Shop-Floor Programming Beats Outsourcing
Delcam PowerMILL CAM software

Although most automotive companies seem to focus on outsourcing as many of their manufacturing operations as possible, DELPHI, a world leader in automotive electronics and systems technology, has successfully moved some of its moldmaking operations back in-house. Delcam's PowerMILL computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software, new machining centers from Makino and innovative people have helped the company's Flint, Michigan, 29 Mold Build Toolroom transition to both high-speed machining and shop-floor programming. These changes have proved critical in meeting the cost and delivery-time objectives of the transfer of work.

Full Story...

Striving for Continuous Improvement
ASI DataMyte Quantum SPC/DC and Importer data-collection software

From the components in the kitchen cabinet drawers and door locks in your home, to those in the turn signals and air bags of your car, Trans-Matic products are all around you. Headquartered in Holland, Michigan, the company specializes in deep-drawn metal stampings, creating high-quality precision metal components.

Given the company's diverse product mix and volumes that reach into the millions of units, meeting customers' expectations is a serious long-term challenge. Trans-Matic traditionally ensured customer satisfaction by collecting and recording data manually. With more than 600 active parts, however, this method was too complicated.

To counter this issue and better serve customer and internal production needs, Trans-Matic began using automated inspection equipment from several different vendors. This approach improved data integrity but created separate data silos for each inspection system, which included CMMs, vision inspection systems, surface-roughness measurement, profile analysis and various hand gages. What the company needed was a single solution to interpret data from all of the data-gathering systems.

This need was fulfilled with Quantum SPC/DC and Importer, solutions from ASI DataMyte Inc.

Full Story...

Flying Success
Realization Technologies Concerto software

A University of Tennessee professor is part of a team that won the prestigious Franz Edelman Award for increasing U.S. military revenues by nearly $50 million through a radical streamlining of the maintenance and repair processes for the Air Force's largest transport plane, the C-5.

The work took just eight months and cost less than $1 million. Professor Mandyam Srinivasnan, together with the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center in Georgia and software provider Realization Technologies Inc., won the competition that's been called the Super Bowl of business operations research and management sciences. Srinivasnan is an expert in lean management and theory of constraints and a member of UT's Lean Enterprise faculty.

Full Story...