implmex
Diamond
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2002
- Location
- Vancouver BC Canada
Good morning everyone:
I've just been tasked with setting up an R&D lab for a local company I've spent the last couple of years with, making parts and directing other shops.
Now they want to be able to do their own R&D machining, mostly to improve their turnaround time with new iterations of prototypes, so I get to equip a brand new shop and get it all set up and run it for them.
I also get to train the new hires including the interns, apprentices and engineers, so I'm pleased and excited to be participating with them as their company grows.
They are a great company to deal with and full of bright young engineers and technicians, but they want to have an old fart like me around to make the lab run smoothly and remain productive.
I'm about ready to retire from running my own shop full time (health problems) but I'll keep my man cave for as long as it's still safe for me to operate the machines.
My day job is going to be at the new place and somebody else can do the accounting, and the fundraising and the business management and etc etc.
One of the things I need to start thinking about is tooling management, and I want to make it as painless for myself as I can.
Once upon a time, some of the larger tooling suppliers offered vending machines you could park in your shop and they would be stocked by the tooling supplier whenever the machine called them on the internet.
They were basically inventory management machines, and you'd be billed for whatever you took out of them.
Access was controlled with keycodes you could issue to authorized users and it would track who took out what.
I don't see them offered by the local guys anymore.
Did these machines fall out of favour?
Anyone still using them in your shops?
Any tales about them...good or bad?
Cheers
Marcus
Implant Mechanix • Design & Innovation > HOME
Vancouver Wire EDM -- Wire EDM Machining
I've just been tasked with setting up an R&D lab for a local company I've spent the last couple of years with, making parts and directing other shops.
Now they want to be able to do their own R&D machining, mostly to improve their turnaround time with new iterations of prototypes, so I get to equip a brand new shop and get it all set up and run it for them.
I also get to train the new hires including the interns, apprentices and engineers, so I'm pleased and excited to be participating with them as their company grows.
They are a great company to deal with and full of bright young engineers and technicians, but they want to have an old fart like me around to make the lab run smoothly and remain productive.
I'm about ready to retire from running my own shop full time (health problems) but I'll keep my man cave for as long as it's still safe for me to operate the machines.
My day job is going to be at the new place and somebody else can do the accounting, and the fundraising and the business management and etc etc.
One of the things I need to start thinking about is tooling management, and I want to make it as painless for myself as I can.
Once upon a time, some of the larger tooling suppliers offered vending machines you could park in your shop and they would be stocked by the tooling supplier whenever the machine called them on the internet.
They were basically inventory management machines, and you'd be billed for whatever you took out of them.
Access was controlled with keycodes you could issue to authorized users and it would track who took out what.
I don't see them offered by the local guys anymore.
Did these machines fall out of favour?
Anyone still using them in your shops?
Any tales about them...good or bad?
Cheers
Marcus
Implant Mechanix • Design & Innovation > HOME
Vancouver Wire EDM -- Wire EDM Machining