When bigger is better: I often see production jobs that would benefit from a larger sheet size especially in a large volume run. Most companies keep inventory of different size…

Old School Knowledge While there is something to say about running production on machinery that is already paid for, what are the real costs? After all, these machines are “free”…

The Real Costs Often I come across older CO2 laser cutting, plasma cutting and punching equipment that is 10 plus years old and still in production. While there is something…

With CNC machines capable of generating production data in real-time and their interconnectivity via Ethernet networks, managing data becomes essential to improving current manufacturing processes. We now have the real-time…

In manufacturing there has always been the need for data analysis. Continual improvements are a mainstay of remaining competitive, and without data and the means to store and analyze the…

Fibernomics is an all-encompassing economic principle and the key to a competitive advantage in today’s sheet metal fabricating environment. As with most economic principles, there is a basic premise, or…

When talking about automation in the manufacturing process often people talk about material handling, but this is not the only process to consider as I have learned from my customers. Automating…

Quick Change Tooling Productivity of press brakes is too often neglected and it’s taken for granted that it takes a really long time to set-up. Productivity packages are now available…

When considering material automation for laser cutting systems, there are different levels of material handling that can be implemented to provide varying degrees of efficiency. The base level of automating…

Differentiation is the key to creating new opportunities in manufacturing and sheet metal fabricating. As competition remains fierce, the only way to stand out is to do things differently, better,…