#2 - Good news from YOU!

More good news has arrived! Thank you Volpe Tool & Die  and Surface Solutions for sending in the latest bulletins.

Volpe Tool & Die, specializing in rapid prototype machining, has announced that they just recently purchased a Clausing large capacity CNC bed mill. The new machine’s table size is 15″ x 60″ with a 41.3″ X axis, 19.6″ Y axis. and a 23.62 Z axis. “We are excited about the new machine because of its large capacity.”

      

Volpe Tool & Die’s other services include: design assistance, prototype development, production fabrication, and manufacturing services.

 

Surface Solutions was featured in the June issue of Modern Application News. In an article titled “The Right Software Led to Shop Success”, owner John Graney describes how Mastercam X2 has improved his workflow and his profitability. The combination of John’s ingenuity and X2’s capabilities added up to some great results and quotes that will be used to help promote X3, the next release. Mastercam X3 will have the new ability to generate toolpaths inside SolidWorks.

  

 

This is Surface Solutions’ great video demonstrating high-speed machining.

Now it’s your turn to send in some good news that you want to share. We all like good news!

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#1 - Good News from YOU!

As a subscriber to way too many newsletters, RSS feeds and other news sources, I often see SupplierSource members with good news to tell. Since SupplierSource is meant to help you showcase yourselves and to learn more about each other, we’ll start posting good news that you send us as soon as we have two or three good items. This first one will be a trial to see if you think it’s a good idea and we’ll go from there.

Rapid Sheet Metal Now Offers Laser Cut Flat Acrylic Parts

Nashua, NH – July 22, 2008 — Rapid Sheet Metal, Inc., specializing in rapid turnaround of sheet metal and stamped metal prototypes, has announced that it has added a plastic material, acrylic, to its list of available materials. With a standard shipping lead-time of 5 business days or less, product designers can now be assured that flat acrylic prototypes are available in a week or less.

“Acrylic parts in the flat are used by product designers in a number of ways including bezels and face plates. Acrylic is also a good substitute for G10 and can be used to prototype the footprint of a circuit board. In addition, by combining the acrylic prototypes with our 2 day turn, in-house silk screening service, companies are now able to procure finished acrylic products with graphics in well under two weeks.” says James Jacobs, President of Rapid Sheet Metal.

Rapid Sheet Metal offers laser cut acrylic in thicknesses from .060” to .250” and stocks acrylic in thicknesses of .060”, .125” and .250” thicknesses. Other thicknesses are available.

Rob Rodriguez, owner of Axis CAD Soultions is Featured Artist on 3DVIA.com

Axis CAD Solutions’ owner, Rob Rodriguez, is the Featured Artist on 3DVIA.com right now (full disclosure - I’m an online community manager for 3DVIA too, and worked with Rob to create the posting).

It’s a great way for him to promote his company to a broader market and help 3DVIA visitors understand more about the manufacturing and architectural uses of 3D models. Check out the full story.

So, if you have some good news to share, send it to me here at SupplierSource and I’ll collect them, post them and let everyone know about the good news from YOU!

SolidWorks: Heard! - speaks out about SupplierSource

It’s really nice when someone else does your job for you! Especially when they do it so well.

   

Lou Gallo, from SolidWorks: Heard!, recently did a great podcast that dissected SupplierSource, described all of our parts and then put us back together again. He clearly explained so much in a short time that I’m tempted to use it as the audio when I present SupplierSource to SolidWorks Users Group meetings.

Thanks Lou, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Don’t be scared - say something nice!

We all agree that word-of-mouth is the best advertising and we work hard to keep our customers happy, so they’ll come back and so they’ll pass the word. So how come everyone is so shy about saying something nice about the folks they’ve worked with here on SupplierSource?

We’re not asking you to write a book - just a brief thumbs up so that the next person looking at the profile gets some real feedback from another customer.

As you can see, we don’t even require you to use your company name in your review. This is to help folks who may have a strict company policy about endorsements. This way you can still say something nice and not get in trouble.

Of course, if you want to add your company name, you can…

In order to write a review, we do require that you be a registered user here at SupplierSource (easy to do - about 60 seconds if you have a decent connection), so that we have a person to contact in case of disagreements. It’s easy. It’s helpful and it makes a difference.

So, go ahead, the next time you realize that you really appreciate someone who has gone out of their way to make your job easier and you want to help them out - write a quick review and put a smile on at least two faces!

Shop Rats Rule!!

This really gets my motor running! These folks just plain get it - big time. ShopRat.org knows that we’re running out of Shop Rats and they’re doing something about it.

Manufacturing all over the world relies on a continuous supply of Shop Rats to keep its motor running, therefore we ALL rely on Shop Rats. If you’re here at SupplierSource, then you care about manufacturing and engineering and already know what a Shop Rat is and are probably proud to be one. For our friends and visitors here’s a little help:

These characteristics are true of Shop Rats all over the world, not just the US. Let’s be honest with ourselves, the only reason we need groups like the Shop Rat Organization here in the states is because we’ve “forgotten” how important Shop Rats are to our way of life and have chosen instead to glorify individuals and groups with other skills rather than the ones that make our world possible. Now our daily life is becoming a steady stream of reminders of why we need to include Shop Rats in our recognition of true heroes. This not an “us vs. them” issue. The real issue is that we all rely on each other.

Yikes! I’m getting a little passionate there. I care. We should all care.

Shop Rats all over the world deserve our respect. Each of us needs to work a little harder to both earn that respect and to share it too. Go see what ShopRats.org is doing and see if you can help them - and yourself - whether you’re here in the states or somewhere else in the world trying to understand how to help make things better.

Many thanks to Marie Planchard, Director of Worldwide Education Markets at SolidWorks Corporation, who told me about ShopRats.org in the first place.

(Hopefully, she won’t regret it now.)

Trade show attack dogs

We’ve all been there: you’re cruising down the aisles at a trade show. You know that there is something new and cool somewhere, you just have to find it. You also feel like a piece of fresh meat as you try to stay in the center of the aisle and avoid eye contact with the drooling attack dogs at each booth ready to pounce. You hope that you’ll be able to get some idea of what they do before they’re on you, so that you’ll know which defensive tactic to use (”I am not from this galaxy” works sometimes).

Many of us have also been on the other side way too many times, lined up with a multitude of other folks, all having invested a large amount of time and efort to try to be the one big thing that the attendee cares about at that show. The opportunities are limited. The prospects are moving down the gauntlet and you need to make some kind of contact. You’ve got all the latest catchy visuals and pumped-up videos going (and, if you’re lucky, attractive booth mates), but you still need something to lure them closer.

Ah yes, the giveaway! A worm on a hook doesn’t work in most of these situations, but we’re always intrigued (on both sides of the attack/opportunity) by new approaches to the problem.

Most recently, at SolidWorks World 2008, I was on the “attack” side of the equation and tried a new worm that worked surprisingly well - custom postage stamps. Huh?

Yes, custom postage stamps. US Post Office-approved sites like Stamps.com and Zazzle.com let you upload your own artwork and they apply the requisite bar code, print them up and send them off to you. Of course, they’re more expensive than the “regular” stamps, but they really do work on real mail. I know that there are at least two people that still use stamps and the post office, since I’m one of them and I did a non-scientific survey at home too.

When I approached folks at SolidWorks World with the stamps, they were at first rather surprised, then intrigued and then (almost always) they smiled! They didn’t always come over to the SupplierSource kiosk and get the full-boat show, but they did get a quick idea of what we’re about and something useful that they could take back with them. Whenever they see the stamps, they’ll be reminded of SupplierSource and how very useful we are too.

NOW COMES THE EXCITING PART: I still have a few pairs of these highly collectible stamps available on a limited-time, first-come-first-served basis just for you! But (there’s always a “but”), you need to earn them, since you didn’t have to pay to go all the way to the show in San Diego. To get your pair of stamps, just sign up your company with SupplierSource and make a comment here at the blog or let me know by email (dswavely@REMOVEALLTHISSTUFFsolidworks.com).

If you want to go for the whole enchilada, do a review for one of your favorite partners and I’ll give you TWO pairs of stamps! Yes, count them - TWO pairs, all for you. You won’t have to email me, since you do have to register to be able to provide a review.

Now, I know that you can barely contain your excitement, so please go to SupplierSource, earn your very own stamps and maybe even use some custom stamps yourselves to deliver a smile rather than a bite.

Aircraft carrier traffic jam

Sometimes you just get lucky. As I was walking along the San Diego waterfront to get a better look at the USS Midway Museum, I was also taking pictures. One rarely sees an aircraft carrier in Massachusetts (although we do have a wonderful battleship, the USS Massachusetts).

As I got closer to the massive hulk of the museum’s main focus, I glanced left and was boggled by what I was seeing. CVB-41 (USS Midway) was almost blocking the sky, CVN-76 (USS Ronald Reagan) was moored across the channel and CVN-68 (USS Nimitz) was inbound, complete with tugs and with the crew lined up around the deck. It’s not likely that I’ll see that again. All right, if you live in San Diego it might not be that big a deal, but to me it sure was.

Since I had mentioned aircraft carriers in my earlier post, “Thinking about hardware”, I was absolutely going to figure out a way to include this photo in another post. Well, aircraft carriers have to be “manufactured” too, so that was a starting point. The Internet provided (links at the end) multiple archives of images including this one of the Midway being constructed in 1945.

Things were a little more sophisticated when the Reagan was being built.

The massive scale of the effort is just amazing. When I stumbled upon the Aircraft Carrier Industrial Base Coalition (ACIBC), I knew I had found gold. Their mission statement says it all:

Go to this interactive map at their website and check out the lists of the coalition’s Industrial Base companies in each of 46 states. Bear in mind that this is just the coalition members, it doesn’t include the value provided by manufacturers of sub-components and raw materials.

In California alone, 130 companies have received “more than $212,165,827.88 in purchase order awards to produce components and provide services for the maintenance and construction of U.S. Navy aircraft carriers.” Those dollars have provided for a lot of families and required just about every engineering, manufacturing and fabrication skill available.

So, consider the loop closed on aircraft carriers for now. That still leaves me trains and airplanes for future posts!

Excellent links:

Navy.mil - Official Website of the UNITED STATES NAVY

Haze Gray & Underway - World Aircraft Carrier Lists

NavSource - Naval History - Photographic History of the U.S. Navy

Lies, Dang-blasted Lies, and Statistics

Mark Twain (working with Benjamin Disraeli’s original material) got it right that we must be careful when presented with statistical information. The interest of the presenter is always behind the statistics. That is also true in this case; however, I’ll show you the tools to create the stats for yourself and maybe even apply the same tools to help provide insights into your own internet environment.

 The following charts come from www.Compete.com . You can go there, register, recreate them, and look at the tabs and other information provided for a more complete understanding. Compete and other sites are well-known for their constant monitoring  and presentation of web trends. Trends is the keyword here. Capturing what is really happening on the internet is like saying that one fish in the ocean is getting bigger and another is getting smaller - so what! It only matters if the bigger trend matters.

This first chart is to figure out who are the big fish and who are the little ones. (We’re down in the minnow part of the chart.)

The second chart shows us in comparison to one of the fish that’s quite big in our part of the reef.

The third and fourth ones show us with the fish that we see all the time.

 

I’ve put these simple charts out there, so that we all can see how deep the ocean is and where SupplierSource fits on the food chain. We’re working hard to make a difference in your personal ability to put food on your table, but certainly don’t want to pretend that we’re bigger than we are. Just as fish are one part of a balanced diet, SupplierSource is one ingredient in your marketing pantry. Use it appropriately and it will taste just fine.

The best statistics are the ones that you understand and that you can get more information about when you want to. So go to Compete (or someone else) and start exploring the depths of the internet! Have some fun and let us know what you find.

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) disclaimer: no actual fish, large or small, were in any way harmed by the mash-up of analogies in this post.