Posts Tagged ‘ Die Design ’

Michigan-based manufacturer is looking to immediately hire more than 20 tool makers. One of the hardest-hit sectors of the American government's ill-fated and apathetic stance on manufacturing, hopefully some Michigan workers will find employment here.
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Job opening for an experienced tool and die designer with at least five years experiences and familiarity with the stamping process.
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When it comes to shrinking the amount of time between die design and production stampings, one would be hard-pressed to find any group doing it more efficiently than Ford motor company's Dearborn Tool & Die plant.
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Although many CAD software programs are OEM customer-driven, it’s good to know what developments are made in the tooling design software available.

Called, ThinkDesign 2009.1, by the product development process company, think3, it claims several advancements in the sheet metal stamping die design industry. Such as, “It enables an easy closure of holes by saving time in complex models, which is very useful to pre-process shapes used in metal stamping and mold creation.”

-Joe Brown

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Hey everyone,
Below is an email I received from a reader of this blog.  I encourage you all to do the same.  This message I received below epitomizes the reason for this blog.  I want you all to share these type of thoughts on here as a place to organize, share ideas, vent frustrations, etc.  How many of you are offering “free engineering”?  I know this person isn’t alone in their viewpoint.  Anybody you work with that isn’t reading this blog please forward the address on so we can gain some momentum and get to the point where our voice can’t be ignored.  Read on…….

I’m not much for blogging myself but I did read the “Out of the box thinking”
topic on the new tool and die blog site. I was thinking about what was said and
I couldn’t help but feel contempt towards the industry itself. Why you ask? Well
I went to a supplier meeting of sorts to discuss how we could help our customer
cut costs through manufacturing. We provided some tried and true ideas that have
proven to save money in the past. No we didn’t come up with anything innovative
simply because we fail to see how this would benefit us (ROI). We have supplied
our customers with “free” engineering in the past but I fail to see how or why
we should continue to do so. I have witnessed, more times than I care to
remember, us providing “free” engineering to potential customers and then have
to watch them take our work and hand it to our competitor due to our quoted
price not being as favorable as theirs. Yes, we have also been a recipient of
“free” engineering.

In the past customers and suppliers had a better
working relationship than what we see today (take Plastech for example) “free”
engineering was something that was freely given. Everyone was happy making a
profit. Now we are so focused on cutting costs at every corner and fail to
realize that everything else around us has increased in cost. Overall cost of
living, fuel, milk, raw materials, gold, etc… While the dollar is plummeting.
This is why engineering becomes “free”. Engineering itself isn’t a commodity
like it once was. The field of engineering has been diminished in stature in the
past couple of decades.

Why do I place quotes around free? Because
engineering is not free. Does a Dr. give you free medicine? Does a Lawyer
actually do anything for free? Does an Architectural firm give free designs and
models to the builder prior to awarding the build?

Why do we feel that
our engineering skills are less important than any other professional skill set.
The out of the box thinking works only if you are recognized and compensated for
the work. What is the incentive if someone takes that knowledge and goes
elsewhere. Once it becomes “free” you hold no intellectual property to it.

Disgruntled Engineer

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