Tech Talks - Charlotte


Tuesday, November 19, 2019 (8am - 4pm US/Eastern)
Bucci Industries
9332 Forsyth Park Drive [map]
Charlotte, NC 28273


Schedule of Sessions and Special Events



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Tuesday November 19, 2019

09:00 am - 10:00 am What You Didn’t Know About Shop Operations
PMPA Technical Director and manufacturing veteran Miles Free will walk you through a visit to your shop with questions and answers regarding environmental and operational safety compliance. You can expect to leave the session with a list of items that you probably didn’t know that you needed to…do. When fines are $132,599 per day- willful and repeat violations OSHA- or $70,711- for EPA RCRA violations- how many days of non- compliance would it take to jeopardize your shop operations and possibly lose your business?

Miles is part of the PMPA professional team. He has over 25 years of experience in the steel business. He has a bachelor’s degree from Youngstown State University and has worked a wide variety of technical and engineering assignments. Miles has worked as a Senior Plant Metallurgist, Quality Manager, and Plant Manager. Prior to joining PMPA, Miles was Director of Quality and Technology for melt shop, rolling and cold finishing plants with Bar Technologies and Republic. Miles has authored a number of business intelligence reports, numerous articles within various industry publications, PMPA’s materials impacts reports, and PMPA’s very popular Blog. Miles is an active participant on the PMPA list-serves responding to membership as the Director of Industry Research & Technology.
 
Mr. Miles K. Free photo Mr. Miles K. Free
Director of Industry Affairs
Precision Machined Products Association
10:15 am - 11:15 am Top Shops: Benchmarking Your Business for Success
Steve Kline, Chief Data Officer for Gardner Business Intelligence, and Miles Free, Interim Director for PMPA, illustrate how benchmarking your operation against your peers in the industry can help you make critical decisions in areas like hiring, equipment purchase and new business development. The presentation will focus on this year’s Top Shops data collected by Gardner Business Media for precision machine shops and especially for PMPA member shops.
Precision Machining has come a long way since the Great Recession. Miles Free, PMPA’s Statistics and Financial Measures authority, reviews the progress-using actual shop metrics- that the industry has made so that you can compare your shops’ progress to that of the industry since the end of the Great Recession.


Steve Kline is Chief Data Officer at Gardner Business Media, Inc., a family-owned business that produces media for durable goods manufacturing industries, including Modern Machine Shop, Production Machining, Additive Manufacturing, Moldmaking Technology, Plastics Technology and Composites World magazines. He has produced forecasts for his family’s business and the metalworking and plastics industries. Also, Mr. Kline has been working on Gardner’s Capital Spending Survey, the Gardner Business Index, and Top Shops benchmarking survey since 2008. He graduated from Vanderbilt University with a BS in civil engineering and a MBA with an emphasis in finance from the University of Cincinnati.
 
Mr. Steven Kline, Jr.
Chief Data Officer
Gardner Business Media, Inc.
Mr. Miles K. Free photo Mr. Miles K. Free
Director of Industry Affairs
Precision Machined Products Association
11:15 am - 12:15 am Transitioning from CAM to CNC
Dave Friedman, the National Sales Manager from Tornos shares his personal story of a shop transitioning from Cam machines to CNC. Dave will explain the challenges, the key decisions that had to be made and ultimately the successes of transforming his machining operation.


Dave Friedman graduated from the University of Missouri- St. Louis with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in 1983. He studied Industrial Marketing, Management and Engineering. Prior to graduating, he began work at the Merit Company in St. Louis. Merit was a contract manufacturer, primarily of screw machine, Swiss and general CNC components. He was the Vice President and General Manager and did all the job estimating, sales and managed the day-to-day operations of the business for over 22 years. Ready for a change, Dave made the move into the machine tool part of the industry, going to work for Hydromat as a Regional Sales Manager in 2004. From there, he began work at Index-Traub USA also as a Regional Sales Manager in 2007. He was responsible for most of the Central Time Zone of the country. He worked there until 2012. He was the top producing RSM for Index in the years 2010, 2011 and 2012. Moving-on to Ellison Technologies in early 2013, he was the Vice President of the Cincinnati branch, responsible for the sales of DMG-Mori product in Southern Ohio and Kentucky. In mid-2014, he moved-on to Gosiger as a Regional Sales Manager for the high volume product. The included the BTB transfer machines, Nomura Swiss machines and Schutte multi-spindle CNC screw machines. In mid-2016, Dave started his own machine tool consulting business. This consisted of providing lease vs. buy analysis, machine selection, negotiating with builders, determination of the runoff and machine acceptance criteria and ROI analysis. In 2018, Dave went to work for Fuji Machine America Corp as the National Sales and Marketing Manager. Market was mostly OE automotive and Tier I automotive, product was dated. Now, Dave is the National Sales Manager- Multi spindle for Tornos Technologies. He hopes to bring his experience with Multi-spindles to increase the sales of the Multi-spindle machines for Tornos.
 
Mr. David Friedman
Senior Vice President of Sales

01:30 pm - 01:45 pm National PMPA Update
Matt Gilmore, Marketing and Operations Manager at Gardner Business Media provides an update on the PMPA/Gardner Partnership and what that means for the growth and enhancement of PMPA.


Matt Gilmore is the Marketing and Operations Manager with Gardner Business Media focused on association management, growth and development initiatives. Prior to joining Gardner in early 2019, Matt served as the Director of Membership and Business Development with the National Tooling and Machining Association (NTMA) for three years. In his role with NTMA, Matt and his team grew association membership, sponsorship engagement and non-dues revenue.
 
Mr. Matt Gilmore photo Mr. Matt Gilmore
Director of Membership and Business Development

01:45 pm - 02:45 pm Metallurgy for Machining
In this session, Miles Free will share easy to understand principles regarding the machining of steel in our shops. Chemistry, Microstructure, Processing all combine to deliver parts that are either profitable to machine, or not so profitable to produce at the end of the shift. Which elements are your allies in production? Which warn you to change your practice? Don’t miss this chance to learn the fundamentals of Metallurgy for Machining success, distilled from over 40 years of steelmaking and manufacturing experience. Follow up references on the SpeakingofPrecision Blog will let you continue your learning.
 
Mr. Miles K. Free photo Mr. Miles K. Free
Director of Industry Affairs
Precision Machined Products Association
03:00 pm - 04:00 pm Digital Security in the Age of IT
The Internet of Things has us all connected, but also leaves operations vulnerable to outside forces disrupting manufacturing operations. Dave Seabrook, Director of Information Technology at Micron Manufacturing explains the best ways to protect your shop in the age of connectivity.


Dave Seabrook has been at Micron Manufacturing for 24 years and has served many functions from receiving raw material to shipping product to customers. Dave was the Quality Manager for 4 years but for the last 10 years has spent his days as IT Manager and a Continuous Improvement leader. He has overseen Micron’s network including the communication of its production equipment, gaging, and tool cribs. Over the last several years he has worked to secure this equipment and insure backups are in place in the event of an attack or system failure.
 
Mr. Dave Seabrook photo Mr. Dave Seabrook
IT Manager
Micron Manufacturing Company