May 2010 - CNC Industries

CNC Industries Recieves Accreditation and A+ rating from Better Business Bureau

By Steven Deam Jr – CNC Industries, Inc. Fort Wayne, Indiana

May 21, 2010

CNC Industries, Inc. Earns BBB Accreditation

CNC Industries is Committed to BBB’s Standards of Trust

This week, CNC Industries announced its recent accreditation by BBB Serving Northern Indiana. As a BBB Accredited Business, CNC Industries is dedicated to promoting trust in the marketplace.

According to BBB reports by Princeton Research, seven in ten consumers say they are more likely to buy from a company designated as a BBB Accredited Business. BBB is a resource for the public, providing objective, unbiased information about businesses.

“We are pleased to be a BBB Accredited Business because we value building trust with our customers,” said Steve Deam, Sr. “Our BBB Accreditation gives our customers confidence in our commitment to maintaining high ethical standards of conduct.”

BBB Accredited Businesses must adhere to BBB’s “Standards of Trust”, a comprehensive set of policies, procedures and best practices representing trustworthiness in the marketplace. The standards call for building trust, embodying integrity, advertizing honestly and telling the truth, being transparent, honoring promises, being responsive and safeguarding privacy.

About CNC Industries

CNC Industries is a Fort Wayne, Indiana based Job-Shop specializing in precision CNC machining, fabrication and assembly of application-critical and custom machined parts for the Aerospace, Defense, Medical, Industrial and Transportation markets. The company presently employs approximately 40 people.

About BBB

BBB’s mission is to be the leader in advancing marketplace trust. BBB accomplishes this mission by creating a community of trustworthy businesses, setting standards for marketplace trust, encouraging and supporting best practices, celebrating marketplace role models and denouncing substandard marketplace behavior.

Businesses that earn BBB Accreditation contractually agree and adhere to the organizations high standards of ethical business behavior. BBB is the preeminent resource to turn to for objective, unbiased information on businesses and charities.

May 21st, 2010|

Precision Aerospace Machining and the Seven Wastes of Lean Manufacturing (Part 2)

In continuing on the topic of lean manufacturing in an aerospace machining environment today I will look at how CNC Industries handles the second waste identified in lean manufacturing. The second waste is typically identified as unnecessary transportation. At CNC Industries we look both at internal and external transportation as areas that can cause waste.

The costs of external transportation (shipping) are easy to identify. With external transportation we can easily see the cost of the transportation in dollars as we receive bills from the shipping companies. Any extra shipments obviously incur additional charges and it becomes important to keep the number of shipments required to an absolute minimum. To facilitate this we often work with our outside vendors to have our parts shipped directly from one vendor to another in the case that we have multiple outside operations back to back. As often as possible we find outside vendors that handle multiple processes to save both on the cost of production as well as the cost of transportation. In addition our AS9100 compliant procedures for selecting and purchasing from our vendors allows us confidence in the quality of the parts that we have outsourced.

Internal transportation costs are often more difficult to quantify. Many times companies will both start and stop their efforts on cycle times and overproduction as I talked about in the prior post. Transporting the parts internally more than necessary is also a form of wasted efforts. The cost of moving the parts throughout a facility may seem minor but all forms of transportation take up time and do not add anything to the value of the part. In addition every time a part is moved it is another chance for the part to become lost or damaged.

Extra transportation can occur due to a number of factors in the manufacturing process. If the parts were not scheduled correctly they may need to be moved aside to allow a different part through the machine. Poor routing of the operations that the part takes through the manufacturing process may mean that a part is scheduled through machines that are far apart in the factory. Poor engineering of the part machining process itself may mean that the part has more machining operations than necessary. Any of these items may add additional internal transportation and raise the cost and potentially lower the quality of the part.

Our ERP System – Job Manager 2 – allows us to schedule our parts with confidence that they are engineered and routed correctly. In addition to the initial engineering and routing we have a comprehensive corrective action system and Process Change Request system that allow us to continually improve our processes. Each time we manufacture a part we are able to review and adjust the process and operations as necessary to make the parts even better and more efficiently than the last time.

Aerospace machining and the high mix / low volume work that comes with it creates additional challenges in scheduling. Our engineering processes are designed to quickly work through the numerous issues with new parts and smaller batches. Our scheduling module in Job Manager 2 has a visual scheduling board that allows us to quickly determine the best routing of each part and quickly determine any problems with the processes involved. Job Manager 2 also allows us to analyze each part and quickly find any areas that have lower efficiency so that we may quickly focus our efforts in the appropriate places.

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CNC Industries is a Fort Wayne, Indiana based machine shop specializing in precision CNC machining, fabrication and assembly of application-critical and custom machined parts for the Aerospace, Defense, Medical, Industrial and Transportation markets. The company presently employs approximately 55 people.

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May 14th, 2010|Tags: Aerospace Machining, Lean Manufacturing, Precision Machining, the seven wastes, transportation|

Aerospace machining and the seven wastes of lean manufacturing pt2

Due to a few issues on renaming the old post I am repeating the original post with the original title.

In continuing on the topic of lean manufacturing in an aerospace machining environment today I will look at how CNC Industries handles the second waste identified in lean manufacturing. The second waste is typically identified as unnecessary transportation. At CNC Industries we look both at internal and external transportation as areas that can cause waste.

The costs of external transportation (shipping) are easy to identify. With external transportation we can easily see the cost of the transportation in dollars as we receive bills from the shipping companies. Any extra shipments obviously incur additional charges and it becomes important to keep the number of shipments required to an absolute minimum. To facilitate this we often work with our outside vendors to have our parts shipped directly from one vendor to another in the case that we have multiple outside operations back to back. As often as possible we find outside vendors that handle multiple processes to save both on the cost of production as well as the cost of transportation. In addition our AS9100 compliant procedures for selecting and purchasing from our vendors allows us confidence in the quality of the parts that we have outsourced.

Internal transportation costs are often more difficult to quantify. Many times companies will both start and stop their efforts on cycle times and over production as I talked about in the prior post. Transporting the parts internally more than necessary is also a form of wasted efforts. The cost of moving the parts throughout a facility may seem minor but all forms of transportation take up time and do not add anything to the value of the part. In addition every time a part is moved it is another chance for the part to become lost or damaged.

Extra transportation can occur due to a number of factors in the manufacturing process. If the parts were not scheduled correctly they may need to be moved aside to allow a different part through the machine. Poor routing of the operations that the part takes through the manufacturing process may mean that a part is scheduled through machines that are far apart in the factory. Poor engineering of the part machining process itself may mean that the part has more machining operations than necessary. Any of these items may add additional internal transportation and raise the cost and potentially lower the quality of the part.

Our ERP System – Job Manager 2 – allows us to schedule our parts with confidence that they are engineered and routed correctly. In addition to the initial engineering and routing we have a comprehensive corrective action system and Process Change Request system that allow us to continually improve our processes. Each time we manufacture a part we are able to review and adjust the process and operations as necessary to make the parts even better and more efficiently than the last time.

Aerospace machining and the high mix / low volume work that comes with it creates additional challenges in scheduling. Our engineering processes are designed to quickly work through the numerous issues with new parts and smaller batches. Our scheduling module in Job Manager 2 has a visual scheduling board that allows us to quickly determine the best routing of each part and quickly determine any problems with the processes involved. Job Manager 2 also allows us to analyze each part and quickly find any areas that have lower efficiency so that we may quickly focus our efforts in the appropriate places.

– – – –

CNC Industries is a Fort Wayne, Indiana based machine shop specializing in precision CNC machining, fabrication and assembly of application-critical and custom machined parts for the Aerospace, Defense, Medical, Industrial and Transportation markets. The company presently employs approximately 55 people.

– – – –

May 14th, 2010|Tags: Aerospace Machining, Lean Manufacturing, Precision Machining, the seven wastes, transportation|

Aerospace Machining and the Seven Wastes of lean manufacturing (Part 1)

As I talked about in the last post, I will be examining the seven wastes identified in lean manufacturing and showing how CNC Industries handles each in a high mix / low volume aerospace machining environment. The first of the seven wastes is Overproduction. Overproduction is using more resources than necessary to create and deliver a part to the customer. Overproduction can be further defined as producing more, sooner or faster than what is necessary. Elimination of overproduction is a large factor in Just-In-Time systems that many manufacturers are focusing on. Just-in-time has a goal of eliminating inventory and producing or ordering material to arrive just in time for the operation that it is needed in.

Batch size is a large factor to consider when looking at overproduction. It is important to not produce too many parts – this leads to storing the excess parts in inventory for an excessive amount of time. However, in an aerospace machining environment the complexity of the parts is prohibitive to a true just-in-time system. When a part may take 6-8 weeks to manufacture and only a small amount of the parts are needed each week to create a new batch for every shipment would necessitate setting up a new batch each week and having multiple batches open at the same time. The logistics of tracking all of these batches combined with the costs and time of setting up a machine each week for the same part would be prohibitive. In addition to the setups and the logistics, material orders would necessarily be smaller and more frequent which would eliminate cost savings in ordering and require more time in purchasing and receiving material. Of course a production facility can avoid many of these pitfalls by having specially made machines that are dedicated to a certain process or part. In a high mix environment, machines tend to be needed for many different parts and cannot be dedicated to a select group of part.

Instead for a high-mix low volume aerospace machining facility, selecting the right batch size includes factoring in the setup costs and the lead time to create a batch that is a reasonable multiple of an individual shipment. In the above example it may be seen that a batch that is the equivalent of 10 weeks of shipments is the optimum size to reduce overproduction and minimize inventory storage time as well. The key is to account for holding costs, batch setup costs, and the estimated demand on a given machined part. Our ERP system, Job Manager 2, has a module to handle these calculations and give a suggested batch size in order to lower the overproduction to the lowest feasible amount. Selecting the right batch size is of paramount importance in attempting a lean operation in an aerospace machining environment that tends to have high mix and low volume production.

CNC Industries solves the problem of overproduction waste through efficient information handling and analysis. We have strong visualizations of our production and inventory and we regularly examine our production to ensure optimum batch size. Our ERP system both handles the batch size determination and the scheduling of the new batches to ensure that parts are produced at the right time and with the right quantity. When maintaining a Kan-Ban System for our aerospace customers it is vital that we both maintain enough inventory to handle their surges in demand, as well as minimize our batch size to allow us to produce the wide variety of parts that are requested.

– – – –

CNC Industries is a Fort Wayne, Indiana based machine shop specializing in precision CNC machining, fabrication and assembly of application-critical and custom machined parts for the Aerospace, Defense, Medical, Industrial and Transportation markets. The company presently employs approximately 55 people.

– – – –

May 7th, 2010|

Precision Aerospace Machining and the Seven Wastes of Lean Manufacturing (pt1)

As I talked about in the last post, I will be examining the seven wastes identified in lean manufacturing and showing how CNC Industries handles each in a high mix / low volume aerospace machining environment. The first of the seven wastes is Overproduction. Overproduction is using more resources than necessary to create and deliver a part to the customer. Overproduction can be further defined as producing more, sooner or faster than what is necessary. Elimination of overproduction is a large factor in Just-In-Time systems that many manufacturers are focusing on. Just-in-time has a goal of eliminating inventory and producing or ordering material to arrive just in time for the operation that it is needed in.

Batch size is a large factor to consider when looking at overproduction. It is important to not produce too many parts – this leads to storing the excess parts in inventory for an excessive amount of time. However, in an aerospace machining environment the complexity of the parts is prohibitive to a true just-in-time system. When a part may take 6-8 weeks to manufacture and only a small amount of the parts are needed each week to create a new batch for every shipment would necessitate setting up a new batch each week and having multiple batches open at the same time. The logistics of tracking all of these batches combined with the costs and time of setting up a machine each week for the same part would be prohibitive. In addition to the setups and the logistics, material orders would necessarily be smaller and more frequent which would eliminate cost savings in ordering and require more time in purchasing and receiving material. Of course a production facility can avoid many of these pitfalls by having specially made machines that are dedicated to a certain process or part. In a high mix environment, machines tend to be needed for many different parts and cannot be dedicated to a select group of part.

Instead for a high-mix low volume aerospace machining facility, selecting the right batch size includes factoring in the setup costs and the lead time to create a batch that is a reasonable multiple of an individual shipment. In the above example it may be seen that a batch that is the equivalent of 10 weeks of shipments is the optimum size to reduce overproduction and minimize inventory storage time as well. The key is to account for holding costs, batch setup costs, and the estimated demand on a given machined part. Our ERP system, Job Manager 2, has a module to handle these calculations and give a suggested batch size in order to lower the overproduction to the lowest feasible amount. Selecting the right batch size is of paramount importance in attempting a lean operation in an aerospace machining environment that tends to have high mix and low volume production.

CNC Industries solves the problem of overproduction waste through efficient information handling and analysis. We have strong visualizations of our production and inventory and we regularly examine our production to ensure optimum batch size. Our ERP system both handles the batch size determination and the scheduling of the new batches to ensure that parts are produced at the right time and with the right quantity. When maintaining a Kan-Ban System for our aerospace customers it is vital that we both maintain enough inventory to handle their surges in demand, as well as minimize our batch size to allow us to produce the wide variety of parts that are requested.

– – – –

CNC Industries is a Fort Wayne, Indiana based machine shop specializing in precision CNC machining, fabrication and assembly of application-critical and custom machined parts for the Aerospace, Defense, Medical, Industrial and Transportation markets. The company presently employs approximately 55 people.

– – – –

May 7th, 2010|Tags: Aerospace Machining, Lean Manufacturing, overproduction, the seven wastes|

Lean manufacturing and Aerospace Machining, Low Volume / High Mix production

Lean manufacturing is a concept that most businesses strive for and many claim. The primary concept of lean manufacturing is eliminating all unnecessary costs and time associated with production. The primary way most companies will start with Lean is to manufacture parts as fast as possible – to get as much production from each machine as possible. As the cycle time decreases wasted machine time decreases as well. This is a great start to lean manufacturing, but it is also the most common method. Many companies focus on cycle time reduction almost entirely in their lean efforts.

Cycle Time reduction works best in environments where a machine shop is producing the same part for a long duration. This is typically a full production shop and will have dedicated machinery to optimize a single process to the fullest extent possible. In the aerospace machining industry or custom machined parts production we are not producing high enough volumes of many parts to dedicate an entire machine to a single part. As such aerospace machine shops and custom manufacturing shops (or job shops) will face additional difficulties in going ‘lean’.

Adjusting the cycle time down by 10% is not as effective of a lean tool when machine time may only be 60% or less of the time spent on producing a given part. The lower the proportion of machine time to non-machine time in a job, the more important it is to go lean in additional ways. in connection to that – the more often a machine needs to be set up for a new job the more non-machine cost is in the job – for reference a single aerospace machined part may have 5 or 6 separate machining operations each requiring an additional setup on the machine. Transferring the material to different areas, setting up the machine, inspecting the part throughout production, and other items add to the non-machine time at every step.

Over the next few posts I will be looking at the 7 wastes identified in a typical lean manufacturing implementation and how CNC Industries deals with each on in relation to our low volume / high mix work. We have some production jobs as well, but those are handled in slightly different ways, and will be discussed at a later time.

– – – –

CNC Industries is a Fort Wayne, Indiana based machine shop specializing in precision CNC machining, fabrication and assembly of application-critical and custom machined parts for the Aerospace, Defense, Medical, Industrial and Transportation markets. The company presently employs approximately 55 people.

– – – –

May 5th, 2010|Tags: Aerospace Machining, Lean Manufacturing, overproduction, wastes|

Green & Energy Efficient CNC Machining

This is a guest post from Jack Lundee, thank you for your contribution!

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With heavy development of prototypes and the never slowing business to business construction/adaptation of plastic, metals and wood, laser sintering and stereolithography have become widely energy efficient. Yielding the same, if not better, output, these large machines have rapidly become greener.

Utilizing CNC (Computer Numeric Control) and CAD, prototypes are able to develop unique designs and shape various metallic, plastic, and wooden materials into appropriate form. Although, since the first CNC machines were built (1940), there have been significant strides in providing a more energy efficient machine. Ranging from $1,000 to nearly $50,000 and weighing in at close to 6000 lbs, these machines can eat up electricity much like a large industrial oven used in a pizza shop. Although, this is a tremendous improve from past machines, coming it at close to 50,000 watts. Newer machines can range anywhere between 800 and 6,000 watts, depending on the make and price. Again, this is still close to the electric drain of a hot tub or stove.
Despite, this is quite a significant difference – It’s easy to compare this to a domestic furnace, whereas older furnaces were built to last, newer ones are built to reduce electricity costs and promote sustainability. With more expensive machines running at close to 4000 RPMs, (revolutions per minute), it’s no wonder why they require so much juice. The engine/motor eats up the most power, along with the CPU and cooling system, which leads me to my next point.

The machines ability to reduce business expenses effectively compliments its technological advances. This includes things like a brushless motor. Prior to construction,
motors were subject to:

• Worn brush heads
• Sparking and electricity (noise)
• Limitation of speed (efficiency)
• Slow cooling

With the implementation of a BLM (Brushless Motor), these machines not only have greater capabilities, but provide low costs and greater efficiency.
As tool manufacturers are met with new market demands, they must also inherently adapt their business and machines. This is especially true for those in the niche of rapid prototyping. Adapting to new technology and market demands is essential for any business conducing sintering, cutting, welding, stereolithography and much more! With this, consumers should be green conscious, particularly in the development of CNC/CAD machines.

May 4th, 2010|Tags: green machining, guest post|