Health of Manufacturing

I live in Wisconsin. I started my own small job shop about 6 years ago. I went through the recession we had recently, and came out alive. Shaken, but alive. Now,business is going great. A lot of my friends that are in machining are doing well also. Of course it could always be better, but I'm doing just fine. The steel company I'm buying from is a small order supplyer of steel. They keep telling me that they are seeing a major pickup of business also. Another friend of mine is an independant purchasing agent. He deals with quite a number of job shops. He also hears mostly good news. Are we the only ones? All I see on this message board is people posting doom and gloom. Any one else out there doing good?

Things have picked up at work. Not great but definetly better. I work at a plastics factory. A buddy has a job shop. Another owner told him to hang on through this recession and work will be beating on his door because alot of the competition will be gone.

Good luck, Jon

I'm hearing and seeing some good things here in Northern Illinois. Several companies are talking about setting up shop here in Dekalb County.

I have a side business in my garage and I'm turning away work. I have one great customer that keeps bringing me work and tells me to call him when I need more. My shop has already made more money this year than all of last year, but I don't look for work either. I plan to retire in 16 months from my full time job and run my own micro machine shop. I think I'll be just fine. Give the customer more than they expect, sooner than they expect, and better than they expect, for $40/hr. People say that I'm working to cheap but with almost "0" overhead I'm fine with it.

Jobs are still hard to find and the jobs I see at the Illinois state job service do not pay that great.

The economy is looking up for now. I'm worried about next year, after the election!!

Jim

[This message has been edited by JimGlass (edited 02-23-2004).]

[This message has been edited by JimGlass (edited 02-24-2004).]

Things are getting really wierd and freaky out there - in a good or at least very interesting way.

If you own a small machine shop, keep your eyes and ears open, something very cool may come at you when you least expect it.

Last Friday, I made a couple of parts for a Vandercook Proof press. I haven't seen a Vandercook in 15 years and that one was in the junk. Now I am making parts for one!

The proprietor of the printing shop is young enough to be my grandson.

He asked me what I thought of the Kelly model B Cylinder Press.

Kelly B !!!!?????

Tha last time I saw a Kelly B was in 1972 and it was in a shut down print shop that was ready to have all it's machinery go to scrap.

Those presses date from the 1930's;

Now some kid wants a Kelly cylinder letterpress machine

I had to pinch myself, I have realistic dreams, but this is Too, Too much.

This is no one's hobby, this is a small commercial printing operation.

Letterpress printing is so rare nowadays that items printed by letterpress are highly sought after.

The wedding invitations coming off the Heidleberg Windmill were for a Washington, D.C. society wedding with the Reception to be held at The Steven Decatur House.

That ain't no Legion Hall, Bub.

Min. price for 100 invitations : $500.00 - any way up!

Letterpress, ladies and gentlemen, like the printer down the street used to run as a bread and butter job, Not a "Copenhaver Special" Intaglio Masterpiece.

The shop is tied in with a snootsy specialty book and card shop in the D.C. area.

Our boy did mention that the outfit wouldn't mind exploring specialty engraving.

Holy Moly!

I am going to egg them on -

I need a good excuse to buy a Lucas.

Now that major sectors of industry are consolidating and/or and sending mass manufacturing off shore, there are zillions of small voids left in the wake.

Bump around, schmoose, keep your senses acute. There' stuff going on out there that will surpirse the Dickens out of you.

I never expected my shop to be the next Miehle, but I sure as hell never expected to see another letterpress cylinder ever again this side of a museum, either.

We are machinists, Somebody's gonna need us. Somebody's always gonna need us.

Try getting Vandercook parts from China!

Jim Glass - you have already made more money this year than all of last?!?!? YOU SELFISH CORPORATE ROBBER!

We saw a 35% increase in 2003 over 2002 . . . mostly retrofits of 70's and 80's vintage machines that do everything from winding toilet paper to printing cereal boxes. We are also seeing a lot more spending in saw mills from shape sawing systems to veneer lathes - getting ever more useable wood from the scrawny trees harvested these days. Paper mills are demanding improvement in machine flexibility to deal with the fickle marketing demands for product differentiation.

2004 is looking even better and we have increased our payroll by 3 people in recent weeks - up close to $250k in salaries.

We are also starting to assemble our own mini-machine shop with one of the board members here helping me pick out a 9x54 mill, 14x60 lathe, large drill press, 2 bandsaws, belt/disk sander, press brake, and hopefully soon a waterjet cutting machine.

From where we sit - it has never been this good before.

All Right!!!!! Some good news. It's good to hear all the success stories. See? Manufacturing is still alive in this country. You just have to look for it instead of sitting by the phone and waiting for it to ring.

This could be good news - or bad news . . . depending on your outlook. I choose to see it as good news!

Guru:

At least I see that the computer industry is healthy, You got blue letters to come up on the Board

Kewel

Oops - didn't realize it was a link.

This is an election year, so the administratin want's everybody to be happy. a one or two percentage point increase in anything good is called a Jump.

Increased steel prices ARE inflatonary and that is why JFK took the chance of "jawboning" the steel industry so long ago.

Companies aren't going to absorb higher material costs and hire additional labor at the same time.

We shall see what we shall see......

Yeah Dave,things are much better now that we're turning out Big Macs on our lathes and mills.

[This message has been edited by ray french (edited 03-02-2004).]

Lowes building supply is looking to set up a distribution center in either DeKalb, Rockford, or Janesville. Could employ
400-700 people. Of course I hope DeKalb lands the center.

Another electronics plant, Near DeKalb, was to be shut down but was purchased by another company. The new company plans to keep the place open and bring in additional work

Other vacant manufacturing facilities are being looked at as well.

Things are looking up right now. I'm very busy right now and no slow down in sight. Although a slow down will be nice come summer.
Jim

Motion Guru: Glad your doing wel. Sounds like you have tapped into the residential construction market. Raw materials are comming from your area into the Chicago area (and everwhere else) where they build new homes by the hundreds. Now sure where these people get their money?????

Wish I could figure out how to get my machine shop into the construction market but have yet to come up with anyting.

Anything related to construction is booming, well, for now. Manufacturing is either dead or struggling.

[This message has been edited by JimGlass (edited 03-02-2004).]

Just about ready for uncle sam - our revised growth number for 2003 vs 2002 is 43% in positive territory.

We are working on contracts right now with Georgia Pacific, Potlatch, Kimberly Clark and Saint Gobain that should result in another 30-40 percent gain this year over last.

A lot of small jobs are coming in as well and we do not have enough time to address all the requests for quotes.

Are we all on the same planet?

[This message has been edited by motion guru (edited 03-02-2004).]

JimK,

You sure brought back some memories. When I was a kid I had a job for a small "hole in the wall with a black door" magic shop. I would work in the upper floor on an old Heidleberg using it to print and then with knives and rails in a platen cut and score box inserts for magic trick products. That loft must have been 120 degrees. It never occurred to me how he got the press up there.

JimK -

RE residential construction market:

We are retrofitting machines that make asphalt shingles and put the bundles in pre-printed plastic wrap. The most difficult aspect of the job is having a big enough hole in the production schedule to get the work done.

I think one machine that could use some work that I see on many commercial building sites is the machine that makes steel studs. Punching holes in the right spot for passing electrical wire and plumbing.

Most of these machines are manual with limit switches on sliding rails to trigger punching operations as the stud is rolled from flat sheet stock from roll.

I know for a fact that a person could completely automate this machine with flying punches and flying shears. Just punch in what you want where on the stud, the length of the stud, etc. on a touch screen and press go. Studs would come out at 300 ft/minute all exactly configured for the immediate construction needs.

Anybody make rolling equipment that wants to partner on this?

Motionguru,
What kind of software are you using for your automation retrofit projects? Custom stuff on a real-time OS or PLCs.
Thanks,
Lou

We don't try to reinvent the wheel when it comes to automation - we use off the shelf hardware and write software using development packages sold by the hardware vendors. PLCs, Motion Controllers and MMI's . . . standard stuff.

Our controller of choice is a Motorola DSP based motion controller manufactured by Delta Tau. We have developed several connectivity products (custom software running on off the shelf hardware) to allow it to cost effectively connect to Rockwell controllers via. Rockwell Ethernet / DH+ / ControlNet / DeviceNet and we have also developed a Profibus interface for those who would prefer to connect to Siemens PLCs.

Rockwell's motion solution (MotionLogix) stinks and they know it. We see this weakness and have filled that void by making it easy to connect a Delta Tau controller to a Rockwell PLC controlled machine.

Our drive of choice is the Emerson/Control Techniques UniDrive. We can run servos (linear and rotary) and ACVector motors using the same drive.

No smoke and mirrors with what we do - simple, elegant, intelligent integration of off the shelf products to solve complex coordinated motion applications in manufacturing processes.

We have done sub-micron positioning for laser machining of integrated circuits to controlling 5-Axis milling machines with 135,000 lbs of moving machine elements working in concert to position the tool tip.



[This message has been edited by motion guru (edited 03-04-2004).]

Motion Guru, you mentioned a month or so ago that you are being run ragged trying to support all the business you have and were thinking of creating a service department. Are you interested in working with someone on the east coast to support your customers out this way? If so, please contact me and maybe I can help.

Mike

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