Modern Machine Shop and MoldMaking Technology present ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING, a quarterly supplement reporting on the use of additive processes to manufacture functional parts. More at additivemanufacturinginsight.com.
Issue link: https://am.epubxp.com/i/364508
6— AM Supplement F E A T U R E within their own workday to pitch in and help. All of the staff members enjoy unusual fringe benefts for working here. Attention to health, wellness and outlook are a daily part of the shop's habits and culture. Lunch and snacks are freely provided. Mr. Baklund and his wife Tara (the shop's administrative assistant) are self-described "foodies"—both of them knowledgeable and enthusiastic about nutrition, and committed to providing healthy food for all of the staff every day, often prepared by Mrs. Baklund herself. Mr. Baklund says this commitment is as much of an investment as a perk, because of the effect it has on employee output. With good nutrition, he says attendance improves (the shop has reduced the incidence of sick days), and so does employee performance in the afternoon. Given the amount of value that each employee is expected to deliver each day, safeguarding that value by making it easy for employees to eat well is a logical step for the company to take, he says. The employee who has to dash to a fast food restaurant for lunch is likely to be sluggish throughout the afternoon. Food for the mind is provided as well. Each month, Mr. Baklund chooses a book related to wellness, attitude or success, and purchases cop- ies for everyone in the shop. Once per month, all of the staff retreats to an offsite conference room to discuss the book. Works by Dale Carnegie, for example, have been read and discussed this way. This practice—the book club as a routine part of a machine shop's procedures—might seem bizarre, but it has proven invaluable for facilitating the kind of teamwork cited above. Employees who are all reading and discussing the same book are also exploring some of the same ideas, and developing a shared perspective and even a shared language of ideas for communicating with one another. In fact, employees bring their own input into the mix of shared ideas. At the daily shop meeting, employees are asked to fnd inspiring or instructional quotes to share with the group. Sometimes, in situations of friction or disagree- ment between team members, sharing a quote relevant to the situation offers a way to step out- side the immediate context of the problem to look at the issue from a broader vantage. Employees are also expected to innovate, and here is where the 3D printer has proven invalu- able. For this small shop to win business, says Mr. Baklund, it needs to be able to respond effective- ly to sudden, urgent needs from customers. That generally means being available to deliver short- run prototypes, which in turn generally means being prepared to complete or improve upon the design of parts that are as yet only conceptual and not yet refned for manufacturability. Aiding customers' design efforts in this way is such a frequent part of the business that Mr. Baklund can't do all of this engineering work on his own. Accordingly, he expects employees to grow not only in their skills at machining but in their skills at A seat of Solidworks runs on the shop foor near the 3D printer. The expectation is that design and manufacturing should not be separate realms, but that employees should consider it natural to do both. 3D printing is often the bridge between design and manufacturing, allowing an initial small-quantity run to be produced quickly, or allowing a part design to be refned and fnalized to the point that it's ready for production machining.