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Life’s Work–Life’s Pleasure

Posted on July 20, 2010

By Lloyd Graff

Tony Maglica of Mag Instrument Inc. at Work

I just spent a week doing the most inefficient, labor-intensive, stupidly expensive, appallingly large carbon footprint use of my time I can think of. I schlepped to California and knocked on doors. It was one of the most satisfying weeks I’ve spent in 10 years. Every face-to-face call I made was productive. Each client and potential client I met with spent more time with me and was more open than I could’ve anticipated. I realized that old school active listening face-to-face was still magical.

Two of the clients I visited were Tony Maglica and Ray Fish, who continue to defy the odds and conventional business wisdom as they build their companies in ridiculously expensive Los Angeles. Tony is 80 years old and runs Mag Instrument. Inc., the manufacturer of the Maglite® Flashlight,out of an immaculate million square foot complex in Ontario, 30 miles southeast of L.A. Ray is 76 and runs Electro-Adapter, making aircraft wiring hardware out of a functional 100,000 square foot plant in Chatsworth in the San Fernando Valley.

Both men work a dozen hours a day turning aluminum and other metals into countless perfect assemblies and finished products. Are they doing it for the money? Of course there are. And of course they aren’t. Tony could’ve sold out for centimillions I’m sure, and Ray hardly needs a tag day, but the daily challenges continue to light their fires.

Both guys still love to buy machinery. They live for the bargains on cam equipment that their peers would call obsolete. Tony recently bought a batch of Davenport screw machines and Ray picked up ten B60 single spindle turret automatics and made five good ones out of them. He still has the extra carcasses laying around for useful scavenging. Tony Maglica’s passion for unloved machinery brought him to the bankrupt assets of German Rotary transfer machine maker, Eubama, which he picked up from the ash heap. Tony has long admired the small Eubama trunnion, and he’s relishing the challenge of tweaking the design and making the key components in California and then shipping them to Germany for assembly.

Ray Fish was crowing to me about getting a steal on a Haas SL-20 lathe in a San Diego machine shop auction. The machine had 300 hours on the spindle. He had also just lowballed a dealer on a GT 75 Omniturn, even though he needs three of them right now. Ray knows what he wants, but the fun for him is buying it at garage sale prices.

When I spend time with manufacturing lifers like Tony Maglica and Ray Fish, I think of the aphorism, “Nobody says on their deathbed ‘I wish I’d spent more time at the office.’” I think these guys would laugh out loud at that common wisdom.

Question: On your deathbed do you think you will wish you had spent less time at the office?

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FANUC CNC AMERICA REPRESENTED AS A SINGLE ENTITY AT IMTS

Posted on July 20, 2010

HOFFMAN ESTATES, IL – (July 20, 2010) For the first time in over three decades, FANUC CNC America will present a single FANUC CNC entity in the Americas at IMTS 2010, alongside FANUC Robotics America. The newly formed FANUC CNC America is the largest CNC organization in the Americas with over 350 employees solely dedicated to CNC sales, service and support. FANUC CNC America, which was formed by merging Fanuc America and GE FANUC CNC, provides customers with industry leading technology from the undeniable global leader in CNC.

At IMTS 2010, a new corporate FANUC company symbol will also be unveiled in America’s market. The new symbol was created to represent the three major divisions of FANUC Ltd. Japan: FA (Factory Automation), RO (Robot) and RM (RoboMachine). The dedicated focus of FANUC in each of these three product divisions will help FANUC to continue to expand its position as a leader in CNC and Automation solutions globally. Representing FA (Factory Automation), FANUC CNC America is driven to enhance manufacturing productivity through the use of FANUC CNC’s innovative, efficient and reliable CNC products.

As a subsidiary of FANUC LTD., FANUC CNC America is the exclusive provider of industry leading FANUC CNC systems and solutions in the Americas. FANUC CNC America provides a one-stop shop for comprehensive CNC solutions including industry-leading control systems, engineering, parts, and repair and factory automation solutions.

FANUC CNC America will unveil advanced CNC control innovations at IMTS 2010, Booth #S-8919. These include: new model 30i-B Series CNC Control, 0i-D/0i-DMate Control with newly enhanced functionality, new 35i-B Series CNC Control for transferline machines, new 5-axis volumetric error compensation and comprehensive industry solutions.

FANUC CNC America’s will have an iPad giveaway at IMTS. To register for a chance to win an iPad, go to FANUC CNC America’s Booth #S-8919. A total of six iPads will be given away. One winner will be drawn from each day’s registrants; one entry per person. Winners will be notified after IMTS. *iPad is a trademark of Apple Inc.

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EQUIPOIS INC., NAMED THE “MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANY OF THE YEAR” FOR NORTH AMERICA

Posted on July 16, 2010

Los Angeles (July 15, 2010) – Equipois Inc., a Los Angeles-based designer and manufacturer of a patented “zero gravity” workplace technology, has been selected as the recipient of the International StevieÒ Award for Most Innovative Company of the Year, North America. The Stevie Award is the only global, all-encompassing business awards program honoring great performances in business. Equipois was recognized for its patented zeroG technology, which allows tools and other objects to float as if weightless, boosting productivity and eliminating injuries.

“Equipois is delighted to have received such an esteemed award for innovation, a category that included many great North American companies. The award is a testament to the value that our zeroG technology has brought to the manufacturing sector, and caps off a gratifying series of successes,” said Equipois Inc.’s President & CEO, Eric Golden.

In a string of victories, Equipois was recently honored by taking first place in two recent Southern California fast-pitch competitions (one hosted by Tech Coast Angels and UCLA and the other by Monte Jade Science & Technology Association and Cal Tech), as well as a Progressive Manufacturing Award and four “product of the year” awards.

The zeroG mechanical arm technology was invented by Garrett Brown, father of the award-winning Steadicam® camera stabilization system that revolutionized the movie and television industry. Equipois collaborated with Brown to adapt the Steadicam technology for the workplace in order to allow workers to maneuver tools and parts with much less exertion and fatigue. The collaboration resulted in a family of new patent applications, in addition to the existing patents related to the Steadicam products.

According to Golden, “The zeroG technology offers a disruptive leap forward in performance over conventional alternatives. Our products have been proven to reduce workplace injuries, increase worker productivity, and save money by eliminating the costly and widespread injuries caused by exertion, repetition and strain, while increasing throughput, control and precision. It allows virtually any payload – from tools to baggage to the human arm itself – to be maneuvered as if weightless, but with full range of motion, as if the object were being manipulated in space.” Equipois’s customers include some of the world’s top manufacturers in automotive, aerospace, machinery, and other sectors.

Equipois has emerged as the pioneer in the development of zero gravity assistive technologies. The company is currently extending its zeroG technologies to other industries, including dynamic support of the human arm for surgery, dentistry, laboratory tasks and other activities, where professionals are forced to work with arms outstretched for long periods. Other uses of the technology include materials handling, military field applications, and construction, among others. The technology also has the potential to serve as a rehabilitative tool and assistive device for disabled individuals. Equipois is presently working with top universities on pilot projects for rehabilitation of victims of stroke and other brain injuries.

About Equipois Inc.

Equipois designs and manufactures revolutionary dynamic assist devices that support the musculoskeletal system while allowing full spatial and rotational freedom of motion. The company’s patented zeroG® systems are designed to support a range of manufacturing, heavy industrial, bioresearch, medical and other applications in order to reduce workplace injuries and associated costs while increasing productivity. For more information, visit http://www.equipoisinc.com.

About The Stevie Awards

Stevie Awards are conferred in four programs: The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Honoring companies of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about The Stevie Awards at www.stevieawards.com.

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Should the Government Not Help Michigan?

Posted on July 16, 2010

By Noah Graff

President Obama with the Chevrolet Volt after a groundbreaking ceremony for a new battery plant in Holland, Mich (Photo source: NY Times)

Yesterday, Barack Obama visited the Compact Power plant in Holland, Michigan, to attend the groundbreaking of a new plant to produce battery cells for Ford and GM electric vehicles.

The $300 million facility is the ninth factory to begin construction since the administration allocated $2.4 billion from the president’s economic stimulus program toward production of advanced batteries and electric vehicles. It is one of two factories in Holland, which together have received $450,000 in grants from the U.S. government.

The factory that broke ground Thursday will employ 400 people, in 18 months. It and others like it could be a decent starting point to jumpstart economic growth in Michigan. In five years, officials say, the government subsidized plants will be making batteries for 500,000 new cars a year and will cost 70 percent less.

The Holland area happens to have a large Tea Party movement. They have come out with a mixed reaction to the government stimulus and the President’s visit. Jim Chiodo, a Tea Party leader in Holland, said that he has nothing against the jobs that the plant will provide the town. But says he doesn’t believe it’s up to the government to pick and choose which towns get help.

“For every winner, there’s 10 losers,” Chiodo says. “It’s really, really hard to take a position that’s against your hometown. And I’m not against my hometown. I love Holland. I’ve been here 25 years. It’s a great town. But it’s going to hurt towns like Holland when this gravy train gets turned off.”

If that’s all Chiodo can say to criticize the stimulus program, he’s having some trouble keeping his Tea Party cred in my book.

I’ve always been a big fan of analogies, here’s what I came up with in response to that criticism.

Is it fair for one guy on dialysis to get a kidney transplant while another guy who needs one dies because he was further down on the list? Of course not. So does that mean nobody should get a new kidney then? Take this further now, what if you knew that the guy who was lucky enough to receive the kidney was an amazing doctor who had a good chance to help prevent others from having kidney problems like his own. And, what if the only way the doctor could get the kidney fast enough to survive was with help from an arrogant, socialist, idiotic president who had no experience with kidney problems?

One could say that Holland and lot of towns in Michigan are on economic dialysis. I’m not sure how doing nothing “Tea Party style” can save it and places like it.

Question: Should the Obama administration not have helped build the battery factory in Holland, Michigan?

Source: NPR.org

New York T

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One on One with Dan Ariely: Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University

Posted on July 15, 2010

Interviewed by Noah Graff

Dan Ariely is professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University. Behavioral economics examines market trends like traditional economics, but distinguishes itself by not assuming that humans always act rationally. The research relies on observing how people behave rather than using traditional economics methods such as cost-benefit analysis.

What is the behavioral economics perspective of the recent stock market crash?
DA: You can think about the recent stock market crash as a good example of the differences between standard and behavioral economics. In standard economics you let people run loose, and because people can optimize and be rational and they do only what’s best for themselves, the whole system works very well. In behavioral economics we don’t think this is the case. We think that there’s a lot of reasons why people make mistakes, and as a consequence they can’t be let loose on everything. The free market is not the right approach.

Define “irrational.”
DA: When we act in ways that we don’t understand or predict. This matters because it gives us an opportunity to get into trouble. If I think that I will have safe sex when the time comes but when I get aroused I don’t, it’s an opportunity to get into trouble. If I think that I will save for a long time but then I get tempted to buy certain things, that’s a problem. If we think that people can compute what is the right amount of mortgage for them to take out that’s a problem. If we think like Greenspan said when he testifi ed in front of congress that he thought that people would work in the best interest of their companies, which is clearly not the case, we get into trouble.

Read full article here

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ATI INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION’S FOURTH ANNUAL OPEN HOUSE AND TECHNOLOGY TRAINING FAIR SCHEDULED FOR AUGUST 19TH, 2010

Posted on July 14, 2010

Apex, North Carolina: ATI Industrial Automation, a world-leading engineering-based developer of robotic peripheral equipment, including Automatic Tool Changers, Multi-axis Force/Torque Sensing Systems, Robotic Deburring Tools, Robotic Collision Sensors and Compliance Devices, will host their 4th Annual Open House and Technology Training Fair at the Detroit, Michigan Sales Office located at 4577 South Lapeer Road, Suite 1, Orion Township, MI 48359. On Thursday, August 19th discussions will detail the many new end-effector products developed by ATI over the past year. ATI Account Managers and Engineers will be available throughout the event to discuss existing and potential applications and answer questions about the complete end-effector product line. A schedule will be announced on ATI’s web site www.ati-ia.com; if you would like a specific topic to be covered please contact Catherine Morris as soon as possible.

A live robot demonstration of ATI’s Robotic Tool Changers, Robotic Collision Sensors, Robotic Deburring Tools and Compliance Devices will run all day. ATI Engineering team members will also be available for informal one-on-one meetings to discuss a variety of topics or specific customer applications. Food and refreshments will be available all day.

To register for the Open House and Technology Training Fair contact Catherine Morris at catherine@ati-ia.com or 919-772-0115 ext. 135. For additional information on the entire ATI product line contact ATI Industrial Automation, Pinnacle Park, 1031 Goodworth Drive, Apex, NC 27539, phone
919-772-0115, fax 919-772-8259, www.ati-ia.com.

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The Human Instinct to Create

Posted on July 14, 2010

By Noah Graff

For an extra $5,800, buyers of a Corvette Z06 or ZR1 can go to the General Motors Performance Build Center in Wixom, Mich., and assemble their own car’s engine. Even car maintenance novices will have the opportunity to build their own engines because as part of the deal a GM technician supervises the process.

“Corvette owners are some of the most passionate—and most involved—enthusiasts in the industry,” Jim Campbell, vice president of Chevrolet marketing in the United States, said on Monday. “The Corvette engine build experience offers customers an unprecedented opportunity to participate, hands on, in creating the car.”

Now I’m not the most mechanically inclined (ironic for an editor at Today’s Machining World), but I still think that it’s a way cool idea. But why?

Why are people fascinated with doing things independently and creating things themselves? I know, some of you are skeptical of this commentary, because after all, in America we are notorious for watching copious amounts of TV, eating fast food and going to Wal-Mart to buy everything we need.

Most people reading this article do a least one of those things, but still, tons of Americans like watching reality shows about hands on topics like cooking, building customized motorcycles, and restoring houses. Americans like to go to restaurants like Big Bowl where we pay for the right to create our own Asian dishes. We go to fish hatcheries and go berry picking where we hunt and gather our own food and then pay someone for the experience. Along with that caveman phenomenon, it seems like every other American is proud to have created his or her own HD home video.

Is it human instinct to want to build and create? Or maybe even just animal instinct? I believe it is. Many people don’t create things on a regular basis because we’ve been conditioned that the ideal is for other people or machines to do things for us, whether it be cook, farm, program computers, or fix our car engines.

But if you put kids together in a sandbox, or in a room with Legos, or even in a kitchen with pots and pans, there is a good chance they will create something, be it be a structure or a story or a work of art.

Question: Is it human nature to create things?

Source: nytimes.com

Corvette LS9 Engine Built From Start to Finish

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The Intersection Of Art and Connecting Mechanics

Posted on July 13, 2010

By Robert Strauss

Fernando Orellana’s father was a civil engineer and Fernando, when he was growing up, liked art. There seemed little to connect them.
“But I saw my father tinkering when he came home, doing this and that. I watched, but with no particular interest,” said Orellana. “Then someone connected the dots for me. What my dad was doing was no less art than what I did. The idea is that he was being creative and trying to figure things out. That is art.”

What finally dawned on Orellana is what has become an exciting mini-trend in modern art, the connection of mechanics, technology and art, primarily sculpture. Since it is primarily robotics-based, it is called ArtBots, and its advocates are positively evangelical about it.

“The definition of robotics is not firm and, frankly, the definition of art isn’t firm either,” said Douglas Irving Repetto, whose day job is as the Director of Research at the Columbia University Computer Music Center, but whose lifeblood is as the guru of the ArtBot movement. He has been the curator of several significant ArtBot exhibitions, the most recent one this summer at the Klein Art Gallery in the University City Science Center, a research facility just off the campuses of the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University. “It is a diverse and wide open field and full of open questions. The primary one is, ‘What does it mean for a non-human system to be creative?’ Each artist is asking different questions when he or she enters the world of robotics. There is a sense now that there is a lot here, and that we don’t really know the answers yet.”

Read full article here >

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EXSYS Tool, Inc. Appoints New National Product Manager for Mexico

Posted on July 9, 2010

San Antonio, Florida, July 9, 2010 – EXSYS Tool, Inc. has announced the appointment of Arturo Lozano to the position of National Product Manager in Mexico for the Kitagawa-NorthTech line of products. EXSYS Tool was named exclusive distributor of Kitagawa-NorthTech workholding solutions for the country of Mexico earlier this year.

Mr. Lozano’s career in the machine tool business began in 1998 as a sales representative for Hi-Tec de Mexico, a distributor of Haas and Mori Seiki products. Over the past decade, he has worked in multiple positions that provided experience with Okuma, Mazak and DMG products as well.

“Throughout the course of his career, Arturo Lozano has acquired substantial experience across a broad range of the machine tool industry,” said Stewart Bachmann, President, EXSYS Tool, Inc. “He brings considerable expertise to our operations in Mexico and we are very excited to be welcoming him to the EXSYS Tool family.”

As National Product Manager, Mr. Lozano will provide support to the sales team for any Kitagawa-NorthTech equipment, as well as serve as the direct contact for both Kitagawa-NorthTech and Tecnara in Mexico

About EXSYS Tool, Inc.
EXSYS Tool, Inc. provides high precision rotary and fixed tool holder solutions for CNC turning centers. Each toolholder is designed specifically for unique brands such as Mazak, Doosan, Haas, Hardinge, Okuma and many others. For more information on EXSYS Tool, Inc.’s products and services, please contact Sales at sales@exsys-tool.com.

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You Need to Be Paranoid

Posted on July 9, 2010

By Noah Graff

I recently came across a hysterical YouTube video satirizing the screw-ups by BP management as they try to stop the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. In the video, a group of BP execs are sitting in a boardroom and someone spills a cup of coffee on the table. The group panics and makes blunder after blunder trying to corral the coffee. They try things as ridiculous as pouring garbage on the table, throwing wads of hair, and sucking the coffee up with a drinking straw.

I stepped back and asked myself, why did the guy spill the coffee in the video? How does an “accident” like this happen? The spill happened because the guy in the video wasn’t paying attention, he was distracted, he was relaxed about the risk of spilling the coffee.

I think back to a ski trip I took 14 years ago in Colorado when I was 16. I met this middle aged guy on the trip, who had some of the greatest stories I’d ever heard about racing stunt cars, doing illicit drugs, and traveling to dangerous places around the world. These were his words of wisdom, “Noah, it’s ok to do dangerous, crazy stuff. The important thing is to stay paranoid while your doing the dangerous stuff.” His rational was that usually the people who get hurt are the people who relax and feel like they have nothing to worry about. You get away with something risky long enough and before long you forget that it’s a big deal—be it cheating on your wife, sub-prime mortgages or faulty engineering.

Toyota’s management skimped on quality control in recent years, BP didn’t follow accepted safety protocol, Wall Streeters believed they could get away with bad bets over and over again. If the guy in the video had been paranoid about spilling the coffee he probably wouldn’t have done it.

Question: Do you think that good BP management would have been able to stop the oil spill by now?

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