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Preventative Maintenance Tips for Forges that Cut and Process Metal

August 20, 2017 / , , , , , , , , , , , ,

While some downtime is inevitable, more and more forges and other industrial metal-cutting companies are discovering that proper maintenance and proactive care of equipment can significantly reduce its occurrence.

The problem is that maintenance departments are typically busy putting out fires, which pushes anything “preventative” to the side. Why take the time to stop a potential problem when there are enough real problems happening right now?

However, as stated in the eBook, Five Performance-Boosting Best Practices for your Industrial Metal-Cutting Organization, proactively addressing maintenance issues allows managers to reduce costs, increase blade and tooling life, and, most importantly, avoid costly mistakes. “With a simple check-list, operators can enhance their knowledge base and positively affect performance on the shop floor,” the eBook states.

What does this look like in practice? According to the white paper, Accounting for Operator Inefficiencies in the Metals 2.0 Environment, operators can conduct daily preventative maintenance (PM) checks in less than 10 minutes. Programs can be as detailed as a manager feels is necessary, but in a band saw environment, the following are a few key checkpoints to include:

Although many shops conduct PM checks at the start of each shift, there are several ways managers can schedule their PM procedures. In a recent blog, maintenance software provider SM Global offers four possible PM schedules:

  1. Date based: Schedule PM checks every X amount of days, weeks or months. So, for example, you can have a maintenance task scheduled every 5 business days, on every Friday, the second Monday of every third month, every January on the first Wednesday and so on.
  2. Meter based: There are two different meter types. In one, you schedule maintenance every time a meter reading increases or decreases by a certain amount. For example, an oil change when a meter reading increases by 3000 miles. The second type is a batch meter. You schedule maintenance after an equipment processes X number of units. For example, replace a bearing every time the equipment produces 500 widgets.
  3. Alarm based: You schedule a maintenance task every time an alarm condition happens. For example, an alarm could be excessive vibration on a machine. You can schedule a PM check on the machine when this alarm occurs.
  4. Relative to another task: Start a new maintenance task when another task completes. For example, order more coolant every time you clean your fluid/lubricant reservoir and screen (typically every 3 months).

If your metal forging operation doesn’t have a current PM program in place, you may want to consider working closely with your equipment and tooling supply partners to set up daily, monthly, quarterly, and annual PM schedules. In addition to helping you create checklists, many provide complimentary annual or bi-annual PM check-ups, which can provide more in-depth equipment diagnostics.

Reducing Operator Error in Your Machine Shop

August 15, 2017 / , , , , , , , , , ,

A top goal of every operations manager is to reduce error on the shop floor, whether it be mechanical error or human error. While 0% error rates are pretty hard to achieve, the reality is that even a small percentage of error can quickly add up.

An article from Competitive Production puts this into perspective:

“If things are done correctly 99 percent of the time, that equates to two unsafe landings at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport each day; 16,000 pieces of lost mail each hour; 20,000 incorrect drug prescriptions each year; or 500 incorrect surgical procedures completed each week. In manufacturing, the slightest of errors, for example one-tenth of a percent, can have a significant impact on a company’s financial performance and profitability.”

When it comes to band sawing, error remains a top concern for managers. As Matthew Lacroix of LENOX explains here, fabricators and other metal-cutting shops have three main areas of concern regarding their band saw processes. “The top frustrations that we repeatedly hear from fabricators are machine downtime, blade failure, and operator error,” he tells Canadian Metalworking. “In each case, there are steps they can take within their own organizations to manage the problems.”

The white paper, Accounting for Operator Inefficiencies in the Metals 2.0 Environment, provides a few steps managers can take to reduce error in their band saw department:

Four Ways Fabricators Can Encourage Lean Success

August 10, 2017 / , , , , , , , , ,

Continuous improvement and lean manufacturing are certainly not new concepts to today’s fabricators. The numerous benefits of “getting lean” have been widely accepted, which means that most shops have already undergone some type of improvement initiative. In many cases, understanding the benefits of lean manufacturing is not the challenge. The real challenge is making the initiative stick long enough to produce results.

Unfortunately, that is often not the case. Using a hypothetical example, an article from The Fabricator explains that it is not uncommon for a fabrication company to go through four or five different improvement initiatives, none of which end up successful. The problem, the article states, is that engineers and managers may make changes to the way employees do their work, but they really don’t spend enough time helping operators and other employees understand why or how to do it. Even if everyone is often willing to take on the lean transformation, managers need to teach everyone the “what, why, and how” behind the lean principles.

In addition, there are often employees that are hesitant to embrace improvement initiatives like lean manufacturing. Some may even actively fight against it, even while performing their assigned lean tasks.

The goal for any manager should be to not only get workers to adopt lean principles, but to fully embrace them. Getting everyone—from the top down—is the only way a shop will start seeing results. As explained in the eBook, Five Performance-Boost Best Practices for Your Industrial Metal-Cutting Organizations, for lean to be successful, “it must permeate the business silos and receive universal backing amongst senior management and employees.”

How can managers accomplish this? A recent article from IndustryWeek offers four ways fabricators can get even the toughest employees on board with lean initiatives:

  1. Don’t Gloss Over the Fact that Challenging Times Lie Ahead. Instead of minimizing potentially negative consequences of the looming change, state flat out that some individuals will face more adversity than others. Much of this has to start from the top. The unknown intimidates, frustrates, and creates emotional insecurity. If leadership communicates and exhibits its vision, then change becomes the catalyst for improvement.
  2. Evaluate Current Staffing. Lean management is not synonymous with layoffs. However, some team members are not open to working in a lean culture. They may not agree with lean philosophies, nor do they want to better understand these principles. If you retain these individuals as company culture evolves around them, you are not benefiting them by allowing them to continue working for a lean company. Consider respectfully transitioning recalcitrant team members out of their positions.
  3. Pre-plan Team Communications. Use rich communication mediums to announce change. Face-to-face communication cannot be overvalued as a means to convey positivity, commitment, and optimism. An “all hands” meeting is an appropriate venue for the initial announcement. Do not make a habit of distracting teams from their primary responsibilities with frequent updates.
  4. Highlight Empowerment Versus the Increase in Responsibilities. Team members accustomed to traditional workplace cultures will not readily evaluate their own actions and suggest process improvements. This type of self-evaluation may be completely foreign to them. Initially, many team members will find the concept of increased responsibility daunting rather than empowering. To teach lean thinking, strive to make lean ambassadors out of the organization’s influence drivers. Focus on those who can deliver change and who will become not only the informal leader on the floor, but also the industrial athlete of the cell.

While changing processes is certainly a huge part of any lean manufacturing journey, getting people to accept, embrace, and understand the changes is the first and most important step a shop can take. As many fabricators have discovered, missing this critical step could mean the difference between seeing results and hitting another dead end.

Strategies to Help Metal Service Centers Keep Safety First

August 5, 2017 / , , , , , , , , , ,

Safety is one of those issues that every manufacturer knows is important, yet as evidenced by the unending list of OSHA fines, it is pretty clear that it often slips through the cracks. Even big name companies like Exxon can fall short.

Put simply, your manufacturing operation can never be too safe. Like any other process or initiative, safety should be approached with continuous improvement in mind. This means that service centers, as well as any other manufacturing operation, need to continually reevaluate their safety procedures and processes to look for areas for improvement.

The manufacturing industry as a whole is promoting this type of mentality, knowing that “safety first” needs to be more than just an underlying principle. It needs to be an ongoing, active practice. The Metals Service Center Institute (MSCI), for example, recently teamed up with the National Safety Council to offer ongoing, relevant safety tools and resources to its members. “Advocating for an industry-wide safety culture is a critical part of all that we do at MSCI,” said M. Robert Weidner, III, MSCI president & CEO. (You can access MSCI’s resources here.)

To help service centers keep safety at the forefront, the LENOX Institute of Technology (LIT) has researched some best practices being used by industry leaders. Read below to discover some safety strategies and the additional benefits they can bring to your service center:

Achieving Operational Excellence in a High-Mix Industrial Metal-Cutting Operation

August 3, 2017 / , , , , , , ,

Over the last 20 years, lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, and other improvement techniques have changed the face of manufacturing. Kaizen programs, 5S, value-stream mapping, and other lean strategies have rendered impressive results in high-volume manufacturing plants around the world. However, not every lean principle is an off-the-shelf solution for operational efficiency. This is especially true for high-mix, low-volume manufacturing environments.

Industrial metal-cutting shops are often juggling multiple jobs—many of them custom and almost none of them the same. Production requirements, lead times, and due dates can vary, which makes forecasting and traditional lean concepts difficult to apply. In fact, according to the eBook, Five Performance-Boosting Best Practices for Your Industrial Metal-Cutting Organization, many small, high-mix operations don’t even attempt to implement traditional lean techniques because they are typically more successful in higher production environments.

The good news, however, is that lean manufacturing is evolving. “A growing number of high-mix, low-volume operations are tweaking traditional lean methodologies to their specific situation,” the eBook notes. “Lean manufacturing techniques can be modified to increase efficiency in even the most customized metal-cutting operations.”

For example, according to an article from Canadian Metalworking, one way to achieve operational excellence in a high-mix manufacturing environment is to create a mixed-model value stream. This begins by creating “product families” or groups of products that have similar process flow and work content. “The next step is to create one current-state map per product family and then a future-state design for that family that can achieve operational excellence,” the article states.

There is no question that this task can be complicated when dealing with a variable product mix. To help managers successfully achieve operational excellence in mixed model production, Canadian Metalworking offers the following 10 guidelines: (You can read the full article here.)

  1. Do you have the right product families? Create product families based on similar processing steps and work content, not brainstorming.
  2. What is the takt time at the pacemaker? Determine how often the pacemaker must produce a part to keep up with customer demand for the product family.
  3. Can the equipment support takt time? Determine if existing machine capacity can support the product family within the established takt time.
  4. What is the interval? Calculate how often the pacemaker will cycle through and produce all the parts in the product family.
  5. What are the balance charts for the products? Balance the work content, per operator, to takt time to create continuous flow through the pacemaker process. There will be different balance profiles for each product within the family.
  6. How will we balance flow for the mix? Determine how variation within customer demand and the product family will be handled, either by adjusting labor, sequencing, or work balancing.
  7. How will we create standard work for the mix? Standard work means establishing one standard way to build the products in the family, and then having everyone follow that method.
  8. How will we create pitch at the pacemaker? Pitch is a visual time frame that tells everyone in the value stream if they are on time to customer demand. The pitch created is tied to how often work is released to and taken away from the pacemaker.
  9. How will we schedule the mix at the pacemaker? Determine the mix that can be supported at the pacemaker, and schedule the pacemaker to handle variation within the product family.
  10. How do we deal with changes in customer demand? Customer demand can vary, and we need to pre-establish a Plan B to use when it does. Plan B might involve pulling a product or rebalancing the pacemaker.

Of course, this is just one example of how lean can be applied to smaller, variable manufacturing environments. For more strategies, check out the book Made to Order Lean by Greg Lane or these links of archived case studies published by Modern Machine Shop and The Fabricator.

While high-mix, low-volume operations certainly present a unique set of production challenges, there are several custom methods managers can put in place to reduce waste, optimize flow, and improve productivity. It may take a little research and some creativity, but leading-edge shops are finding that in today’s competitive market, the benefits are well worth the investment.

How Gemba Visits Can Benefit Your Metal Forge

July 20, 2017 / , , , , , , , ,

Like most industrial manufacturing segments, metal forges have embraced lean manufacturing and the benefits it can bring. Although not every operation has the resources to undergo a total lean transformation, industry leaders like Jorgensen Forge have adopted simple lean tools and practices to eliminate waste, lower costs, and improve customer responsiveness.

One lean manufacturing tool that continues to gain popularity among operations managers is “going to the Gemba” or taking a “Gemba walk.” This practical lean tool gives management a clear view of what is happening on the plant floor and, more importantly, reveals areas for possible improvement. As explained in the eBook, Five Performance-Boosting Best Practices for your Industrial Metal-Cutting Organization, “Gemba” is the Japanese term for “actual place,” but has been redefined by lean thinkers as the place where value-creating work actually occurs. In a manufacturing environment, this is typically the shop floor. Many lean experts advise manufacturing executives to make time to visit this place—known as taking a “Gemba walk”—so they can see their operation from the front lines.

There are several ways managers can “go to the Gemba.” According to a Target Online article from the Association of Manufacturing Excellence, there are three types of Gemba visits:

  1. Leadership Gemba Visits. In these visits, the focus is on the culture, developing trust, learning more about the operations, and finding ways to improve the working conditions of the team members. These Gemba visits are typically conducted by managers and executives (individually or in pairs). They don’t usually have an agenda or follow a prescribed process. The leader simply goes to the Gemba to engage with the team members in a meaningful way and searches for opportunities to make their work less frustrating and more fulfilling.
  2. Leader Standard Work Gemba Walks. These Gemba walks typically have an agenda or a theme and occur on a regular cadence. These are structured and can be done individually or in groups. Many management teams have standard processes for visiting team huddles, checking hour-by-hour charts, doing 5S audits, or doing safety observations. Others visit the Gemba with a specific theme in mind for the walk, such as reviewing autonomous maintenance practices, learning about kaizen activities, discussing safety procedures, reviewing visual management practices, etc.
  3. Problem-Solving Gemba Visits. Typically, the purpose of a problem-solving Gemba visit is to go to the source of a problem in order to observe it first-hand, talk to those closest to the problem, and determine if countermeasures are needed while working to determine the root cause of the problem. This is also a great opportunity for leaders to talk to team members about the problem-solving process and root cause analysis.

Why are Gemba visits so important? This article from The Leadership Network lists a few ways Gemba visits can be beneficial:

  1. First-hand knowledge is the highest form of information. A regular Gemba walk will give managers transparent and unmediated knowledge that is needed to challenge and validate assumptions made by data.
  2. Perspective is gained through experience. A regular Gemba walk allows managers to understand the challenges employees need to overcome on a daily basis to deliver the results that are being promised in the boardroom.
  3. Both people and process matter equally. A regular Gemba walk will help develop a culture that fixes the problems in a process and not one that blames the people performing the process.

If Gemba visits aren’t currently part of your management strategy, perhaps it is time to explore the ways in which it could improve your operation. To read more about this lean manufacturing tool, check out the slideshare presentation, Gemba 101, or read this overview article from iSixSigma.

Making Your Machine Shop More Sustainable

July 15, 2017 / , , , , , ,

As we reported in last month’s blog, “Machine Outlook for 2017 and Beyond,” market conditions continue to look good for machine shops and other industrial metal-cutting operations. Even in a good market, however, industry leaders know it is important to continue to watch costs. Any edge you can carve out against the competition is beneficial.

According to the brief, “Resource Allocation Strategies for Leading Industrial Metal-Cutting Organizations,” this may require companies to think a little outside the box. “In the spirit of continuous improvement, best-in-class managers need to explore all of the ways they can save their operation time and money,” the brief states.

One way shops are reducing costs is adopting more sustainable manufacturing practices. Whether implementing strategic energy plans or adopting a few environmentally friendly practices, today’s industrial manufacturers are finding that “going green” can provide bottom-line savings.

As reported here by Modern Machine Shop, manufacturing consumes the equivalent of 3.6 billion barrels of crude oil every year—1/5 of all energy consumed in the U.S. Additionally, depending on the manufacturing process, energy can encompass as much as 50 percent of the cost of production. Based on these numbers, it seems reasonable to argue that not only do manufacturers have a social responsibility to reduce their energy usage, but they could save some money by doing so.

London-based sheet metal company Harlow Group, for example, was able to reduce electrical costs by approximately $38,000 per year after installing a new heating system, low-energy lighting, and implementing a formal shut-down policy for heavy equipment.

To help your machine shop begin the move toward sustainability, an article from ThomasNet.com describes three key steps:

  1. Analyze Your Current Organization’s Environmental Impact. Start by analyzing your energy usage. Determine how energy sources are used in your production processes and how they might influence the environment. It is also important to look at your operation’s water usage and the types of materials you are using on the shop floor. Are they recyclable or hazardous? How necessary are they to the production process?
  2. Reduce Waste Where You Can. Once you understand where your organization stands, you can take steps towards a more environmentally friendly facility. Fortunately, these steps don’t have to be giant strides; you can start small and make incremental, strategic improvements.
  3. Find Ways To Leverage Renewable Energy. Leveraging renewable energy is one of the best ways to create a more sustainable facility. Renewable energy options are plentiful, and they include sunlight, wind, rain, tides, waves and geothermal heat. In addition to saving on raw energy costs, you may also be able to take advantage of tax incentives, depending on the state you live in.

For some more specific actions your shop can take, check out this list of energy-saving tips from Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center, which includes ideas such as avoiding peak energy rate periods and checking for compressed air system leaks. You may also want to read this article from Canadian Metalworking that discusses eco-friendly coolants and coolant recycling.

Does your shop consider sustainability as a bottom-line operating principle? If so, what new practices can you adopt to keep your industrial metal-cutting company at the leading edge? 

Developing Strong Talent in Your Fabrication Shop

July 10, 2017 / , , , , , , , , , ,

Historically, the trend has been for metal companies to put process over people. The manufacturing industry’s shortage of workers with the necessary skills (also known as the “skills gap”), however, is forcing companies to allocate resources back to their workforce.

For many companies, this means changing the way they train and maintain talent, whether that means beefing up training programs or rethinking their hiring tactics. Rockwell Automation, for example, is working to recruit military veterans and leverage their unique skill sets. “We’ve been able to develop a truly groundbreaking program that will help solve a challenge critical to fueling the future growth of the manufacturing sector,” Blake Moret CEO of Rockwell Automation, states here in a press release. “Military veterans possess a unique combination of technical savvy and core work skills that makes them well-positioned for careers in today’s advanced manufacturing environments.”

Companies are also reevaluating how they are maintaining their talent. As lean manufacturing expert Jamie Flinchbaugh says here in IndustryWeek, you can’t “just hire talent and then leave it alone.” Continuous improvement applies to all areas of an operation, including training and maintaining talent.

According to Flinchbaugh, when it comes to building a strong team, manufacturers should consider the following:

  1. Put the right talent in the right place. Hiring is part of this, but so is organizational design. Too often Flinchbaugh says he sees organizations reward talent by taking them out of the place they perform the best. That’s like taking your best hitter on the team and making them a team coach before their retirement as a reward. So top salespeople become sales managers, and top engineers become engineering managers. Is that the best use of their talent?
  2. Talent is responsible for its own improvement. Your talent should hold the primary responsibility for their own development. A lean thinker should be encouraged to improve their talent in any skill that matters, whether personal or professional.
  3. Coach and train. Making the development of talent a core part of your business means integrating it into your management systems. This is not something to delegate to human resources. The hardest part of this is how you leverage your top talent. While not everyone is suited to coaching and training, leveraging your top talent to build more talent is the long-term play.

In a metal-working environment, it is also critical that operators and other employees feel valued. While the idea of empowering employees sounds a bit cliché, a growing number of managers are finding that operators who take ownership of their process or work area are invaluable. According to the brief, “Strategies for Training and Maintaining Talent in Industrial Metal-Cutting Organizations,” operator “buy-in” can positively affect all aspects of an industrial metal-cutting operation, including quality, productivity, and in the end, the bottom line. Similarly, when employees feel disconnected, those same business areas can be negatively affected. Strategies such as collecting feedback, goal setting, and incentives are good ways to encourage employee ownership from the start.

As the skills gap has proven, investing in talent is just as important as investing in technology and process. Metal-cutting companies—not to mention the manufacturing industry at large—can’t afford to neglect one of its greatest assets. In the end, building and cultivating high-quality talent is necessary for building and cultivating high-quality services and products.

 

Metal Forges Focus on Advancement in 2017

May 25, 2017 / , , , , , , , ,

 

Broad spectrum forecasts continue to look positive for manufacturers. As reported in our 2017 Industrial Metal-Cutting Outlook, experts believe that 2017 will be a year of growth for industrial manufacturing. Specifically, the latest outlook from MAPI says that industrial manufacturing growth should be 1.2% in 2017 and then accelerate to 2.6% in 2018.

Manufacturers are also optimistic. According to a May survey from the Institute for Supply Management, U.S. manufacturing and services executives expect to see increased revenue, hiring, and capital spending in 2017, reflecting confidence in the economy, reports IndustryWeek. Even after a short decrease in manufacturing orders in April, ISM’s gauge remains well above the average for all of 2016 and “indicates healthy optimism among factory managers,” according to Bloomberg.

A Focused Forecast

What does this mean for metal forges? From a big-picture standpoint, this is all good news. Economic health directly impacts automotive and other customer segments that carefully choose how they spend money with forges and other supply chain partners.

However, as stated in the article from Forging magazine, “Forgers are manufacturers, of course, but drawing their circumstances out of the mass of data represented by surveys like PMI or similar sources is futile.” In other words, it is more beneficial to look at segment forecasts than it is to look at broad manufacturing outlooks.

To give a more accurate outlook picture, Forging conducts its own annual survey with forging executives. Below are some results from its 2017 Forging Business Outlook:

Trends to Watch

Like most industrial manufacturers, forges remain committed to continuous improvement, regardless of market conditions. Because lean manufacturing is nothing new, today’s forges need to think outside the box—or beyond the shop floor—to find new improvement opportunities. As stated in the news brief, Resource Allocation Strategies for Leading Industrial Metal-Cutting Organizations, “managers focused on continuous improvement should explore all of the ways they can save their operation time and money.”

For example, Weber Metals of Paramount, CA and Ulven Forging of Hubbard, OR have taken their lean manufacturing and other continuous improvement activities “above the shop floor” and into the front office. According to Forge magazine, this has resulted in numerous benefits for the companies, including improvements in traceability, quoting, product flow, and scheduling.

Another big trend within the forging industry is a commitment to technological advancement. Last year, the Forging Foundation (FIERF) and Forging Industry Association revised the industry’s Forging Technology Roadmap to develop, support and fund technology and research to benefit the North American forging industry. In early 2017, The FIERF Board approved funding for five new technology projects. Below are three of those projects, as reported by Forging magazine:

1. Forging of Magnesium Alloys for Automotive Applications. Professor May Wells, University of Waterloo, Dept. of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, and two graduate students, are engaged in the project that seeks “to design, build and validate an automotive, fatigue-critical component made of forged magnesium.” Ford Motor Co. is the industry partner to their research.

2. High-Strength, High-Toughness Microalloyed Steel Forgings Produced with Relaxed Forging Conditions and No Heat Treatment. Professor Anthony DeArdo, University of Pittsburgh, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, and a graduate student, are seeking a “new composition and process route for making high-strength, high-toughness forging with minimum die wear, limited distortion and no heat treatment.”

3. Development of a Manufacturing Process for High-Power-Density Hollow Shafts. Professor Gracious Ngaile, North Carolina State University Dept. of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, with two student researchers will work to develop a cost-effective manufacturing process for high-power-density hollow shafts. The project’s industry partner is Mid-West Forge.

For a complete explanation of all five projects, you can read the entire article here.

Looking Ahead

Market forecasts aside, one thing is clear—today’s metal forging operations need to stay relevant and focused on the future. Improvement should continue to be the goal in 2017 and beyond, both in terms of process and technology. Forging may be a mature industry, but as the editors at Forge have stated over and over, with the efforts of industry leaders, it can still be advanced manufacturing.

In what areas can your forging operation advance in 2017?

 

 

 

Machine Shop Outlook for 2017 and Beyond

May 20, 2017 / , , , , , , , ,

The year started out on a high note for machine shops, and current reports suggest the upward trend will continue throughout 2017. How should machine shops respond?

A Bright Picture

The new year meant good things for machine shops and other industrial metalworking companies. According to the Gardner Business Index, the metalworking industry grew in January for the first time since March 2015, reaching its highest point since May 2014.

That momentum has continued throughout the year. Both February and March registered growth, with the Index hitting its highest points since March 2012. Growth continued in April as well, although at a slightly slower rate. However, as Steven Kline, director of market Intelligence at Gardner Business Media, states here, “Expansion is still the greatest it has been in three years.”

Customer segments are also experiencing growth. According to Kline’s report, power generation was the fastest growing industry in April, growing for the second time in three months. Twelve other industries recorded strong growth as well. Industrial motors/hydraulics/mechanical components grew at an accelerated rate for the fourth month in a row; aerospace continued its streak of growth at six months; and job shops and oil/gas-field/mining machinery also grew in April.

Other economic indicators point to good news. As reported here by Cliff Waldman, chief economist at the MAPI Foundation, manufacturing employment has now increased for five consecutive months, with an average of 14,200 new jobs gained per month. “Overall, this is the most convincing evidence that the broad manufacturing picture is starting to show some real improvement from years of weakness,” Waldman states.

Getting Smart for the Future

Yes, the near-term picture looks bright for machine shops. However, industry leaders can’t rest on their laurels and need to be sure they are prepared for where the market is heading. Perhaps the biggest trend happening within manufacturing is what many call the “fourth industrial revolution.” As explained in a previously published blog, the fourth industrial revolution (also called “Industry 4.0”) is the advent of the long-awaited “smart factory,” in which connectivity and advanced technologies are being used to streamline decisions, optimize processes, eliminate waste, and reduce errors.

Companies like EVS Metal, a precision metal fabricator headquartered in Riverdale, NJ, have already started thinking about what this means for their operation and how they can adapt. From a practical standpoint, shops can start by equipping components and machines with necessary Industry 4.0 features, such as sensors, actuators, machine-level software, and network access to measure productivity of metal-cutting equipment.

However, according to an article from Production Machining, companies need to more than just invest in technology. Matthew Kirchner, managing Director, Profit 360, explains here that manufacturers that wish to capitalize on the coming revolution will require a new level of knowledge, aptitude, and disciplines in the following four areas:

Equipped for Success

As machine shops move into the second half of the year, the key will be to not only make the most of current market conditions, but to also strategically prepare for the future. Like any trend, it will take a while for the fourth industrial revolution to fully materialize. However, many experts are saying that industry leaders are embracing this next generation of manufacturing and, more importantly, are starting to make investments. Is your shop in a position to do the same?

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