Posts Tagged ‘tube bending’

Demand-pull manufacturing in its purest form

February 29th, 2012
By: Tim Heston

An operator holding a tube checks the computer screen adjacent to his workstation, positions the tube just so against a backstop, checks the screen again, then initiates the cutoff operation. In less than 48 hours,  that tube will be part of a finished golf club and in the hands of a customer who ordered it.

That make-to-order, quick-response environment has been a cornerstone to the success of Ping golf clubs. So said Nathan Tapp, product specialist, who brought a group of fabricators on a plant tour this morning. That tour kicked off The FABRICATOR's Leadership Summit, the 7th Annual Metal Matters, being held this year in Scottsdale, Ariz.

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Manufacturing rockets: Metal fabricating what’s next

April 5th, 2011
By: Tim Heston

This week I recalled one of my favorite television moments. During an early West Wing episode, one of the president’s advisers, Sam Seaborn, argues for the extension of NASA funding. After several minutes of heated banter, his counterpart asks why space travel is so important when we have so much trouble to deal with here on planet earth. Seaborn paused, and then spoke distinctly.

“It’s what’s next.”

This week, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) announced it was tackling what’s next. With news of war, earthquakes, and nuclear fears, the news that SpaceX is planning to build the largest rocket since the Saturn V--well, let’s just say it’s been too long since a headline made me smile.

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Fabricators doing what matters

February 8th, 2011
By: Tim Heston

I smile when I read articles like this.

Kapco Inc., a Wisconsin metal fabricator and stamper, didn’t get noticed nationally because it expanded its metal fabrication capability during the past decade; because it continued to grow throughout the worst of the recession; or because the firm operates debt-free.

But it did get national attention--on NBC’s “Dateline”--when the company’s charity, Hometown Heroes, Family Edition, reached out to the community in a big way. According to the Biz Times, a Milwaukee-area business newspaper, the charity “helped coordinate more than 1,000 volunteers that renovated and expanded the home of a Grafton [Wis.] family. The family is headed by a single mother of three who was diagnosed with breast cancer; two of her children have cerebral palsy.”

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