“Geoff Forester photograph, courtesy of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund”.

I had the pleasure of touring the 150 year old Beech River Mill last Friday. This company, a manufacturer of custom made wooden shutters and doors,  is the last mill operating on the Beech River, a short river flowing through Ossipee, New Hampshire. Mills  have been on the Beech River since the late 1700s, and many building foundations remain along the riverbank. The mill was busy, fulfilling orders for many building restoration and custom home projects throughout the northeast.  The operating floor, still residing on the original wooden planks, was an interesting mixture of modern and Victorian era woodworking equipment. Of particular interest were the comments from the workers. Although the Victorian equipment had a dozen oiling ports on it that needed to be filled before the machine started, as long as the machine was lubricated and the blades were sharp, the machinery worked beautifully. If a component wore out, a visit to the local blacksmith generally solved the problem. The modern equipment, with its computers, sensors, and other technologies is far more sensitive. Breakdowns are more frequent and repairs are more difficult and expensive.

Lean manufacturing is about eliminating waste.  Sometimes that waste  is not apparent. Modern, high productivity equipment would seem like an easy choice to eliminate  labor intensive, lower production rate equipment.  And sometimes it is. However, aren’t  higher downtime rates and delays in repairs of the modern equipment wasteful? Maybe slower and steady is the least wasteful way to operate some of the steps in your production. You must look at the entire operating system and the interaction of all the components on the final product and the output of the factory before you make any changes. How many of us have heard the regrets of manufacturers who bought equipment that didn’t work the way they thought it would?

Proponents of Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints look at the entire manufacturing system and its throughput in ways that make these types of decisions less troublesome and more effective. In fact, in Goldratt’s popular business novel, “The Goal”, an old piece of equipment saved the day for a factory trying to eliminate a production bottleneck.  As the economy improves and you’re looking to expand, step back and consider a Theory of Constraints approach to your situation before you make any decisions.

“Geoff Forester photograph, courtesy of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund”.

This must be the week for good news about education. Besides my always uplifting experience speaking with Dartmouth graduate students, I heard today that the Manchester (NH) School of Technology will be featured on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 on Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 11:30 PM. According to MST principal Karen White, ” It is about how the state of NH has done better than other states in the country on dropout prevention and we were chosen by the Dept of Ed to showcase our efforts. One of the highlights is that technical education is what is attracting students and keeping them in”.

I’ve been working with MST as part of a advisory group that has helped them institute a manufacturing technology program for their students. This is a comprehensive program that provides hands-on education in all aspects of technologies involved in manufacturing.  The program features a well equipped training area and an experienced teacher focused on this curriculum. Part of the training includes introductions to lean manufacturing, statistical techniques, and the many people skills required for a successful career. Students come out of the program ready to go to work, or to enter a more in-depth continuation of the training at Manchester Community College. Either way, manufacturers are getting new workers ready for successful careers in industry.

“Geoff Forester photograph, courtesy of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund”.

I just finished my fourth yearly visit to Dartmouth College to speak to their Master of Engineering Management students about running a manufacturing company. These students are in a great program that prepares them for real world situations. All students go through certification for Six Sigma Black Belt and are well versed in principles of Lean Manufacturing and Theory of Constraints. We had the pleasure of working with two of their students on research projects here at Graphicast. They helped us solve a recurring quality issue in casting and developed a method for reducing set up times in CNC machining. I always enjoy my time at Dartmouth and hope we can work with their students on other projects in the future.

We’ve recently added these two, hope you find the information helpful.

The timeline shows why customers use Graphicast’s Design and Rapid Prototype Service (DRPS). You can greatly shorten time to market and reduce development costs at the same time. Graphicast will help engineer your part as a casting from the start, giving you the opportunity to maximize as-cast features in your part. This reduces machining, saving you money on production parts.

Graphicast has worked with customers for more than 30 years to turn their part designs into cost effective casting solutions. Graphicast often works within an existing design, a fabrication, a machined part, or a machined prototype component. Since the parts were not designed as a casting in these examples, there may have been lost opportunities to gain the full economic benefit of as-cast features. What if the design process started with the thought of casting the part?

By starting a new part design with the casting process in mind, all considerations of a casting (draft, radii, cast surfaces, and near net shape geometry) can be incorporated to take full advantage of the process. This yields the lowest part cost. This is why Graphicast offers a Design and Rapid Prototype Service. Graphicast will work with you from the beginning of your product design process to develop the most cost effective casting solution for your part. Additionally, Graphicast can greatly reduce total development time and cost by eliminating intermediate prototyping steps. You will be prototyping to the final design in the final material.

Graphicast’s Design and Rapid Prototyping Process

In talking with our customers, we learned they often go through two steps in their current product development process. They first employ several rapid prototyping methods (most frequently stereolithography – SLA) during concept and early design stages, and then go on to produce a CNC machined prototype at the end of the process. Most indicated it would have been a huge benefit to have had help with casting design at the start of the project. They saw the benefit as not just time and cost savings, but also viewed it as a tool to reduce stress on their internal resources.

The key to successfully applying a casting process to a new product design is to consider the process capabilities and limitations right from the start of the project, when there is maximum design flexibility. This is a goal of any Lean Product Development or Design for Manufacturability effort. By using Graphicast’s expertise in converting parts to castings, we want to help you plan the most cost effective approach to your original design. Typically, when the design meets your criteria and approval, we produce a SLA prototype. We find this gives our customers a very clear idea of what the final part will look like and to use it for form, fit, and function checks.

Frequently, this stage provides the knowledge and confidence to proceed directly to production of the mold. In the case where a metal prototype is required to test specific properties (such as thermal or electrical conductivity, strength, EMI shielding, or lubricity), or for an assembly fit or mechanical testing, we can produce a CNC machined prototype made from our ZA12 alloy. The ZA12 prototype can incorporate all the design considerations of a casting. In all cases, the time to produce the mold and cast the first production parts is greatly reduced because the part design was done in the prototyping stage.

Graphicast believes this process is so effective, we will apply $1000 of any DRPS project toward the cost of the graphite mold for the part designed in the project.

The photograph shows the full extent of a DRPS project. Starting from the lower left and proceeding clockwise: SLA prototype part, CNC machined prototype part, machined production casting, plated production part. The entire design process can be explored in a variety of prototyping methods to achieve the best design for your part.

Taking Innovative Casting Technology
to Your Bottom Line™