Posted on Thu, Aug 19, 2010 @ 02:42 PM
*This article appears in the July 2010 issue of Marking Industry Magazine
Quality: Traceability is a key to achieving quality. Those organizations with ISO: 9001 (or higher) certifications and that practice Lean Initiatives must use a variety of marking and identification tools to reach their goals.
Quality Management Using Direct Part Marking
Eight core principles of Quality Management guide organizations to look at the relationship with the customer, placing great value on their needs. The ultimate goal is to increase revenue and market share with a keen understanding that it can only be achieved thru enhanced customer satisfaction.
In order to achieve Principle 1 organizations are looking for strong leadership with vision that understand the need to evaluate and implement activities that motivate employees to meet ever increasing customer demands. Maximizing communication on all levels of their organization and providing people with the resources and tools to get the job done is the way to start.
Key to all organizations, and an often overlooked asset, are the people involved in making the goods and providing the services. Quality Management programs encourage innovation and creativity from their team members and at the same time hold them accountable for achieving the company goal of customer satisfaction. Encouragement to the team gets their buy-in to participate and looking for ways to improve the processes they are involved in.
Process improvements enable organizations to maintain and/or reduce costs while at the same time improving cycle times. Systems that have clear and defined instructions reduce error by operators, enabling them to interact with other departments smoothly to consistently deliver product on-time. Analyzing and evaluating the efficiency of the processes on a routine basis allows for identifying possibilities for improvement or eliminating processes that do not add value.
Structured systems that overlap and align processes between departments achieve optimum results keeping organizations focused on meeting the company goal – customer satisfaction. The dependency of each department on the other becomes an important part of the systems that utilize the resources to their fullest. Targeted and well-defined approaches to the activities in and between departments allow continual process improvement to occur and provide a means of evaluating the success.
Continual improvement is a self-reflection activity where you should ask why is this being done, why this way, is there another way that is better. Organizations that ask these questions are establishing a culture that seeks to improve the efficiency of the processes they are involved in reduce error and be flexible to react when needed.
Data resulting from process tracking allow the leaders within the organization to use facts to base their decisions. By carefully analyzing the data they are able to identify the cause and effect of situations that lead to process and/or system improvements. Communication and availability of the data is crucial to the decision process, allowing balanced, well-informed actions to be made swiftly.
While the majority of the quality management program involves the internal organization, the relationship with suppliers cannot be overlooked. Suppliers who practice quality programs themselves insure they will interact with the organization in a manner that meets quality management objectives. Evaluation of the supplier’s performance becomes part of quality management goals, holding the supplier accountable for providing quality products/services in smooth and timely transactions.
The evaluations organizations conduct to provide facts for process and system improvements for their quality management programs include details about operator error, machine failure and material defects. Each of these areas reflects justification for investment or corrective actions. Let’s look more closely at the manufacturing environment.
For organizations practicing Lean Initiatives, the production floor is setup in work cells. Within the work cells, you have material that is getting processed by an operator using specific machinery for the task. The operator’s knowledge of the process within this cell is important for providing a quality product to the next work cell. First the operator must have the material needed to complete the process within the work cell. This material can be transferred from department to department, or provided from a supplier. When the material arrives the operator must possess knowledge or be trained to operate the machinery safely for optimal output.
In most organizations the operator(s) within the work cell are familiar with the quality checks for their process. Their work gets noted on daily work orders. These work orders include information about the product specifications for the process performed in the work cell, material used, planned cycle time and due dates. Upon completion the operator must sign-off that the components were made to specification and the date and/or time completed.
In the processing the operator may be asked to do piece-part inspection on each part or randomly. The inspected work-piece will need a pass or fail identification mark. Depending on the point in production of the work-piece, or finish requirements of the work-piece simple rubber stamps or steel hand stamps might be used. For safer hand stamping operations the organization might consider a spring-loaded inspection tool.
Other times the same component is being manufactured in other work cells on the production floor. It then becomes important to identify the work cell or machine, as well as the pass/fail. Again the traditional method of stamps might be employed for marking this information. However with multiple cells the throughput requirements for production might demand more efficient methods of identifying the work cell. In these situations an impact press or dot peen marking system might be the marking solution chosen. These units can communicate with other machinery in the work cell thru PLC (programmable logic control) or PCs allowing the work cell to become more efficient in the component processing yielding savings over a manual marking operation.
It is important for the manufacturer to track the material for defects allowing them to work with their suppliers to correct the situation. In order to do this it is essential to find a characteristic unique to the material. As an example, for metals such as steel, the heat number for the batch of plate, bar or round stock becomes the traceable identifier. This heat number often times needs to be re-marked several times during manufacture depending on the processes in which the work-piece must pass. This means temporary and permanent marks may be required. Depending on the size and shape of the work-piece the tools chosen for this requirement can be challenging. Portable marking tools such as powder-charged or air-powered marking tools may be required. Again, the dot peen technology offers flexibility for these requirements with portable marking options in both air and electric configurations.
Date-codes are another critical identifier for quality managements. When organizations run several shifts, a shift identifier may be included as part of the date-code. Hand-held holders with inter-changeable type characters offer economical options for multiple character marking requirements. It is important to keep in mind how frequently the change of characters occurs. More frequent change-over may require a different marking technology for efficiency.
The company may be one of many sources supplying product to the customer making vendor identification important. For brand awareness companies may choose to directly apply their logo or company name. Other times the manufacturer may choose to apply a nameplate or label with their company name. Nameplates may include windows for variable text about the component such as a model number or serial number. Depending on the volume of nameplates being marked per batch the options might include hand stamps, holders with inter-changeable type, impact presses with special tooling to match the nameplate or dot peen marking systems with feeders.
Quality Management initiatives and industry demands for traceability give reason for excitement and hope. The need for marking solutions is ever growing through industry standards. Marking equipment suppliers should take the time to become knowledgeable about the requirements of quality programs, including the marking requirements, so in turn they are prepared when chosen as the vendor partner.
Posted on Thu, Jun 03, 2010 @ 05:43 PM
From May 25 to 27 in Springfield, MA we exhibited at the Eastec trade show sponsored by SME. Durable was pleased to display a variety of marking technologies including dot peen, impact press, steel stamps, roll dies, and one of our newest additions the DuraDot inline CNC marker.
While overall attendance seemed to be slightly down from years past we noticed a more focused and project ready group of people walking the show to see if the exhibitors had solutions for their projects. One big difference we heard from almost everyone was that there were budgets and that projects were being given the green light to move forward.
We generated a large number of leads looking for solutions across the entire product line. There also did not seem to be any trend in terms of industry - we received leads from automotive, electronic, consumer goods, metal fabrication, aerospace, and others.
Thanks to everyone who stopped by the booth and we look forward to helping you make your mark!
Posted on Thu, May 13, 2010 @ 12:26 PM
Value Added Engineering Impacts Product Marking, Productivity And Plant SafetyMost companies have long relied on standard engineering practices to guide their engineers as they work on product and tooling designs. Recent trends indicate that engineering guidelines are no longer relegated to product and tooling functions. Now many companies and industries are expanding these engineering guidelines to include standards for product marking.
As governmental regulations and market forces dictate new product traceability and quality standards, many industries seek out product marking specialists with which to partner. One such marking specialist is Durable Mecco, Inc. based in Franklin Park, Illinois. Durable Mecco's focus is on industrial marking applications utilizing impact presses, steel stamps, steel type, numbering heads, dot peen markers, and accessories. Durable Mecco's technical expertise and engineering capabilities were recently enhanced when it acquired traditional marking products specialist Mecco / M.E. Cunningham based in Pittsburgh, PA. Durable Mecco's value added engineering capability has proven to be a critical resource for many companies and industries with a wide variety of custom marking applications.
Impact Presses Increase Productivity
Durable Mecco's impact presses, manual presses or pneumatic presses, generate force via the compression and release of an impact spring. High volume repetitive indent marking applications are best handled with the use of impact presses which achieve a very short cycle time that cannot be met with any other marking method.
One such customer in need of a marking solution was SPX Filtran. The part to be marked was dome shaped stamped metal. It was specified that marking should occur automatically as the part was inserted into a fixture, like a time card in a time slot. The cycle time had to be short, as the operators were processing a high volume of parts. The shape of the part presented two challenges. First, pressing the mark would deform the part without proper fixturing. Second, the shape of the part required the slot of the marking fixture to be large, so a pinch point hazard needed to be carefully prevented.
Engineering special nesting and fixturing for holding various sizes and shapes of parts is routine for Durable Mecco. To solve this application, Durable Mecco engineers worked with SPX Filtran to create a sliding nest fixture. The dome shaped part is loaded onto the nest, which includes a strategically placed anvil to back-up the part at the marking location. The operator advances the nest through a custom-shaped slot that conforms exactly to the shape of the part. Marking occurs when the nest strikes a proximity switch.
The SPX Filtran system also included a quick-change steel type holder, allowing SPX Filtran to achieve a very high level of productivity in marking their parts.
Impact Presses Are Versatile
In addition to marking, impact presses are also useful for assembly, stamping, forming, punching, and shearing applications. Ted Strother of King Electronics found that an impact is superior to gradual pressing in its application. "Durable Mecco was able to recommend an impact press in our assembly operation to insert one part into another without deforming the part. We used to perform this application by hand but the press provides a quick, easy, repeatable solution."
Other Industrial MarkingTechniques
Durable Mecco engineers recommend dot peen markers as an alternative marking technology when the marking application requires a high quality mark but with much variability of information being marked. With a variety of marking heads to choose from, the dot peen technology also allows for sufficient depth of mark to accommodate other processes such as painting and galvanizing.
Portability offers additional flexibility with dot peen marking. Fabricators often times are faced with small batch, unique marking requirements and find it beneficial to take the portable marking unit to the fabrication when the work piece is too large to fit into a bench system.
Don't Forget Plant Safety
Sometimes lost in the never-ending search for improved productivity is the need to maintain basic safety precautions in all plant operations. Durable Mecco has long been a leader in promoting its "Mecco Safety Tools" in its engineering of marking solutions.
One such recent request came from General Electric to improve the safety of its manual marking applications. In this case, General Electric hand stamp operators were marking large characters with hand stamps and sledge hammers. Per customer request, Durable Mecco designed its newest Safety First Grip for the stamp which provides improved protection to the operator's hand. The Safety First Grip was designed to be non-intrusive while providing the operator with a much more positive grip on the stamp while still achieving a clean, deep mark.
Another General Electric problem application called for three marks to be made on a steel bracket. The goal in this application was to find a cost effective solution to enhance the consistency and quality of the mark while also improving productivity. Durable Mecco engineered a cost-effective fixture to support the part resulting in improved alignment of mark while also speeding up the marking process. The added benefit of the fixture design was greatly improved operator safety.
Customer Driven One Stop Shop
As marking and identification application requirements have expanded, so to have Durable Mecco's capabilities and offerings. "A lot of customers use us as a one stop shop and come to us first for marking issues" says Clem Malinowski, General Manager. "More and more we act as marking consultants to help the customer to work through the application and then directing them to the best solution."
Durable Mecco's versatility has been showcased as new customer requests have led to an expanded product offering beyond just impact presses, steel stamps, type, roll dies, and dot peen markers. New products include ink jet systems, thermal printers, package date coding type and dies, part marking, tags, I.D. plates, facility signage, and stencils. Durable Mecco has become the "go to" source for many companies seeking marking and identification solutions.
Durable Mecco