I laud the Republican effort in the House to repeal the new health care law, not because it will succeed directly, but because it will rekindle the debate about how we balance the needs of the uninsured, share the costs, and allocate the control of health care in the U.S.
Everybody knows the old system was a patchwork improvisation which developed over 50 years. We’ve adjusted to it over time, but it really isn’t serving us well with constantly escalating prices and 30 million uncovered. I do not pretend to know how to fix what ails the system, but I assume the new law is a mess of regulations which must be shaped by experience.
I see the health care debate now entering a new and hopefully more realistic phase of negotiation between insurance companies, big business interests, small business advocates, doctors, and patients mediated by government. Health coverage will gradually be worked out over several years with the 2012 election affecting the negotiations.
We will have theater in Congress, but the real action will be the haggling over the regulations and finding out how the insurance exchanges work in practice. The new law may be horrible or it may not be half bad. In 12 to 18 months, after hundreds of wrestling matches in private, we’ll have a better idea of what works.
Question: Are you hopeful about the outcome of the debate, or will Obamacare simply be a disaster?
As Chinese citizens become more empowered by new wealth in their booming free market economy, some wonder if this will be a catalyst for the emergence of a democratic government in China.
In 10 years, will China have a democratic government?
By 2017, China will be a democracy to beat all democracies. The Chinese Communist Party will lead the transition after 2008, having realized in the aftermath of the Olympics that confi dent states have fully accountable leaders, an open press and a vibrant civil society. China’s democracy will begin as an overwhelmingly one-party state with only weak opposition, but over time will develop into a raucous, free-wheeling democracy like that of Taiwan. Special interest groups will abound, and lobbyists and lawyers will proliferate as the Chinese people increasingly seek to use the political system to maximize their economic gains. Even more than a democracy, China will be American capitalism on hyper-drive.
Elizabeth Economy The Council on Foreign Relations
Predictions about China’s future have been notoriously off the mark. Scholars seem no better equipped to forecast the future than intelligence analysts. If China is democratic ten years from now, we will trace back the origins to current trends. If not, we will point to the weakness of those trends: an expanding private sector, but closely tied to the state; a growing civil society, but limits on what interests can organize; easier access to information, but censorship of the official media and the Internet; an increasingly effective legal system, but subject to political interference; experiments not by its leaders, who have passed up numerous opportunities to engage in meaningful democratization. They are hoping that more effective governance will dampen popular demands for democracy.
Professor Bruce J. Dickson George Washington University
Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs said Monday that for health reasons he was taking another leave of absence from the daily duties of the company. He says he’s still staying on as CEO, yet it is unclear what that exactly means as his COO Tim Cook, who stepped in the last time Jobs left because of failing health, is assuming control of the day to day company operations.
Apple may very well be in a precarious situation right now because although it is a huge corporation with the biggest market cap of any tech company, its founder/CEO is both a genius and a micromanager. Jobs calls the shots for the company’s business strategies as most CEOs do, but he also has his hands in areas such as marketing and product design. It was Jobs who fought his reluctant board to build Apple stores around the world. It is said that he watches over minute details such as the number of screws on the bottom of a laptop and the curve of a monitor’s corners. It has also been said that he scrutinizes ad campaigns and will say to the marketing team things like, “The third word in the fourth paragraph isn’t right. You might want to think about that one.”
Someone with contacts close to the Apple executive team says Jobs has thoroughly trained his employees to “think like him,” which was what enabled things to go smoothly when he was gone the last time in 2009. The mantra in the company when making decisions became, “What would Steve do?”
As an Apple shareholder this news of course makes me rather nervous. The last time Jobs left in 2009, the stock plummeted. After Jobs came back the stock stabilized and rose to its all time high. When Jobs left, investors lost faith in the company because they felt that Jobs was the reason that the great Apple was the great Apple.
Apple’s (micro)management style has a resemblance to that of many small businesses. Think about the manufacturing companies that Today’s Machining World readers own and work for. If an owner or manager left one of these companies, would the employees say, “What would so and so owner do?” If that were the case, would that be a good thing?
Among many hats I wear, I handle human resources for a transmission remanufacturing facility with around 35 employees, including office staff. Our management asked me to develop a drug testing policy. I checked with our lawyers, who said we could do whatever we wanted since we’re a private company and there are no laws on the topic in our state. I don’t support drug use or any illegal conduct, but I’m wondering how to develop a policy that doesn’t seem overbearing. I’m also sure a few great employees will have problems with this because I’ve heard innuendo about what goes on during their garage band practices after work and on weekends. We haven’t had any problems on the floor or in the office that I can see. Where do I start?
Like the compass that identifies north but shows all 360 degrees, the answer depends on where you want to go. If the object is to root out drug use without regard to whether it affects performance, then test frequently, randomly and, of course, before employment. But drugs vary in their ability to be detected, and you may catch 100% of the casual marijuana users and few of the users of hard drugs such as cocaine. The reasons are chemical. The evidence of marijuana use stays in the body for weeks, well after the effects have worn off. Cocaine, however, leaves the body in days. The result could be that a random test on Tuesday catches your star employee who smoked marijuana three weeks ago in the privacy of his basement, but misses the cocaine user who put his paycheck up his nose at the bar Friday night and was planning on selling the tool holder he stole from the floor Monday.
The train from Beijing to Shanghai goes 200 miles per hour. Amtrak’s Acela Express train from Washington D.C. to New York goes half that on a good day. But our erstwhile stimulus package of 2009 has a lot of money designated to make us slightly better than mediocre in rail.
They are upgrading the service between Chicago and St. Louis, Los Angeles and San Francisco, Miami to Orlando and Tampa, and that hot rail market between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Train travel is fun. Security is not as annoying as at airports, and fares are pretty reasonable. My question is whether we can afford the cost of upgrading a third rate passenger rail system to a second rate one. Our interstate highway system is excellent, air transportation is still high caliber, so do we need to spend billions on passenger rail?
Mike Jackson, the CEO of AutoNation, the big publicly held consortium of car dealers, says pickup trucks are flying out of his stores. He sees this activity as a refection of the confidence of small business around the U.S.
Jackson is predicting a two or three year ramp-up to the 16 million car build rate, which has traditionally been the standard of automotive well being. With GM and Ford solidly in the black at 11.5 million units they will be coining money at 16. My question is whether the auto infrastructure can quickly accommodate 16 million. From a precision machining standpoint we are beginning to push the comfortable limits of production now in place. A 40 to 50 percent increase in build rate will strain everybody to meet requirements.
I talked to Kevin Meehan of Hydromat recently about the ability of his clients to expand production. He’s seeing some activity, but he thinks the big Tier Ones in Europe, particularly those in Germany, will be in the catbird seat to provide the sophisticated assemblies that will be in short supply. The Germans maintained their automotive infrastructure, while in North America we allowed the market to gut part of the supply chain.
The opportunity to get fat and happy during the impending U.S. car up tick may be more a bonanza for the Germans than for companies in the New World.
Question: Do you think Fiat is actually turning around Chrysler?
FANUC Robotics M-710iB/45T overhead rail-mounted robot, a six-axis, modular, electric servo-driven articulated gantry robot designed for material handling and machine tending. The robot makes efficient use of space by loading and unloading six machines. (Photo courtesy of FANUC Robotics America, Inc.)
Untouched by Hands
Robot load/unload systems change parts quickly to help maximize spindle time.
With constant pressure from customers to reduce costs, and your own need to maintain profitability – and stay in business in the face of offshore competition – consider finding a way to cut overhead and increase spindle up-time.
Tending a machine automatically with a robot instead of a human operator can save a little time on each cycle. Over weeks and months, even a few seconds per cycle can add up to a significant increase in production. And, since one operator can supervise a number of robot-fed machines, your labor costs can go down, as well. The bottom line? More profit.
Tending a machine automatically with a robot instead of a human operator can save a little time on each cycle. Over weeks and months, even a few seconds per cycle can add up to a significant increase in production. And, since one operator can supervise a number of robot-fed machines, your labor costs can go down, as well. The bottom line? More profit.
There are at least three cable series currently chronicling the business life of pawn shops. What is the fascination with people borrowing against baubles or selling their junk to professional peddlers for rent money?
I get a kick out of these shows and their genteel predecessor, Antiques Road Show, because the used machine tool racket that I practice is a bastard cousin of the pawn shop. I’m dealing in esoteric machinery which could be fodder for the furnace, or somebody’s stake to a fortune in Turkey or Topeka.
But I’m not only a purveyor of oily, wreaking junktiques from the basements of defunct car making mausoleums. I have my own collections of metal skeletons that have no logical home. Who wants a stock reel for a 4-spindle Conomatic? Who covets orphan bearings for random spindles for who knows what machine that used to be made in a demolished factory in Vermont?
Somebody may want my crusty flotsam and Jetsam, but who buys the pawnbrokers crap? If I’m the supposed authority on machine tool dinosaur bones, who’s my pawnbroker?
Once I almost traded an Acme for a yellow Mercedes convertible. Should have done it. Dumb iron is just dumb iron, unless it’s got a Fanuc control.
Question: Would you have taken the yellow Mercedes convertible?
Cutaway view of a part on a Bertsche high-pressure clean/deburr system shows internal features including angle passages, grooves and cross drilled holes. Features are deburred by spinning the part while high pressure water blasts the features.
The right parts cleaning system will fit into your process and cost-effectively give you the clean you need. Some systems can even do deburring.
Parts come off your lathes and machining centers covered with oil or cutting fluid and a lot of chips. The customer probably wants nice, clean parts. The best way to clean those parts depends on:
Part material
Part geometry
Debris and soil to be removed
Cleanliness required by the customer’s specs or for plating or other processes
Other factors, such as the need to maintain lot integrity
An aluminum or plastic part might require a different cleaning approach than a steel part. A complex part with blind holes or small cavities will be more challenging to clean than a simpler part.
Parts are specified to be visually clean, maybe 50 to 70 percent of the time, said Jeff Brouchoud, president, Alliance Manufacturing, Inc., Fond du Lac, Wisc. Some customers want an “oil break” test—water beads up on an oily surface, but forms a uniform sheet on a clean part. For critical parts, a Millipore test is done, which collects debris from a part and analyzes it for particle size and quantity.
Goldman Sachs is valuing Facebook at $50 billon and I am still calling my kids on the phone and texting only if I’ve got a magnifying glass available.
Frankly, I don’t care what my third cousin’s niece had for breakfast or if a high school acquaintance just had a prostate biopsy. I’m not particularly social, but I do love media. I know Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is Time’s Man of the Year and his success is legendary, but for a 60-something guy like me, Facebook seems like an Internet tinker toy.
What am I missing here? Are any of you machining brethren, machinery mavens, media types, etc. actually using Facebook either personally or professionally? Or is it just the province of children, teenagers, and Generation X, Y, Zers?
The growth of Facebook has been stunning, and Zuckerberg vows to connect the world. Every Bolivian lithium miner, vodka stained Finnish reindeer rancher, and Polynesian pearl diver supposedly will be clutching their iPhone waiting to connect with a sopping lobsterman from Maine. Six degrees of separation between Osama Bin Laden and General Stanley McChrystal.
Readers, bloggers, actual friends, please tell me about your Facebook divorces, your Facebook reunions, or better yet, your Facebook sales.
By the way, click here to become a friend of Today’s Machining World on Facebook.
Question: Is Facebook a viable business tool or are we all “tools” to waste our time showing our cyber sexy flossing photos to our cyber “friends?”
Among many hats I wear, I handle human resources for a transmission remanufacturing facility with around 35 employees, including office staff. Our management asked me to develop a drug testing policy. I checked with our lawyers, who said we could do whatever we wanted since we’re a private company and there are no laws on the topic in our state. I don’t support drug use or any illegal conduct, but I’m wondering how to develop a policy that doesn’t seem overbearing. I’m also sure a few great employees will have problems with this because I’ve heard innuendo about what goes on during their garage band practices after work and on weekends. We haven’t had any problems on the floor or in the office that I can see. Where do I start?
