When machinist is just ok and they are fine with ok...

When machinist is just ok and they are fine with ok...



Ok is parts that are just in tolerance. To me, those parts are Just about out of tolerance, just about scrap and we need to correct by bringing into the mean. To him ok is ok and can be left alone...next part should be ok too...

Ok is having a slight chatter and knowing that is because part is sitting high in vice as the parallels chosen are too tall, but they were there. But a slight chatter is ok...so leave well enough alone. Parts look not as good as they could and tool takes a beating...but it's ok.

Ok is leaving the shop 3" Etalon intramic laying close to the edge of a table where people are walking by, but his #1 Chinese Caliper sits dead center of table.

OK is starting a pricey, tight tolerance part with comps set to zero. That gives a 50/50 chance it will be dead on...or is it 30% chance of being dead on, 30% chance it will be over and 30% chance it might be under...
My thought and directives have been to comp under and bring into the mean.


Our talks about ok go ok, lots of positive feedback...then its back to ok.


Some want to be better while others are ok with ok.
Ok breeds ok and that is not ok with me.

It is ashame to have to let some one who is ok go.



It may be my fault as just ok management...



...not sure if this was a question, a statement a rant or other.



Thanks for the ear; I'm ok now.

I wish I was ok.

Great post, I am 30 year in the trades and its hard to find people that are driven to excel, But there out there that's why we complain.

I understand where you're coming from, and wanting to get more out of your employed... However with that said tolerance is there for a reason. Customer pays for their tolerances. I am not going to chase nominal all day to make you "feel good", in tolerance is good. It always pisses me off when an inspector says some dumb shit like "it could be better" or "its ok"... In tolerance is nothing other than A GOOD PART. Agreed on shop tools and being safe with offsets though ����. Also at the end of the day letting go of a guy because you feel he is just ok is counterproductive as hell unless you can justify replacing him with someone more efficient. If he makes you money, he makes you money.

While I'm OCD about hitting nominals and can do so fairly quickly, if a part is in tolerance, the part is in tolerance. It's not an "OK" part, it's a good part. If you want it closer to nominal, tighten the tolerance.

Now, about leaving tools in danger, I can agree with that. Same with beating up cutters, drives me up a wall.

Are you paying for "just o.k." ?

Or are you paying for "Always striving to do better" ?

In my experience there are numbers of people in every profession including upper management who are OK with mediocrity. IMO it is a basic part of their makeup and probably unchangeable. Because they view things differently they are unable to see the "need" others have to exceed basic requirements.

I have many times heard the criticism "He's not a machinist's machinist" (or gunsmith, toolmaker, engineer, etc.) and in nearly every trade or profession. The carpenter who sets things "close enough", the machinist whose parts will work but look crappy, the mechanic who values speed over neatness and precision, and many others fit that mold.

In my view "craftsman" is among the highest praise and really only deserved by those who go the extra mile. Unfortunately mediocrity seems to be the norm in our modern society and if the craftsman works in a group of people he is likely to be ostracized and even harassed.


And my all time favorite "What are you, the anal type?" based on the work of Zigmund Fraud, who turned a noble cultural attribute into a slur.

My favorite was an inspector that tested a product attribute on a lot sample. It was just out of specification. So he tested it again. It was just out of specification. So he tested it a third time, and it was in specification. He shipped the lot and then came and told me about the "favor" he did for me.

I feel you are confusing two different problems. Is the part in tolerance or not? If it is in tolerance, it's a good part. Period.It's not the machinist job to assess a tighter tolerance. It's the machinist job to hit the window that engineering gave him, and that sales bid the part to.Now, that said. If the part is slowly creeping from nominal to out of tolerance, and the machinist isn't paying close attention, he's gonna see a bad part soon. THAT is why tight tolerances you check every part. If it's bouncing around, top of tolerance this part, bottom of tolerance next part, somewhere in between next part, then you gotta figure out WHY, and deal with that if possible. If not possible, then you have an equipment failure or something needs changing outside the machinists sphere. This falls on management. Leaving it up to the machinist isn't fair to him, and it will get you a ruined machinist who assumes too much. Seen it happen.
Now, taking better care of HIS tools better than the SHOPS tools is a totally different problem. Especially when you are talking a very expensive tool like an Intramic. But not really. Using somebody else's tool, be it a fellow worker kind enough to lend it, or the shop's tool they bought to prevent the machinist having to buy it for whatever reason, is still the same situation. Any lack of care signifies a lack of respect for others property. Bad news, and yes, consideration for termination. Just the attitude it shows is a sign of somebody I don't want around.
The situation of producing shitty LOOKING parts when they could just as easily change a setup and produce GOOD looking parts is a symptom of plain ol LAZY, you try to make sure that they understand this isn't good enough, NOTE THE FINISH TOLERANCE ON THE PRINT, and deal with it from there. Habitually producing a out of tolerance FINISH is just as bad as an out of tolerance dimension. One part, then fixed it? That's one thing. Run the whole order looking like it was cut with an axe? Different story.

SIM - we try to coach people from (A) "it's OK" to (B) "This is something we can all be proud of" . . . if we can't get someone from A to B, we promote them to someone else's company . . . with a few having gone to our competitors who in some cases have become our greatest source of new customers. When we have a "Mr. OK" . . . he gets a few chances to improve his game and if he doesn't, he is gone.

If a person isn't pressing forward with respect to advancing processes, quality, and, efficiency, they are wasting their opportunity to improve and advance. There are people out there who want to press forward in the traces and want to work with people who work like this - and those are the people that I want in my company. When you have a team of folks comprised of people like this . . . they like working together and they work well together and everyone improves as a result.

If status quo is good enough - go work for my competitor. If you aren't motivated to to excel in what you do, find a new job where you are motivated. My shop guys sit in design reviews, they question prints, they make our engineers better engineers. In the same way our engineers challenge our shop guys - why aren't you using 3D CAM tools? Why can't you use the CNC planer mill to drill / tap large electrical backpans?

My director of engineering phone interviewed a recent graduate with a BSME. He graduated just this month. He apparently couldn't graduate last June because he had not submitted his paper work on time or something like that (he wasn't clear on this). He was asked what he had been doing the last 6 months and he said "working part time at Sportsman's Warehouse" . . . he had fulfilled his requirements to graduate in December. When asked why Sportsman's Warehouse? He said because he gets great discounts on hunting and camping stuff and that is what he wants to spend his time doing. When asked why he went through engineering school - he said because he was good in math and science and heard that engineers made good money and he wanted to be able to support his hunting and fishing habit. hmmmmmm . . . this is a recipe for doing "OK" as an engineer and getting from A to B with this guy would unlikely to be enjoyable for anyone. My director of engineering is a bird hunter - has hunting dogs, guns, cammo outfits, etc. etc. . . . but he is an engineer first and foremost and he is never satisfied with the status quo. He was the first to pull the plug on the interview even with a common hobby with the interviewee . . . that kid needs to be an engineer at a sporting goods company where he will be motivated to improve the products.

SIM said:

When machinist is just ok and they are fine with ok...
Ok is parts that are just in tolerance. To me, those parts are Just about out of tolerance, just about scrap and we need to correct by bringing into the mean. To him ok is ok and can be left alone...next part should be ok too...

Ok is having a slight chatter and knowing that is because part is sitting high in vice as the parallels chosen are too tall, but they were there. But a slight chatter is ok...so leave well enough alone. Parts look not as good as they could and tool takes a beating...but it's ok.

Ok is leaving the shop 3" Etalon intramic laying close to the edge of a table where people are walking by, but his #1 Chinese Caliper sits dead center of table.

OK is starting a pricey, tight tolerance part with comps set to zero. That gives a 50/50 chance it will be dead on...or is it 30% chance of being dead on, 30% chance it will be over and 30% chance it might be under...
My thought and directives have been to comp under and bring into the mean.

Our talks about ok go ok, lots of positive feedback...then its back to ok.

Some want to be better while others are ok with ok.
Ok breeds ok and that is not ok with me.

It is ashame to have to let some one who is ok go.

It may be my fault as just ok management...

...not sure if this was a question, a statement a rant or other.

Thanks for the ear; I'm ok now.

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i had boss give job interview and ask me when do you know you are done with a job ? or part of a job operation ?
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answer i gave and what he wanted to hear was when part is in tolerance i am done. if i can make slight adjust so next part is centered in tolerance without taking a lot of wasted time i will. but i realize finishing the most work thats within tolerance is the goal.
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if i am making parts to repair machines not operating cause waiting for parts then it is important to finish parts within tolerance and finish repairs so machine can restart production and 100 other people are not standing around waiting for me to make perfect parts. goal is make parts that will function or work basically thats what tolerance is
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same with machine alignment say you got 100 machine sections any out of alignment will give whole machine problems in the end. better to survey all 100 sections and fix or get within tolerance all 100. worse thing is to do 50 sections perfect and run out of time and other 50 sections still out of tolerance causing problems

It is also possible to get guys that obsess over every detail because they think every detail is important, they might try to hit 'nominal' all the time, when there is no real reason for it. They'll make excellent looking (and performing) parts, but will they make you any money?

Appearance is important, but I'll be damned if I going to take a kind of 'iffy-looking' surface, which is still within tolerance, and polish it pretty and make it a reject. Good appearance of the parts comes with experience (for manual machinists) and you have to leave well enough alone, and hope they improve over time. OTOH, be sure to say something positive about nice looking parts when they happen. And tell the guy exactly where YOU want him to take particular care, don't have him guessing, he may have no clue.

And make sure to use the best process that gives the best results: I can do a miracle now and then with barely enough to work with, but that gets old fast if the process isn't really designed to make it easy to achieve the desired result.

On a more positive note, maybe this guy is there to make the others look good Even in a small shop, there is probably always one guy who'll excel at a particular type of job, and he gets the critical work, and is paid accordingly.

Diezel said:

I understand where you're coming from, and wanting to get more out of your employed... However with that said tolerance is there for a reason. Customer pays for their tolerances. I am not going to chase nominal all day to make you "feel good", in tolerance is good. It always pisses me off when an inspector says some dumb shit like "it could be better" or "its ok"... In tolerance is nothing other than A GOOD PART. Agreed on shop tools and being safe with offsets though ����. Also at the end of the day letting go of a guy because you feel he is just ok is counterproductive as hell unless you can justify replacing him with someone more efficient. If he makes you money, he makes you money.

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It doesn't sound like the OP wants everything to be nominal just because.
When your last part was .0002" within tolerance, NOT adjusting the offset back to nominal is just stupid.
The sun hits your machine? Part is scrap.
Tool is worn after 121st part? The next is scrap.
Coolant warms up 6 degrees? Part is scrap.

It's not just to make you "feel good", its about knowing that your next part won't be scrap because you're too lazy to adjust the offset.

Which is what his employees problem is. He's not OK, he's lazy.

should always try for center of tolerance rather than barely in tolerance as measuring gage might be slightly off and somebody else with different gage might reject part but
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but goal is to make parts in tolerance as many as possible.
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i have also known some machinist that were control freaks that is, could be 10 ways to do something but they were not happy unless everything done exactly their way.
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everybody like that some. for example if i got a allen wrench set i do not like one missing. i really prefer the allen wrench set to have all the wrenches there. being a control freak ? maybe.

There is a time and a place for making great parts, and there is a time and a place for making the cheapest, fastest thing that meets the tolerances. A good machinist or engineer knows which is which.

On one job I was scrambling to get test equipment together and fly out to a customer's facility. I needed a piece of steel with an M16 hole in it for a hoist ring. I drew up a quick print that had the bar dimensioned as 1" square, noting that stock is okay, and 1.25 or 1.5" stock would also be okay, whatever is on the shelf. I dimensioned the length as 14" +- 1", saw cut okay. This should have been a dead simple, quick and dirty part that would only get used once. What I got back was a nicely machined part. They machined the ends to 14" and machined the width down to 1" because they didn't have 1" square on hand.

DanielG said:

There is a time and a place for making great parts, and there is a time and a place for making the cheapest, fastest thing that meets the tolerances. A good machinist or engineer knows which is which.

On one job I was scrambling to get test equipment together and fly out to a customer's facility. I needed a piece of steel with an M16 hole in it for a hoist ring. I drew up a quick print that had the bar dimensioned as 1" square, noting that stock is okay, and 1.25 or 1.5" stock would also be okay, whatever is on the shelf. I dimensioned the length as 14" +- 1", saw cut okay. This should have been a dead simple, quick and dirty part that would only get used once. What I got back was a nicely machined part. They machined the ends to 14" and machined the width down to 1" because they didn't have 1" square on hand.

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that is my point say you got big machine with 100 production operators standing around with nothing to do cause machine needs a repair part made and installed. if tolerance is +/-1.00" and machinist takes a extra hour getting part to within .001" the boss is not going to be grateful if i had 100 people waiting while i wasted time getting a part perfect
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i have worked on parts requiring +/-.0001" tolerance but plenty of other parts could easily be +/-.1" thats why they call out a tolerance. they are stating what it really needs to be or how perfect it is needed so time and money is not wasted

There is a time and a place for making great parts, and there is a time and a place for making the cheapest, fastest thing that meets the tolerances. A good machinist or engineer knows which is which.

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THAT ^

Some don't get it at all, and I have a problem with it myself sometimes...

±.030" and your second shift guy spends all night fucking around with offsets and changing tools
trying to keep it within a half... Drive you F'n NUTS

I've got one customer where tolerances are "Whatever, just has to fit/work".. I've been doing
a lot of keyways for him, and I'm used to .001" on depth, and a .001 on width.. Well that didn't fly,
the mating parts are half assed and the tight keys are a pain to assemble. Go .015" deep and make sure
the key goes in easy... Easier for me, cheaper for him..

There is a time to bring your *A* game, and there is a time to bring the hatchet..

Making a part "look" nice comes with experience and really doesn't take any more time. Nothing
worse than some nit wit making a part look like shit because they F'up the deburr, even worse when
they scrap a part deburring it.

I am both surprised and dissapointed in all but Motion Guru's responses so far. With the machines the majority of us are using to make parts, the difference between a barely-in-tolerance part and a very-close-to-nominal part is the matter of pushing a few buttons. Shame on you if you aren't willing to take the time to do that... you would in no way fit in my shop.

In my shop, the only print tolerances we actually pay attention to are the +/-.001" or tighter, because everything we do is held to close to that no matter what the print says. We have a recurring part that has a .397" hole for a 3/8" bolt. That's all it is. The location is always held to +/-.002" on both ends of the hole... why? Because we make really nice parts, that's why. It might take 2 minutes longer to set the job up to get it there, if that. Once it's there, it stays there for the 300 part run. Again, if you're not willing to take that time, then go away.

What I have found over the years is that once you make everything as close to perfect as you can by default, then it becomes faster and faster, until holding +/-.0005" on a +/-.005" title block tolerance is just second nature and it takes no longer than being "good enough" on that +/-.005".

Some of our parts have chatter on them. A lot of that chatter is from using a 25xD reach endmill on a plastic part with .020" thick pocket walls... it's going to chatter and there's nothing you can do about it without raising the price of the parts enough to raise an eyebrow. Yes, you have to know when to say Uncle. But if you're not willing to fight a little before that point so your parts are above average... see ya.

By chance, I just had a conversation with the one local customer we have (our biggest customer) about quality. I was talking with Marketing, Quality, Inspection and Engineering, and all agreed that if they have a part that has super critical tolerances, aesthetics or both, it goes to RFR, price be damned. I've also been told by other customers that our prices are never the lowest, but they know for a fact that barring a rare mistake that we don't catch in house (which happened exactly one time this year), their parts will always be near perfect, really pretty and packed like OCD is cool.

I guess if you don't want that kind of reputation, that's up to you.

Matt@RFR said:

I am both surprised and dissapointed in all but Motion Guru's responses so far. With the machines the majority of us are using to make parts, the difference between a barely-in-tolerance part and a very-close-to-nominal part is the matter of pushing a few buttons. Shame on you if you aren't willing to take the time to do that... you would in no way fit in my shop.

In my shop, the only print tolerances we actually pay attention to are the +/-.001" or tighter, because everything we do is held to close to that no matter what the print says. We have a recurring part that has a .397" hole for a 3/8" bolt. That's all it is. The location is always held to +/-.002" on both ends of the hole... why? Because we make really nice parts, that's why. It might take 2 minutes longer to set the job up to get it there, if that. Once it's there, it stays there for the 300 part run. Again, if you're not willing to take that time, then go away.

What I have found over the years is that once you make everything as close to perfect as you can by default, then it becomes faster and faster, until holding +/-.0005" on a +/-.005" title block tolerance is just second nature and it takes no longer than being "good enough" on that +/-.005".

Some of our parts have chatter on them. A lot of that chatter is from using a 25xD reach endmill on a plastic part with .020" thick pocket walls... it's going to chatter and there's nothing you can do about it without raising the price of the parts enough to raise an eyebrow. Yes, you have to know when to say Uncle. But if you're not willing to fight a little before that point so your parts are above average... see ya.

By chance, I just had a conversation with the one local customer we have (our biggest customer) about quality. I was talking with Marketing, Quality, Inspection and Engineering, and all agreed that if they have a part that has super critical tolerances, aesthetics or both, it goes to RFR, price be damned. I've also been told by other customers that our prices are never the lowest, but they know for a fact that barring a rare mistake that we don't catch in house (which happened exactly one time this year), their parts will always be near perfect, really pretty and packed like OCD is cool.

I guess if you don't want that kind of reputation, that's up to you.

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What you fail to realize is that not every shop is the same. Your shop differs greatly from many. I've worked in a LOT of industries... From holding .0002 all day to 1/4 call outs... There's definitely a time and place. Fit form function is king in most... And while it's nice to hold that standard it is costly. Where I am temporarily working right now if we outsourced our parts we'd sink because of tolerance... The costs would be astronomical compared to the in house cost of holding them for our short runs.
I used to work for a firearm manufacturer... I was a vet on the line... I could visually see and tell how much off of nominal I was... As long as parts were in tolerance I sent hem down the line. If I had 6 scrap I'd get a talkin to while others could scrap hundreds because it was just not something I did. Id out produce everyone. We had a guy who would chase nominal all day long and put out 4/5 of what I did... In the end his parts functioned the same as mine did, he just made less.

Time and place for EVERYTHING.

Diezel said:

What you fail to realize is that not every shop is the same.

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I get it. But after spending so many years chasing perfection, I've found that it's generally quite easy to get close now. In my experience, most of it comes down to the quality of your fixturing. We make some commodity parts too, and those are held to the same standards as everything else because it simply doesn't take any longer to get them right.

And I agree completely that there's a time and place for everything. I guess the scope of which changes from place to place.

PS... I used to be welder by trade, from Ag stuff to Aerospace... I know about a time and a place!