Precision Aerospace Machining and the seven wastes of lean manufacturing (part 5)

The fifth of the seven wastes is the most readily obvious waste – defects.  A part or product that is not made correctly and needs to be either re-worked or discarded, is obviously a waste.  The time spent on the original part is wasted, the material and other costs are wasted, the time that it takes to re-work or re-make the part is wasted.  Overall defects cause considerable disruptions and waste.

Once again high volume work has an easier time of removing defects from the process.  the length of the run of a part will justify creating more complex and expensive fixturing to enable quality at the course – so that the part has little or no chance of being produced improperly.  Custom inspection procedures will allow quick discovery of any non-conforming parts as well.

In a low volume high mix facility – as a large portion of CNC Industries is, making custom machined parts and precision aerospace machined parts, we cannot spend an extensive amount of time on fixturing – our lead time for the entire first batch of product is sometimes shorter than production companies will spend on a single fixture for a production part.  The inspection requirements and quality standards will also vary – sometimes greatly – between parts running through our shop at the same time.  We have to ensure that each fixture is made quickly and still performs as it needs to.

Of course defects are caused by a myriad of issues beyond just the fixturing the part correctly.  We have many more methods of preventing mistakes and defects before they occur, but I think a more telling evaluation of a companies dedication to eliminating defects is the processes taken when a defect does occur.  At CNC Industries, we place great emphasis on root cause analysis and corrective / preventative actions.  As we are nearing our AS9100 certification, we are more aware of this need than ever before.

Our Corrective Action System is based on the Apollo Root Cause Analysis and allows and indefinite depth of root cause analysis.  We regard and defect as a serious issue and are quick to come to an understanding of the root cause that allowed the defect to occur.  With our ERP system, we are able to quickly resolve any ongoing systemic issue and immediately take the necessary corrective action to prevent future occurrences of the issue.  Preventative and corrective actions and their resolutions are transmitted throughout the company immediately upon completion and necessary procedural and process changes are automatically updated.  All relevant documentation is kept entirely in sync with our digital paperless document system.

The ability to adjust our entire process to address a deficiency in the processes that we utilize allows us to have an extremely low defect rate – and when the very occasional defect does occur we can quickly adapt and prevent the problem in the future.

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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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June 18th, 2010|Tags: , , , , , |

Precision Aerospace Machining and the Seven Wastes of Lean (Part 3)

In continuing on the Lean Journey, we will talk about the third of seven wastes: Inventory.  Historically, inventory was not considered a waste.  Large batch manufacturing was a necessity at the beginning of modern machining and manufacturing.  Inventory stocks were considered healthy as they indicated that a business could ship to their customers quickly.  The story of Inventory becoming considered a waste starts in post WWII Japan.  Japan underwent a transformation in their productivity and processes after WWII and began to compete well on the world market.  Unfortunately Japan does not have the land area that America does, and therefore the cost of holding inventory was much greater – due to the higher property costs, etc.  Toyoda quickly realized that smaller batches, when made efficiently, lead to lower overall costs than large batches do.

In a precision aerospace machining environment, a balancing act is needed.  Since CNC Industries machines a large variety of precision parts we cannot afford to have a specialized machine for each part or process that we do.  Small machine shops also do not have the luxury of a rolling assembly line between our machines.  With these restrictions, and the large amount of processing and manufacturing time that it takes to make a single aerospace part, we are put into a more difficult position that a production facility.  We cannot truly operate with no inventory as the goal would be, so we must decide on the ideal inventory to keep on hand.

Precision aerospace machining processes typically have rather long setup times relative to simpler machining processes.  This causes the ideal batch size to increase in order to compensate for the lost time on the machine while it is down for setup.  At CNC Industries we have worked long and hard to decrease our setup times and have successfully lowered our setup time by 75% over the last 5 years.  This has enable us to lower the ideal batch size as well, which in turn allows us to hold less inventory.

In addition to the setup process improvements that we have made over the years, information management is key to efficiently running small batches.  Smaller batches will mean more switchovers, more setups, and more jobs running at the same time.  With all of these issues, scheduling is both critical and difficult.  Job Manager II allows us to have a visual reference of the schedule at any computer throughout our facility and quickly identifies and problems or potential problems at an early stage of the process which allows us to quickly make any necessary adjustments.

June 7th, 2010|Tags: , , , , , |

Changes to CNC Industries website

CNC Industries is going to be adding to our main website content.  In examining our website we feel that we are not addressing some topics enough on our main site.  While I am attempting to add content to our blog to help fill these voids, we are going to be adding many new pages over the next while to fill in the gaps that we see as present.

The first additions that we have made are aerospace machining and the definition of aerospace machining.  We are focused heavily on aerospace machining, and we want our website to reflect this.  The purpose of having two pages on essentially the same topic is to provide the detail information that not everyone will be familiar with.

While our website is very informative and serves to provide the same information that you will get from most shops, we are not satisfied with meeting the standards.  We want anyone that comes to our site to be able to tell right away if CNC Industries will be a good fit to be a supplier for them.  Our aerospace machining page is the first in a series of pages that is designed to address this issue.

Our Definitions area of the website will become filled with basic information about precision machining, and other topics which relate to CNC Industries.  We will look to explore what defines precision machining and differentiates it from standard machining.  We will of course look at what goes into aerospace machining, industrial machining, medical machining, automobile machining, and military machining and why CNC Industries has chosen the focuses that we have.

April 27th, 2010|Tags: , , , |

What is aerospace machining?

Aerospace machining is a subset of CNC machining.  Specifically aerospace machining (as you can tell from the name) deals with parts manufactured for use on airplanes, satellites, the space station, or other aircraft.  Aerospace machining is defined by its complexity, use of lightweight high strength materials, rigid requirements and specifications, and the strict precision necessary for the manufacture of the parts.

Components made by a cnc machine shop for use in the aerospace industry will typically be designed to be assembled with other components – whether machined or stocked parts.  As such, it is vitally important for a machine shop focused on aerospace machining to be able to produce high precision machined parts every time.

Parts may be made from a variety of different materials.  At CNC Industries, we have focused on aluminum which is a major component in many types of aircraft.  Aluminum machining has it’s own areas of complexity and is very different from steel machining that may be more familiar to automobile manufacturers.  Aluminum is a focused material in aerospace machining because it is lightweight yet still very strong.  Titanium is also used for many space oriented components, but due to the cost and increased difficulty of machining, is not as prevalent in traditional aircraft.

April 19th, 2010|Tags: , , |

Needed: Precision Machine Shop for Custom Machined Parts

Many companies that need custom machined parts are not sure of the process of getting started with a machine shop supplier.  In this post I will go over the basic process.  As I talked about in a prior post about evaluating a precision machine shop, it is important be careful in selecting a supplier of custom made parts.  In society today it is normal to simply  go with the lowest price on pretty much any purchase.  With the modernization of production, it is normally safe to assume that any product purchased will pretty much be the exact same no matter where it is purchased.  With custom machine parts, it is important to ensure that the supplier is qualified and capable of making the part.

Large companies will spend a large amount of time vetting a new supplier that makes custom machined parts.  Two recent companies that have started with CNC Industries, spent an average of 6 months in the process of examining our company before sending their first production purchase orders to us.  In the process of examining our company the new customers looked at our production capabilities, our information management systems, our  inspection processes, and the custom machined parts that we have made in the past.

Now a small company will probably not have a team that is used to handling this process.  Many small companies may never have had to order custom parts before.  For those companies 6 months research of a new machine shop supplier is probably not an option that they can consider.  In that case, an examination of the website of the potential supplier is worthwhile of course, but anyone can have a nice web presence.  It is still possible to feel out a new machine shop without the lengthy process that large companies go through.

One way to start is to simply send out a Request For Quote  (RFQ) to the machine shop in question.  I would certainly recommend not simply going off of the price of the quote as the only determinate of which company to go with.  After receiving the quotes, you will probably see a wide variety of prices come in.  After getting these quotes call up a couple of machine shops from different price levels and ask to talk about how they are going to manufacture your part.  You will be able to  get a feel of the company by how they describe the process.  Some questions to ask them:

  • How did the come up with the price that they did?
  • What engineering steps take place before manufacturing?
  • What process control methods do they employ to ensure quality throughout manufacturing?
  • How is their inspection done?
  • Are they certified ISO or any other appropriate certification?

and one other that has been useful to many of our customers:

  • Are there any changes to the part that the machine shop would recommend in order to lower production cost?

We have been able to save many of our customers considerable amount on their prices by making minor non-functional changes to the part to enable easier machining.  Engineers that are focusing on assembly and pure functionality of the parts that they are designing may add features into a part that slow production time considerably but are not necessary to the functioning of the component (undercuts, overly tight tolerances, odd size material requirements, unusual material types etc)

Of course ask any other questions that you see appropriate.  It is important that you feel comfortable working with the machine shop that you decide upon. Our philosophy is that the most important measure of a machine shop is that of customer satisfaction.  We believe in what we call the 3 legged stool: Price, Quality and Customer Service.  Each of these attributes contributes to the overall value of the precision machine shop.

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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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April 9th, 2010|Tags: , |

Addressing Precision Aerospace Machining Difficulties

In the last post I talked about the difficulties of precision machining aerospace parts.  I would like to address these issues and specifically talk about how CNC Industries handles each of them.

The first issue, namely tight tolerances, is addressed in a few different ways.  The first step is to make sure that the equipment being used is capable of the types and quality of machining necessary.  Proper maintenance is also an important step, many companies lay-off their maintenance staff at the first sign of a downturn.  Maintenance is a key aspect of CNC Industries’ strategy.  The second step of ensuring that tolerances are met happens in engineering.  Engineering staff creates fixtures, work drawings, and machine code to run the part correctly.  Engineering is another key area that CNC Industries believes should not be cut too early.  The third step is to ensure that information about the part flows correctly.  To aid in this we have written our own ERP system.  Job Manager 2 is a real time system that enables information to be updated and transferred throughout the facility so that any changes made are implemented immediately.

The second issue, the amount of material removed, is a prime engineering problem.  The fixture created for each part must take into account the changes in strength that the material will go through during the machining process.  With fixturing being such an important aspect of creating a good custom machined part, we go through a process we call the Pre-Flight Meeting.  In this meeting our top management, quality assurance, engineers, and shop floor supervisors meet to discuss any issues that we see as important to the manufacturing of the part.

The third issue, external quality standards, is again addressed through information management.  Our ERP system allows each part to have an unlimited amount of quality standards.  The part routers created in Job Manager 2 allow for any and all detailed information to be added to an individual operation.  The amount of detail contained in each router, in addition to the real-time ERP system allows us to ensure that all of the information needed to complete a job to the full satisfaction of our customer is accessible at all times.

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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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April 5th, 2010|Tags: , , , |
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