Founded in 1947, in Veles, Macedonia, BRAKO produces parts and components used in medical devices, road sweeper trucks, airport ground equipment, forklift accessories, metal-welded constructions, small hydro plants, telecommunications shelters, and antenna towers.
As manufacturing finds its way through the 21st century, there’s a groundswell change emerging. Organizations are jockeying for competitive position as they endeavor to describe this phenomenon. Industry 4.0, the fourth industrial revolution, and the industrial internet of things (IIoT) are a few terms being tried on for size. Although the current transition is enabled by technology, there is a timeless underlying impetus: productivity.
There is a proliferation of management system standards and requirements globally. These management system standards are either customer or industry mandated. Many standards are becoming a requirement for doing business.
‘In God we trust; all others bring data.” “Follow the data.” “Let the data talk.” Nice clichés, but there’s one problem... data can’t talk. In fact, data don’t say a darn thing. Data are bits of raw information. If you want to reduce product variation, improve your manufacturing processes, and increase profits, you need to interrogate and analyze your data.
Your everyday permanent markers, glue sticks, and packing tape may offer a surprisingly low-tech solution to a long-standing nuisance in the manufacturing industry: Making soft and ductile, or so-called “gummy” metals easier to cut.
Factory and industrial inspections are the backbones of robust quality assurance programs. Inspection is also an integral part of machine system installation and maintenance, as well as in-situ repairs and retrofits. This is why highly competent individuals who understand the metrology methods of industrial inspection are worth their weight in gold. What can such an individual do when there is a glaring need for his expertise? Do as Damian Josefsberg did in 2003: With a smile and a handshake, he started his own metrology services company.
Quality and manufacturing practitioners are most familiar with the effect of variation on product quality, and this is still the focus of the quality management and Six Sigma bodies of knowledge. Other forms of variation are, however, equally important—in terms of their ability to cause what Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz called friction, a form of muda, or waste—in production control and also many service-related activities. This article shows how variation affects the latter as well as the former applications.
Anyone involved in 3D printing/additive manufacturing (AM) knows about STL file formats. Problem is—and no offense meant—STL is dumb. It’s just a large text file, generally written in ASCII programming language, defining the surface of a closed solid using a zillion triangles. For every tiny triangle, the file lists Cartesian coordinates locating its three vertices plus a normal. You can slice it up to print, but that’s it.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has campuses in Maryland, Colorado, South Carolina, and Hawaii. Now, I know what you’re thinking, “Hawaiian campus? How do I get a job at NIST?”
