Their faces bear a remarkable resemblance, though separated by 25 years. The coloring is similar. One has oversized ears, the other an enormous aquiline nose. Both are 6’4″ tall and love to play basketball. President Barack Obama won his second Big Game in November. Colin Kaepernick won his second NFL Playoff game last Sunday in Atlanta. Two kids of mixed race parentage raised by white people. Kaepernick was adopted by German Americans, Rick and Teresa Kaepernick, living in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Obama was virtually adopted by his mother’s parents, white Kansans who moved to Hawaii after his Kenyan father…
Author: Lloyd Graff
The vertical machining center built in 1996 was dirty, but it had been making parts a week earlier in a factory near Milwaukee. When we brought it into our plant our best mechanics looked at it and motioned for help. We called a local CNC repair firm and asked for assistance. The repair guy they sent charged $120 per hour, plus $75 per hour travel time. He was booked up for a week. We checked his references as best we could. Nothing negative showed up on the web, so I decided to take a chance on him and signed a…
My wife and I have 2003 Toyota Avalons with 90,000 miles on them. The cars have given us dependable transportation for 10 years. They still run nicely and show few signs of self-destructing. They get lousy gas mileage (12-15 mpg) and are a little too big for empty nesters. We drive mostly around the neighborhood or to downtown Chicago. Seldom do we drive more than 120 miles in a day. We are both a bit tired of our old comfortable Avalons, but the idea of spending a lot of money on a new car irritates us. We regard cars as…
My wife Risa and I had a serious talk last Sunday about how we organize our time. She is an educational therapist who works primarily with young people who have difficulty in school. They almost all have trouble organizing their time. So do I. Risa is a devotee of lists. I often forget to make mine, and when I do make them, I often lose them. I hold almost everything in my head, which is good because my desk is usually a mess. Fortunately I have a decent memory. Risa programs her day around her appointments and listed tasks. She…
I received these pained notes in November and December from Paul Merandi, a machinery dealer in Hauppauge, Long Island. Paul is a thoughtful and sincere guy. I found his postings provocative and affecting. – Lloyd Graff A comment posted in response to the blog “Gun – No Gun” 10/26/2012 I was raised with guns but do not presently own any. My wife and I chose not to have any in the house with the kids around. For a very long time we would not even let a water pistol into our kids’ hands. That changed with my son, who seemed…
Sometimes you read something so brilliant, so incisive, so right on, you want to jump for joy and call your friends. This came in yesterday from the publication Industry Today. (See if you can make it to the end) –Lloyd Graff “2013: A New Manufacturing Era” (from Industry Today) “It has been a long tradition: In December and January, publications—no matter what subjects they cover—like to engage in the game of New Year predictions. That’s why we were excited when IDC presented us with its Top 10 manufacturing industry predictions for 2013, which we—in turn—present to you. We’re not…
The Toronto Blue Jays, also-rans for more than a decade, are now the most interesting team in Major League Baseball. They clearly made the decision to go all out to win the pennant this year while competing in the same division as the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays, teams which have been in the elite for many years. With the acquisition of R.A. Dickey, the National League Cy Young winner of 2012, Toronto has six proven starters, which makes them an immediate contender. But this is not really a baseball blog today. The intriguing question…
I am just turned 24 years old in September of 2012. I program, setup and run 3X HAAS ST 10 Live Tool C-Axis Lathes, (with no Y=axis). The turret is huge, the tool holders are huge, and the space is very limited, but it does not stop me.
Thirteen years ago I visited Hell for two hours and then boarded a bus to a local hotel. My wife Risa and her friend Judy were taking a winter holiday in Poland, immersing themselves in the Jewish history and culture of our Eastern European ancestors. To fully understand their life it was crucial to see how it virtually ended in the Nazi gas chambers of World War II. Poland, to its credit, has maintained its Concentration Camps as permanent shrines to its appalling past. I had chosen not to do the trip, but I was doing some business in Europe…
Let’s rethink the infamous “skills gap” that is almost as common in conversation in our machining clan as “the fiscal cliff.” Maybe the skills gap is partly a “pay gap.” Perhaps manufacturers who pay McDonald’s wages get McDonald’s employees with comparable turnover. McDonald’s pays $14 an hour for a shift manager. They can get almost unlimited applicants for that job. Job shops think they can hire skilled workers for $14 and keep them, but they can’t. A shift manager at McDonald’s has a title with more cache and has more potential for advancement than most trainee CNC operators at Mac’s…