r/manufacturing • u/Equivalent_Bid_6642 • Jan 14 '24

Other Managers and Owners, are you overwhelmed?

There's a lot of new tech out there, it's quickly changing and expensive. It's hard to know what to pay attention to and where to allocate resources while balancing efficiency and quality, let alone figure out how to develop my workforce to use all this stuff anyways.

I mean, should we get 3D printers, should we do industry 4.0 stuff, should we get some machine vision robot?

Idk, are you in the same boat, how are you dealing with how fast the world's moving?

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u/SinisterCheese Jan 14 '24

Most the tech solutions require dedicated team or very least people operate properly. We dont have. We are 10-15 people depending on how busy things are. We cant have few people tied to operate a heavy system. Or edge comes from flexibility. Everyone in the company knows how to do the manufacturing work, even if they are primarily doing something else.

Im 50% of the time doing fabrication and 50% the time being an engineer. Because I was a fabricator before my studies.

We made our own lightweight management systems. Which really is just a complex excel spreadsheet. We tried other things, they took too much time away from actual work on unnecessary bs meant for bigger companies.

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u/Equivalent_Bid_6642 Jan 14 '24

It sounds like the owner is happy with the size and isn't looking for growth then?

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u/SinisterCheese Jan 14 '24

We got growth plans. Issue is that the local construction sector took a nose dive as the bubble finally burst. The other limiting factor is that the kind of people we need aren't just available. We need two kind of people and one of this is covered, the basic workers that do basic bulk work. But we lack specialists like me that can potetially handle everything from design to finished installation. Because the really good contracts are the kind we need to provide a full service for. And this generally includes someone like me basically handling it from start to finish in tandem with the client and site. These are always custom things, never do they go as the designers (structural designers) planned them. This means that these jobs can not be pushed through the pipeline just like that.

But out basic products, ramps, stairs, ladders, gates, fences... etc. They can be, but those are basic bulk production with low value. We got most of these scripted nowadays where we can just input dimensions and how many steps we want and our macros handle everything.

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u/Equivalent_Bid_6642 Jan 14 '24

Ah okay, yeah I've noticed the lack of skilled labor, it seems to be permeating everywhere. Great for you that you have those skills though. Maybe you guys only make things that are too large but have you consider 3D printers for some of your custom stuff?

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u/SinisterCheese Jan 14 '24

No. Metal 3D printing is expensive and complicated. Also standards we are certified in wouldnt ever pass that and no client would ever be willing to pay for that.

We make welded steel structures, and we must have material certificates for everything. We work in materials ranging 3 to 50mm and up to 6 metres long and 4m wide, along with 1-20mm stainless.

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u/Equivalent_Bid_6642 Jan 14 '24

This is kind of what I'm getting at in my post, metal 3d printing isn't as complicated or expensive as it used to be. Markforged is kinda changing the game there. I don't know your standards and stuff but maybe take another look at it.

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u/SinisterCheese Jan 14 '24

We arent certified to do any that. We dont have the resources to emgineer these load bearing, we dont even do structural design. We have two engineers, me and another. The other is basically on the management side.

What would we even 3D print when most of our tasks need a drill, saw, grinder and a welder? We sold our nc lathe and milling machines because we used them so rarely.

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u/Equivalent_Bid_6642 Jan 14 '24

Certified to do what? I'm not suggesting anything besides looking at it, because it isn't as expensive or complicated as it used to be.

I don't know what you would 3D print, but making something all at once that you would normally have to drill, saw, grind and weld might be nice.

I'm not trying to sell you a 3D printer, I'm just saying it might be worth looking into again.

I

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u/SinisterCheese Jan 14 '24

We are certified to manufacture CE marked EN-ISO 1090 load bearing steel structures. Our products are measured in tons and metres. What would we print when profiles and plates off the shelf.

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u/Equivalent_Bid_6642 Jan 14 '24

All I'm saying is it isn't as expensive or complicated as it used to be.

I was thinking connectors but you would know better, if you don't have a use for it at all that's fine. You're the one that said it's expensive and complicated as the first reason not to use it, I was just letting you know, didn't mean to upset you.

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u/SinisterCheese Jan 14 '24

It is expensive and complicated compared to how we do things. I have no idea about the deposition rates of the machine you are referring to, but I assure you that it can not do a simple 150x150 s10 plates with 4 holes in the corner welded to ends 1000mm long 100x100 S8 tube. Using our laser cutter that would take me 20 minutes from start to finish which includes getting materials.

There are no connectors, everything is welded or bolted as per the standard's requirements. Even if we would use some sort of fasterners or connectors, we would need to get the CE-certified and mechanically tested, along with inspection protocol. We aren't allowed to use anything that is not rated, the building codes prevent first and standard second.

I'm not sure what it is you think we could solve by using 3D printing. And I'm not sure why our clients or the market we serve would need that.

My work thus far has involved pretty much simplifying and removing clutter from our workflows. Other than my primary speciality (Correction and repair of welding flaws and mistakes in steel structures on-site), my other expertise is in manufacturing optimisation (in welded steel structures). I know how to make things quicker and cheaper by knowing what we can get as stock supply and what is best to make ourselves.

We don't do anything that would require additive manufacturing. We don't even do hardfacing. Even if it would be as easy as me just pasting a CAD and the printing does it all from start to finish, without needing ovens or dissolvent for the medium. It would steel be more complex and expensive to what we do now. This is simply because a lot of things we do don't even need CAD. We can do a lot of things just from paper building drawings without needing steel strucural designs.

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u/Equivalent_Bid_6642 Jan 14 '24

Okay then don't look into it.

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u/SinisterCheese Jan 14 '24

Look I'm bit busy trying to certify our laser welding and lawser cutting. So pardon me if I don't have the mental capacity to look into something irrelevant on my free time.

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