By Noah Graff March 6, Olaf Tessarzyk, Managing Partner/President of ZPS America, test flew a Uh1-H Huey 563 helicopter he helped build as part of the Indiana Air Search and Rescue organization (IASAR). IASAR is a non-profit organization which restores old helicopters, which will then be used for 3rd tier search and rescue duty and air shows. Every Tuesday evening for the last five years Olaf and 36 other members of IASAR, many of them Vietnam veterans, gathered at a hanger at Indianapolis metro airport to restore the helicopter. Everyone took on different job, such as maintenance of the radio,…
Author: apalmes
By Lloyd Graff Today’s Machining World needs your help. We have been caught in the perfect storm of steady increases in printing and postage expenses and a disastrous recession in the machining business that has trampled our advertisers. On the cover of the March 2010 issue of Today’s Machining World, readers will see a request for contributions similar to those made by National Public Radio. You receive TMW and this Web site free, and you will continue to get them. But in the end, there’s no free lunch. For a $40 contribution you will get a $10 mini MagLite as…
By Lloyd Graff Alan Beaulieu of the Institute for Trend Research spoke at the Precision Machined Products Association Management Update and gave his predictions about the next couple of years. Beaulieu is not just any dismal soothsayer. He specializes in looking at the manufacturing world and had correctly predicted the dramatic recession we are just poking out of today. He is quite confident we are in a sustained recovery, which will gain momentum through next year. He sees 2012 as a seesaw year. The most surprising aspect of his talk for me was his prediction of significant inflation by 2011.…
By Lloyd Graff I was talking to a fan of Today’s Machining World who works at the world’s largest airplane builder. After discussing the Dreamliner’s ups and downs, he asked me if I thought machining could get too efficient. “What if x, y and z machining times got so fast you wouldn’t need any machinists,” he asked me. I laughed, but he went on. “Lloyd, did you know that BMW, Mercedes, Porsche and Audi decided that 155 miles per hour was as fast as non-professionals could safely drive on an autobahn, so they jointly decided to make that speed the…
By Lloyd Graff I was watching the new Ron Howard series “Parenthood” Saturday night when my cell phone rang with a call from the 602 area code (Phoenix). One of the key threads in the show is a story about a boy diagnosed with Asperger’s, a step on the autism spectrum. The caller was the daughter of a first cousin who went on to breathlessly recount the story of my cousin, Don, being hit by a car at 4:30 a.m. that day and being killed. I had written an “Afterthought” awhile back about my relationship (or lack of) with Don,…
By Noah Graff Happy Monday morning! Some of you readers are refreshed from two days of R and R and ready to attack today’s tasks, while some of you others may not feel like plunging in and getting that unfun stuff done that just has to be done so you can be successful or just survive. Check out this entry from Seth Godin’s Blog last week. Maybe it will make you “feel” better about the immediate challenges you have to tackle. Maybe not. But should that matter anyways? “I don’t feel like it” By Seth Godin What’s it? Why do…
By Lloyd Graff Tattoos on NBA players irritate me. Lebron James has 17 body tattoos that have been identified. Though it is suspected that he has others which have not appeared in photos. I see the proliferation of body hieroglyphics as a reflection of the “look at me I’m a star” braggadocio that sullies the slam dunk league. I am an old school basketball purist who revels in team play and a flawless fast-break. I love a Steve Nash or a Chris Paul because they can score and dish and improvise the game into Brubeck jazz. I ask myself if…
By Lloyd Graff The most stunning conclusion I reached from the Precision Machined Products Association (PMPA) Management Update Conference last weekend in Phoenix is that the precision machining operations business is good right now. Whether it was the automotive contingent, the aerospace guys from the coasts, the mixed baggers, the brassers or the ammo and firearms suppliers, the PMPAers were generally happy. What a change from a year ago. The PMPA’s statistics show the same reflection of business. Sales levels are still off peak levels but profits are solid because of significant gains in productivity. The pruning effect was referred…
By Lloyd Graff Groups like the Precision Machined Products Association (PMPA) are still dominated by old white guys who can’t jump, but it’s beginning to turn over in a few ways. One of the nice things about going to a conference like the PMPA Management Update in Phoenix last weekend is to see an organization evolving. Owners, many second and third generation machine guys themselves, are looking to rejuvenate their businesses with young talent. I heard this from almost everybody I talked to at the conference. A lot of older shop workers have retired or been pruned. The managers of…
By Lloyd Graff Very interesting action on my blog about Hans Peters looking for a Citizen CNC programmer for his plant in Tennessee. Generally, people in the machining blogosphere wanted to be helpful to a fellow traveler new to machining. But there were the assorted grumps who were offended by the piece because they resented me singling out Peters for special treatment. I get a perverse charge out of the criticism, especially when it’s nasty. In a world where so many people live life painting by the numbers, it’s sort of refreshing to know that I got some folks to…