

PMPA Government Affairs Committee Chairman Brad Smith of Indianapolis based The Mitchel Group particpated in a round table discussion with members of Congress serving on the Small Business Working Group.

Brad Smith  at a recent Congressional Small Business Working Group Meeting
Brad Smith at a recent Congressional Small Business Working Group Meeting

Brad raised the impact of tax reform on small manufacturing businesses and detailed how existing tax deductions and credits are used by shops like ours to improve our global competitiveness.

The House Ways and Means Committee established eleven tax reform working groups to explore the impact of tax policy on various industries and individuals.

Brad Smith had a seat at the table representing our industry.

Findings from all of the eleven tax reform working groups must be submitted to the Joint Committee on Taxation by the end of April for inclusion in the May 6th public report.

PMPA is pleased to offer our members both sensemaking on regulatory developments and facilitate their sharing of issues with elected and appointed officials in Washington D.C..

PMPA delivers ‘Regulatory Assurance’ to help member shops understand and comply with regulations and avoid severe penalties.

We just posted our Dodd Frank Section 1502 Conflict Minerals Guidance on our website.

At the same time, we are an Amicus on a court case challenging the SEC Conflict Minerals Final Rule.

And we just hosted a Washington D.C. Fly-In event to meet with Congressmen and Senators to discuss current impacts on our manufacturing businesses.

In the area of regulatory and Washington D.C impacts on small manufacturing businesses – PMPA is the figurative ‘helping hand’ providing assistance so our members can remain compliant, competitive, and sustainable.

 How do you intelligently manage the risk of the onslaught of regulations, requirements, and potential new legislation on your shop?

PMPA members recognize “Regulatory Assurance” as just one of a number of deliverables to help them stay competitive.

Guest Post by Darryl Crum of Viewit.US.com training provider.

“Information is not knowledge, let’s not confuse the two.” – Deming

cognitive_map Vanessa Fuentes

Years ago, I was in charge of a group of technical writers for a manufacturing company and we were responsible for writing all of the setup and operating procedures for six factories.  What I noticed was that my degreed Technical Writers were writing nonsense as far as many of the workers were concerned. The SOPs met the industry standards, but they did not serve the very people for whom they were intended.  The workers needed training material that they could, in fact, read, understand, and retain.  Since these people generally are not “readers”, but are “lookers” (try to build the Christmas bike from the parts diagram rather than the text instructions) it seemed to me we needed to revise the way we provided information to them.

We can give someone information, but that does not mean that that person has converted that information into useable knowledge.

If they did not, we end up with an employee whose lack of knowledge, despite their training and information,  is destined to make a bad product, break a machine or injure themself or someone else.

Only then do we recognize that our assumption on the level of knowledge that employee had is wrong.

His or her cognitive map was inaccurate or incomplete.

How can we can do better?

  • We can provide information to employees in a form and format that makes it remarkably easy for them to understand.
  • We can reduce the amount of encoding and decoding needed to digest the information provided for the training.
  • We need to make it easier for the employee to understand.

If we do these things, the employee  can form an accurate cognitive map- not just be confused by complicated and misunderstood instructions.

Our experience has shown that to help employees form accurate cognitive maps, we need to reduce the amount of text and maximize the use of visuals and imagery.

If you go to  this page on our website, you can download a .pdf file that demonstrates how management can provide information in a form and format that the employee can more readily convert to knowledge.

It does not take a technical writer to produce this.

  • Once produced, and shared with the employee, we know what his cognitive map looks like because our images helped him construct it- with out decoding.
  • If a quality problem pops up, we can measure the accuracy of that employees work by comparing what he or she does with the illustrated work instruction.
  • Our workforce has changed. We need to change our approach to training, and our cognitive mappiong technique reduces the learning curve and improves worker accomplishment.

What are your strategies to improve employee competency?

How are they working out?

Click this link to get further background on the ViewIt Training System.

Vanessa Fuentes Impressive Graphic Design

Here you CANNOT see the Romulan War Bird in front of some open star clusters
Here you CANNOT see the Romulan War Bird in front of some open star clusters

Fun post for Friday.

Researchers at Nanyang University demonstrate the refractive qualities of Calcite to make a post it note ‘disappear.’

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5APMyTGrFg]Researchers at Nanyang University demonstrate the refractive qualities of Calcite to make a post it note ‘disappear.’
Erasmus Bartholin was the first to note the double refraction of iceland spar (Calcite) in 1669.  You can get his  Experimenta crystalli Islandici disdiaclastici quibus mira & insolita
refractio detegitur
 
as a free ebook.

Isaac Newton also experimented and reported on the phenomenon.

But the folks at Nanyang University got it posted to Youtube

Obvious applications include defense, organized crime, smuggling, and advertising.
Open clusters

Guest Post by Darryl Crum of Viewit.US.com

I am convinced we have done a very poor job in training our workforce.

If we do not provide the employee with the right type of training material, he or she will have a much longer training curve.

The primary goal in training an employee is to help that employee form an accurate and verifiable cognitive map of their process at hand.

The cognitive map is that part of the learning curve that is often considered the plane and the majority of the upward curve.

Helping trainee's develop their cognitive map shortens the flat end of the curve and help them get to competence quicker.
Helping trainees develop their cognitive map shortens the flat end of the curve and helps them get to competence quicker.

If we do not provide the employee with the right type of training material, he or she will have a much longer training curve.

All around us, we can see people doing things incorrectly because their cognitive map was incorrect.

Our goal must be to help an employee create a verifiable cognitive map- in minimum time and ensure it is accurate.

The techniques and material in use in industry today are not designed for the high percentage of people who are not successful in academic situations.

Our training techniques are not optimized for the people whose reading, writing, math and science skills are below the standards that our technology based industry requires.

We now have a different demographics in the factory worker population, and we are not making the changes needed to accommodate these new employees.

Our goal as trainers has to be to help these employees create an accurate cognitive map of their process.

We need to do it fast to shorten the learning curve.

Learning curve

PMPA staff has prepared a Conflict Minerals compliance guide  for our members based on our analysis and understanding of the SEC’s final rule.

That’s 356 pages worth of time we won’t be getting back- but that we can save you!

Saving you the pain...
Saving you the pain…

Our two page summary provides

  • a link to the final rule;
  • an overview of the potential impact of the rule;
  • explains the SEC’s determination of what constitutes “Conflict Minerals” as applies to our precision machining shops;
  • clarifies the “necessary to production question” that concerns many people.  (If the conflict minerals are in my shop’s tools, machinery, or computers, do they need to be reported?)

In addition to identifying the 4 focus minerals that are encountered in our industry, our report provides 5 questions to help you make sense of  and formulate your reply to each job and request for documentation from your customers for Conflict Mineral Status.

Finally, our document provides both the means to determine and suggested language to warrant that your product is “DRC Conflict Free” to your customer.

Effective associating through PMPA means that our members get a clear plain English tool they can use document to make sense of their obligations under Dodd Frank.  And guidance on how to respond and educate your customer.

Where do you go to get sensemaking on newly emerging regulatory requirements?

PMPA members know that we provide them with REGULATORY ASSURANCE.

PMPA provides assurance  to you in the high stakes world of regulatory compliance.
PMPA provides assurance to you in the high stakes world of regulatory compliance.

Our diligence on identifying regulatory issues and sensemaking on regulations help PMPA members assure compliance and avoid draconian penalties. And we provide tools they can use to respond effectively and confidently minimizing the impact and burden their shop.

That is Effective Associating!

Where do you go to get sensemaking on newly emerging regulatory requirements?

Not a PMPA member? Call Jeff Remaley 440 526 0300

Highwire

A relationship exists between the cutting speed and the cost per piece. Between the minimum total cost and the minimum time per piece is a high efficiency  machining range.

Minimum total cost and minimum time per piece are the boundaries of the high efficiency machining range.
Minimum total cost and minimum time per piece are the boundaries of the high efficiency machining range.

The accountants and engineers agree- this is the “sweet spot” of our operations.

We know the sweet spot when we encounter it!
We know the sweet spot when we encounter it!

Higher speeds permit quicker operating sequences, reducing time per piece; but higher speeds reduce tool life and increase down time.

Plotting both  Total Cost per Piece and Total Time per Piece as curves shows that the high efficiency range exists between the two curves’ minima.

Minimum time per piece usually occurs at higher speeds than minimum cost, providing higher operating efficiency.

If you have plenty of open capacity, you should aim for minimum part cost.

If you are capacity constrained, perhaps lowest cost per part is not optimum for your shop.

Sweetspot

Graph and discussion based on AISI  Cold Finished Steel Bar Manual 1968- what I trained on when I entered the market.

The economics of precision machining can be understood with just 4 factors- Machining Cost, Material Cost, Tool Cost, and Cost of Non-productive Time (Set-up Costs).

Since material costs and nonproductive costs are constant, they are combined into the fixed cost line at the bottom.
Since material costs and nonproductive costs are constant, they are combined into the fixed cost line at the bottom.

The line labeled “machining cost” (which is made up of labor and overhead cost of time per piece) reduces with increasing speed by reducing operating (cycle) times.

The cost for tools, on the other hand,  increases with increasing speed. This is because tool life decreases with increasing speed.

Since machining and tool costs vary with the speed of operation, a minimum total cost occurs at a definite set of conditions for material, tooling and operating speed.

Purchasing improved tools  is one way to move the machining cost and total cost per piece curves to the right and down. As is adding coatings, improved metalworking fluids and their delivery, etc..

As long as the gain in speed and the resultant drop in cost to produce are larger than the cost of the improved tooling, or other process improvements, you can improve or further optimize the economics of your production.

Our industry has benefited greatly from the many improvements in tool materials, coatings,  metalworking fluids and design improvements.

Are you taking full advantage?

Graph and discussion based on AISI  Cold Finished Steel Bar Manual 1968

The uhh- “techie” part of us is celebrating Pi Day at 1:59 pm today

Today 3-14 at 1:59  I will be celebrqting Pi Day. 3.14159 is the value of pi to 5 decimals...
Today 3-14 at 1:59 I will be celebrating Pi Day. 3.14159 is the value of pi to 5 decimals…

So besides being  the cause of much techie “irrational” exuberance, Pi Day  is a great way to get some engagement with students.

Marymount High School has several activities, last year they had a design competition incorporating pi; the students then made and sold buttons of each design, proceeds going to the Red Cross.

Hmm- math subject matter, design, production, sales, accounting.

Sounds like what we do in manufacturing.

Maybe celebrating Pi Day is not so irrational as first thought.

Pi day, is not just about the Pi(e), as much as it can be about showing relevance of math and integrating their skills  and engaging students differently.

How did you celebrate Pi Day? What are your plans for next year?  For 2015?

p.s., mine was Peach…