Difficulties with Precision Aerospace Machining

Machine Shops that work on a variety of different types of parts will know that custom machined parts for one industry may have drastically different issues than those machined parts for another industry.  Aerospace components tend to have similarities in what makes them difficult.  A few of the issues that face  include: extremely tight tolerances, large numbers of machined features, large amount of material removed during machining, and multiple quality specifications.

Let’s look at the tight tolerances.  Airplanes are assembled from a huge numbers individually manufactured parts.  Each of these parts needs to be manufactured to a precise tolerance in order to facilitate assembly.  By themselves tight tolerances are merely a norm in the precision machine shop world.  it is when combined with the other factors that the tight tolerances cause difficulties.

The second difficulty of custom aerospace parts is the large number of machined features.  An individual aerospace component may potentially have several hundred individual features.  When you will have hundreds of dimensional checkpoints, even a single feature that is at the edge of tolerance can cascade and cause future dimensions to be further off.  The only way to ensure that a part is going to be good is to hold the earliest tolerances even tighter than what the prints call for.

Implied in the second point is the amount of material removed.  Removing a large amount of material causes it’s own difficulties and stresses on the machinery.  Additionally the material itself will change dramatically as it loses the tensile strength of it’s original form while being  machined.  The programming and fixturing of the custom machined part needs to account for the changing strength of the material while simultaneously ensuring that tolerances are kept throughout.

Finally, in addition to the other issues, aerospace parts tend to have many external quality standards in terms of fit and finish.  The cosmetics need to be pristine and the painting or plating needs to be done exceptionally well.

The 2 parts pictured below exemplify some of the complexities of custom machined aerospace parts.

Here are some additional custom machined parts that we have made.

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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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March 25th, 2010|Tags: , , , |

Document Management in a Precision Machine Shop

Document Management is a very tricky and important skill to have in a Precision Machine Shop.  At CNC Industries, we deal with a wide variety of custom parts.  Some are simple and some are very complex parts.  Either way, each part that we machine has a variety of dimensions which may be very critical to the part.  In addition to the physical dimensions, in dealing with aerospace or military manufactured parts, there may be a large number of quality specifications which need to be followed.

CNC Industries uses a component of our ERP system to handle our document management needs.  Job Manager tracks all pertinent documents for all of the thousands of custom parts that we manufacture.    The Doc Manager Module is fully searchable, indexed, and has security implemented.  All uses may see only the documents that they need to, and any documentation that is needed is available quickly.

Gone are the days of the 50 page Job Router.  With our Paperless Doc Manager system, we have been able to save time and money while ensuring that all of our information is kept up to date at all times.  All documents are updated in real time allowing us to quickly react to any engineering or customer changes that occur.

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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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March 9th, 2010|Tags: , , , |

Evaluating a Precision Machine Shop

At CNC Industries, as a precision machine shop are very interested in how we are evaluated for performance.  Traditionally machine shops are evaluated on the basis of
their ability to make the parts to specification.  While this is still a critical component to a machine shop, we do not feel that it adequately addresses all of the issues.

Precision Machining is certainly based on the actual manufacturing of the parts, the intangibles are as critical to the overall performance of the machine shop itself.  Questions that should be asked include:

  • Is the company adequately addressing any problems or concerns that come up?
  • Does the company follow best practice guidelines?
  • Does the company maintain it’s manufacturing equipment well?
  • Does the machine shop treat it’s customers with honesty and integrity?
  • Does the company perform to it’s promised delivery dates?
  • if a delivery date is going to be missed for any reason, does the shop notify the customer of the delay?
  • Does the company follow industry standards such as ISO 9001 and others?

Of course there could be many more questions that need to be addressed to fully evaluate a company.  But the main issue is that, even in a precision machine shop, it is important to look at the customer service given.

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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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March 3rd, 2010|Tags: , , |

Continuous Improvement and Precision Machining

There is a lot of buzz about continuous improvement in the business world today.  As a precision machine shop that focuses on contract manufacturing, CNC Industries has a different perspective than am office or a production machining facility.  While we do have several production jobs, the bulk of our work comes in short term contracts.

With short term contracts we do not have the luxury of being able to improve upon our performance throughout a physical run of a job.   Our customers demand a high level of precision, so we also cannot ‘dial the tolerance in’ over time.   Instead we need to focus on getting a repeatable general process developed which allows us to quickly and efficiently switch between our various contracted jobs.

Our continuous improvement initiative needs to account for the fact that our machines may be running different custom parts tomorrow than they are making today.  With all of this in mind, we allow each person in our company to suggest improvements both to how we run an individual machined part, as well as suggestions for the overall process of machining, how we get ready to machine parts, ability to keep precision, and any other facet of how our company works.  Our Process Change Request system ensures that each employee has the ability to express their thoughts for improvement in a way that will be reviewed in a timely manner.

Through the use of technology – specifically our ERP system Job Manager, we are able to monitor how effective we are from day to day.  We are able to track overall shop performance as well as any individual  job performance.  We make sure that all of our machinery is kept up-to-date with maintenance and we regularly purchase new equipment as needed.  As we see areas that are lagging in performance we are able to quickly remedy any deficiencies.

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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 55 people.

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March 1st, 2010|Tags: , , , |

Preparing for AS 9100

We are full bore getting ready for our AS9100 audit which is coming up in a few months.  We have been operating well above the ISO9001-2000 standard for years now and feel that AS9100 will improve our company as well as improve our ability to attract new aerospace customers.    As a precision machine shop, we are very focused on continual improvement — it is an essential focus as the industry becomes ever more competitive.

In a nutshell AS9100 certification ensures that we follow a high level of standardization in documentation and in our processes.    Since we make a large number of custom machined parts it is imperative that our documentation is under tight control.    We focus a lot of our effort on our internal ERP system and other technology.   Job Manager allows us to very easily meet AS9100 standards while still performing very efficiently.

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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 55 people.

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February 26th, 2010|Tags: , , |

Favorite Places

CNC Industries has been selected as a favorite place by Google!

We recieved a notice that over 1000 people saw our business listing on Google in just 3 months last year and 120 looked up driving directions. Perhaps many of these were simply salesmen looking for us, but we also found many new customers last year, so I imagine a good deal of these were also our new customers tracking us down. Our strategy and method of advertising our company and focusing on getting friendly with Google seems to be paying off.

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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 55 people.

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February 25th, 2010|Tags: , |

CNC Industries Completes AS9100 Rev C Upgrade Training

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

CNC Industries Completes AS9100 Rev C Upgrade Training and Internal Audit

Fort Wayne, IN – 02/19/2010

 

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CNC Industries, has been certified to the ISO 9001:200 specifications for several years.  In order to better serve their customers and demonstrate their commitment to compliance with the best industry standards, CNC Industries is completing their upgrade to the aerospace standard AS9100 Rev C.

The AS9100 Rev C certification is an expansion of the ISO standards and reflects the unique challenges of working with aerospace components.  By following the AS9100 Rev C standards CNC Industries will further increase their on-time deliveries, increase their quality, and further enhance their customer satisfaction.  With the improvements to the processes involved in precision machining and the associated procedures, CNC Industries hopes to fuel continued strong growth of new customers.

In order to complete the certification process as quickly and thoroughly as possible, CNC Industries brought in outside consultant firm and AS9100 specialists Oxebridge Quality Resources. (http://www.oxebridge.com/).   Oxebridge provided documentation upgrades, process and procedure analysis, and a full audit to the AS9100 Rev C standard.

As a precision machine shop CNC Industries has always focused on process improvement and the implementation of AS9100 will enhance their ongoing systems.

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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 55 people.

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February 19th, 2010|

CNC Industries’ Charitable Donations for 2009

As we begin a new year we are happy to report that during 2009 CNC Industries donated thousands of dollars to charitable organizations.  These organizations include Riley Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana,  Saint Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Ronald McDonald House, Make-A-Wish Foundation, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, The Salvation Army, as well as several other orginazations including several related to helping wounded and returning soldiers.

Even though sales are down due to the recession, we were pleased to donate the same amounts as previous years.

For more information on these on these charities…

Riley Children’s Hospital

Saint Jude Children’s Research Hospital

Ronald McDonald House

Make-A-Wish

The Salvation Army

January 21st, 2010|

CNC Industries Customer Satisfaction Survey for 2009

At CNC Industries, we take customer satisfaction very seriously.   In fact, one of our favorite quotes is by Warren Buffet: “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently. ”

Each year we send out a survey to all of our customers to ensure that we are meeting or exceeding all expectations.  This year we asked questions designed to address the most common areas that are of concern to our customers.    We received responses from 80% of our customers and would like to share the results.

 

The following chart shows the compiled results of all returned surveys:


 

Ranked from highest to lowest:



 

With a rating of 3 being average, and given the fact that everything we supply is custom made – on demand, we are very pleased with the results of the survey.

In addition we would like to share some of the comments that we received on the survey:

“I can always count on CNC to make their delivery date”

“You were given very little lead time on these parts-and everything worked out great!”

“CNC has always stepped up and delivered if we needed product.”

“Our production has never halted due to CNC. Great job!”

“Quality is outstanding”

“No complaints from our assembly area-this is a good thing.”

“CNC is a valued supplier due to their excellent quality.”

“I have seen good pricing with my commodity.”

“CNC pricing seems to be competitive.”

“Always ready to respond to changes, uses forecast well and has parts available.”

“CNC reacts well to schedule changes and has quick turn times for engineering prototypes.”

“CNC is a worry free supplier, which is exactly what we want.  Keep up the good work!!”

“A++ on this one. Thanks to everyone involved!”

“CNC is always willing to assist in our engineering experiments. They always supply support as needed.”

We would like to thank all of our customer who responded to the survey.

January 21st, 2010|

CNC Industries receives an award from BAE Systems

CNC Industries, a local supplier to BAE Systems Fort Wayne, IN was presented a Bronze Chairman’s Award by the BAE Systems Fort Wayne, IN site.  A BAE Systems Chairman’s award is an award recognizing those whose ideas, actions and behaviors have lead to significant business improvements making BAE Systems a better and more competitive company.

CNC Industries was awarded the Bronze Chairman’s Award in the category of “Enhancing Customer Performance.” This category represents improvements which have delivered significant value to the end customer in one or more of the following categories: Cost, Quality, or Schedule Delivery Improvements.

The specific project for which CNC Industries was recognized is the “Direct Delivery Lean Process”. The Direct Delivery Process allows this local supplier to maintain inventory under it’s ownership and to deliver product directly to the manufacturing cell.  Direct Delivery eliminates BAE Systems inventory costs, reduces BAE Systems inventory transactions and increases the speed of the Supply Chain.

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

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January 7th, 2010|Tags: |
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