Improving Manufacturing Productivity

The Key to U.S. Manufacturing Competitiveness


Learn More About Manufacturing Productivity, Affordability, Offshoring, and Manufacturing Cost Reduction

Manufacturers take heart in the falling dollar

Not made in USA

U.S. Manufacturers Can Turn Offshoring to Their Advantage

Go Green and Profit. Time-Tested Practices Show Environmental Sense is Good Business

A Brief History of Offshoring

Small Business Manufacturing in a Global Environment

Manufacturing Management Strategies for the Small Business Competing in an Offshoring Economy

A Method for Evaluating Manufacturing Damage in Monolithic and Composite Materials


Have a Manufacturing Question? Ask Dean.

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Q: We fabricate this circuit board in-house as part of an electronic musical instrument. Any suggestions on how we could decrease its cost?

Q: A vendor injection molds this part for us. The material is high-density polyethylene. Our problem is that almost every part has a horizontal line through it. What is the cause of this line and how could it have been prevented? The line is visible to the customer because the part is on the outside of our product.

Q: I am the manager of a small (15-employee) company. Our product requires manual assembly, which is both slow and expensive. Is there a way to improve the productivity of this operation?

Q: We are a small business and make these parts in-house using an injection molding machine. The material is Nylon 6-6. Sometimes our parts contain microscopic bubbles and/or streaks. Why?

 

Dean Poeth, Ph.D., P.E., C.Mfg.E. (http://poeth.com/) answers manufacturing questions. For more than 25 years Dr. Poeth has held key technical positions in manufacturing, design, education, and technical management. He specializes in design for manufacturing, training, affordability, and manufacturing productivity improvement.

Guidelines and recommendations offered here are based on information believed to be reliable and are supplied in good faith but without guarantee. Operational conditions that exist in individual plants and facilities vary widely. Users of this information should adapt it, and always exercise independent discretion in establishing plant or facility operating practice.

Copyright © 2010 by Dean F. Poeth. All rights reserved.

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