Tool & Die Authority - May 2010

The Tool and Die Authority May 2010 Newsletter contained these articles:

Linking to the Alternative-Energy Supply Chain, Part 2 : Joe Brown
Increasing Press Speed and Efficiency: Peter Ulintz
Tool and Die Futures Initiative—Brutal Facts, But Hope Lives On!: Bob Quinn
Effective Error Proofing: Drew Stevens

and from Danny Schaeffler of Engineering Quality Solutions (EQS)...
Problem-Solving Techniques: The Five-Whys (or, How to be a Wise Guy)

You've got good people in your organization, yet you still run into problems that impact production and profitability. When solutions are obvious, your people on the floor can solve problems without any extra help. But what happens when a problem arises that can't be fixed right away?

The Five-Why technique presented here is a method used to determine the root cause of a particular defect or problem. It involves tracing the chain of causality in direct and discrete increments, by questioning why the particular problem or observation occurred. The technique then leads to discovering the initial discrepancy or issue that started the process leading up to the failure.

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Tool & Die Authority - April 2010

The Tool and Die Authority April 2010 Newsletter contained these articles:

Keeping U.S. Manufacturers Linked to the Alternative-Energy Supply Chain: Joe Brown
Die Damage at Coil Change: Peter Ulintz
Lean Misperceptions: Bob Quinn
Proper Documentation for Troubleshooting and Cost Justification: Drew Stevens

and from Danny Schaeffler of Engineering Quality Solutions (EQS)...
Specimen Shapes Shown in Sheet-Steel Specifications (or, Know Where the Numbers Come From)

When you order steel, you define the grade by ordering to a certain specification, such as ASTM A653 when asking for hot dipped galvanized drawing steel. The specifications include details of the properties that must be met, such as composition and mechanical properties, along with thickness and flatness tolerances. The specification also includes a description of how these parameters are measured. Here we address the dimensioning of tensile test specimens.


Dogbone Dimensions

Historically, tensile-test specimen dimensions have been defined by the country or regional standardization organization from which the specifications were published. These include ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials), JIS (Japanese Industrial Standards), EN (Europäischen Normen), BS (British Standards), DIN (Deutsches Institut für Normung) and SEW (Stahl-Eisen-Werkstoffblätter).

One of three standard test-specimen shapes typically find use for tensile tests; all have a basic dogbone shape so that failure occurs in the reduced-width section.

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#autosteel: @DannyEQS Will Be Tweeting from the 2010 Great Designs in Steel Seminar on May 5, 2010!

@DannyEQS will be live-tweeting from the Great Designs in Steel Seminar sponsored by AISI on May 5, 2010. I'll be using the hashtag #autosteel!

Talks on Advanced High Strength Steels from General Motors, Ford, BMW, universities, consultants, government organizations and more!

It's an annual event sponsored by AISI - and there's no charge to attend!

Nearly all of the presentations dating back to 2002 are on their website - you can see the tremendous scope and detail that gets presented every year.

And, no, I don't work for AISI. I'm just really impressed with what they provide the steel user community.

Tool & Die Authority - March 2010

The Tool and Die Authority March 2010 Newsletter contained these articles:

How Detroit “Won the War”: Joe Brown
Tool Repair by Welding: Peter Ulintz
Compound Innovation: Bob Quinn
Preventing Nuisance Faults, Part 3: Drew Stevens

and from Danny Schaeffler of Engineering Quality Solutions (EQS)...
Loose Change Management Can Be Costly (or, Poor Record Keeping Can Lead to Costly Actions)

As a part evolves during the normal development cycle from CAD model to soft tool to hard tool to production-ready tooling, there can be many changes to the blank thickness, dimensions and shape, and sometimes even the type of material. It is imperative that a complete and detailed record of these changes be kept to document what was used at each step of the process, especially when the parts are involved in crash tests.


Here's the story of an important safety component — the windshield header for a convertible...

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Technology Tips for Small Businesses: Send Live Tweets from Meetings you Attend

Sara Morgan, owner of Custom Solutions, LLC and founder of the No Limits blog, sent out a solicitation for real world uses of technology geared towards Small Business Owners. She was kind enough to put my entry first on her growing list. Here's what I had to say...

You probably attend many meetings, conferences, and exhibitions specific to your business. By sending out tweets, you can position yourself as an expert in the field. You don't need to add commentary - just report the facts. Then, when people are searching for the well-known speakers, you'll come up on the search page as well. Visibility is critical to compete with the bigger players in your field.

Recently, I attended an industry conference on Sheet Forming of High Strength Steels. (You couldn't possibly be more specialized than that!) Rather than taking notes on paper, I tweeted them from my Blackberry - making sure each tweet had a specialized hashtag and some reference to the author and title. This left me enough characters for a brief comment. After the conference, I posted the tweets on my blog and my LinkedIn account.

Now, when people Google pertinent terms, I have a chance of coming up on the same page as the author. Will this additional recognition lead to business? I hope so, but it's been only a few weeks since the conference. However, being an independent consultant in a highly specialized field, I'll take any advantage I can get.

Tool & Die Authority - February 2010

The Tool and Die Authority February 2010 Newsletter contained these articles:

Marketing Makes a Difference for Manufacturers — Part 2: Joe Brown
Tool Damage Caused by Sharpening: Peter Ulintz
Can Robotics Help a Tool and Die Shop? Part 2: Bob Quinn
Preventing Nuisance Faults, Part 2: Drew Stevens


and from Danny Schaeffler of Engineering Quality Solutions (EQS)...
What is Steel? … Part 4: Dual Phase Steels (or, The Shape of Things to Come)

Since the early to mid 1990s, dual phase steels have been available in Europe and Japan, and have been used in their bill of materials for vehicle production. Concurrent with the wider adoption of this family of higher strength steels, the overseas divisions of auto OEMs were forging closer ties with their US counterparts, and OEMs were pushing for common grades available worldwide. At the same time, fuel economy standards were getting more challenging to meet, and crash/rollover requirements were being raised. About 10 years ago, as a result of this perfect storm, domestic car companies pushed the North American steelmakers to develop and commercialize dual phase steels.




“Dual Phase” describes the steel microstructure – these grades have two phases: islands of hard martensite within a matrix of soft ferrite. As the martensite content increases, so does the strength. The most common dual phase steel grade has a minimum yield strength of 350MPa and a minimum tensile strength of 600MPa. In this alloy, there is about 10% martensite in the microstructure, with the remainder comprised of ferrite.

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