We often get asked about tube finishing here. Tube is one of the materials that seems to be in every shop but no one notices. Some tasks with tube can be super simple and others can be a real pain in the butt. So to keep it short lets look at working with basic straight lengths and some bends.
With so many facilities working with round tube, it seems that giving a little information on how to finish round tube would be helpful. There are all manner of ways people have come up with but there are safe and easy processes you may not know about. I am not going to go over every possible way but rather focus on the safe and simple.
The stroke sander is one of the machines that some may not have ever even seen before. Then there are some that will have seen one in the past but were not sure what it was for. Lets dip into what a stroke sander is and what its for. I will just touch the high points to give a general feel for the machine. Never hesitate to ask questions as its the best way to learn more.
I seems like when I ask someone why they do a task a given way the answer is very often "its how we have always done it". My next question is why? It is very rare anyone can answer that question and I end up with "Well Bill showed me this way". Then I go find Bill and ask the same question and he also has no idea as to why. You can continue this process moving person to person until you end up with the janitor and still have no answer.
As is the case in every market and business costs are key. Doing more with less or getting as much as possible from the resources you have are always important things to look at. When manufacturing is the market in question it can mean many things. So lets look at some of them.
One of the aspects I am able to see in fair detail is where manufacturing work is being done. While I will admit this more of a rant than anything else it is information none the less.
When the topic of automation comes up cutting costs is always part of the conversation. More often than not people do not understand the full scope of what this means.
I wanted to recount an experience I had very recently and what I learned from it. I found it a bit eye opening and was surprised by some aspects. It made me aware of something I had not considered and changed some of my perspectives.
There are many reasons to look into automation. The list of reasons can be endless but I want to touch on a few of the more common. My goal is to answer some of the questions many have but do not know who to ask or have faith they will get honest answers. These are just some of the more common ones and by no means a full list. If you have your own questions as always please feel free to ask and I am happy to answer.
