Like many people, I get overwhelmed at work. Sometimes I don’t get the work done I want to do, so I stay at the office an hour or two extra. By the time I get home I feel like I don’t have enough free time for relaxation and other activities. Scroll down to listen to the podcast with Ari Meisel. I have been repeatedly listening to a book called The Art of Less Doing, by Ari Meisel, today’s podcast interviewee, which has had a real positive effect on my life. Meisel, who calls himself an “overwhemologist,” has a mission to…
Author: Noah Graff
On today’s podcast, we interviewed Victor and Betty DaCruz, owners of DaCruz Manufacturing in Bristol, Connecticut. Victor and Betty have transformed their company over the last three decades from a multi-spindle screw machine shop with ACMEs and New Britains into a high-tech CNC turning operation. While other companies complain about not being able to find quality employees, DaCruz has created a culture that attracts high level young people to work at the company. Scroll down to listen to this week’s podcast. Question: Is it a good idea for a husband and wife to work together?
On today’s podcast, we interviewed Mark Fordyce, Team Leader of the Hydromat Parts & Rebuild department at Component Bar Products in St. Louis. Mark is a Hydromat Maestro. He has been working with rotary transfer machines for over 40 years, first as a self-taught setup man in a job shop, followed by working in the engineering department at Hydromat Inc., and then at Component Bar. He is one of the first people Graff-Pinkert calls when we have a question about a Hydromat, and often the machine we are asking for help on was actually originally set up by him. In…
On today’s podcast, I interviewed Bryan Batten, CEO of Palmetto Precision Machining, located in Anderson, South Carolina. Palmetto Machining is a precision machining/fabrication shop specializing in tooling and automation for the automotive industry. Bryan, who jokingly refers to himself as a mechanical psychologist, discusses the difference between working with automotive companies in different countries, his experience purchasing a machining company, and the manufacturing boom in the South. Question: Do you have a machine that should go to a shrink?
We interviewed Brett May of BME Inc. Screw Machine Attachments for today’s podcast. Brett’s mission in business is to make old cam multi-spindle screw machines like National Acmes, Wickmans, and New Britains into productive money makers in today’s competitive machining environment. Scroll down to listen to the podcast with Brett May. Brett builds unique attachments which eliminate secondary operations that many people would put on a mill-turn CNC to finish, or run on an accurate but achingly slow Swiss-type machine. When he does his magic he turns supposed clunkers into enormously valuable machine tools. Brett sees an old Acme and…
On today’s podcast, I interviewed Albert Lettmen, a Lean Six Sigma and Quality Systems consultant and educator who has worked for decades with prominent manufacturing companies around the world. Albert grew up in Jamaica, studied business in Scotland, and then worked for companies in Europe, China, Canada and the United States. I was surprised when Albert explained to me that a company eliminating waste and boosting efficiency does not necessarily translate to firing a lot of workers. Over the years I have heard many people in the machining business talk about incorporating Lean Manufacturing into their organization, but I must…
In today’s podcast, we reflect on the machining world in 2018 through the lens of what went right and what went wrong for Graff-Pinkert’s used machine tool business and Today’s Machining World. Scroll down to listen to the podcast. One key observation from 2018 is that Graff-Pinkert is becoming more reliant on our extensive knowledge of the equipment market rather than the cam machine refurbishing business, which historically has been Graff-Pinkert’s base business. Brokering the sale of modern CNC multi-spindles and consulting with customers on buying and selling machining businesses have become vital revenue streams. As for Today’s Machining World,…
Scroll down to listen to the podcast with Federico Veneziano. On today’s podcast we interviewed Federico Veneziano, COO and CFO of American Micro, a 100 person machining company near Cincinnati, Ohio. In the interview Federico compared the various philosophies he has observed in machining companies throughout Europe, China and the United States. Federico grew up in northern Italy and got his first job as a CNC machine operator when he was 12. He studied engineering in Italy and worked in several shops until he was hired by DMG as a service technician in his early 20s. For several years at…
Scroll down to listen to the podcast with John Saunders. In today’s podcast we interviewed John Saunders, founder of Saunders Machine Works and the creator of the NYC CNC YouTube channel. John is an innovative entrepreneur who lives and breaths CNC machining. When he was 24 he had an idea to sell an automatically resetting steel target for practicing firearms, but he had no engineering background, no CAD experience and no machining experience. After working on a prototype with a contracted engineer he decided that before he would pursue production of his product he wanted to fully understand the production…
In today’s podcast we interviewed Scott Roy, a Senior Staff Engineer at Google who specializes in artificial intelligence. He also happens to be my brother-in-law (Lloyd’s son-in-law). One of Scott’s most recent projects at Google is to improve the way machines communicate with people in diverse human languages—last week he was working on communicating in Bengali. Scroll down to listen to the podcast with Scott Roy. Scott believes that one day machines may have the sophistication and human-like qualities of Commander Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation. He says there is a good chance machines will be able to…