Wednesday, November 4, 2009
October 29 Tour: TS Tech Alabama, Boaz
TS Tech Alabama LLC invites SME Birmingham members to tour their Boaz, Alabama facilities on Thursday, October 29, 2009, 5pm - 7pm.
TS Tech Co, LTD is a global supplier of automobile seats, automotive interiors, motorcycle seats, and motorcycle parts. The TS Tech Alabama plant manufactures automobile seats for Honda. Our host, Brian Cochran will show us what it takes for a Tier 1 Automotive Supplier to deliver large quantities of high-quality, custom interior seating components "just-in-time" to one of Japan's, Alabama's, and the world's leading auto manufacturer assembly plants.
TS Tech Alabama LLC
1685 North Main Street
Boaz, Alabama 35957
256-593-9399
Members should receive an email invitation confirming this tour. Please, RSVP to Blane Vines or to Mark Partyka. Please, remember to bring along your safety glasses and safety shoes.
If you are not a member of the Birmingham Chapter of the SME and you would like to meet with us to attend scheduled tours at some of the most advanced manufacturing plants in Alabama or to meet regularly to discuss topics of interest for manufacturers, please, take a moment to contact one of our sponsoring companies listed on this page.
Follow Up - Tour Synopsis
Mr. Brian Cochran, Plant Engineer for TS Tech Alabama welcomed our small group, including 4 regular members and 4 guests with a brief introduction to the Kaizen Manufacturing Principles. A word similar to improvement, "kaizen" is the japanese philosophy harmonizing the focus of continuous improvements in manufacturing processes, in business, and in life. During post World War II reconstruction, the Japanese immediatedly promoted LEAN manufacturing adaptations into their newly founded and revitalized manufacturing businesses. The kaizen adaptive model promotes from every individual participating in the business, from assembly line workers to team-leaders to management to the CEO to make suggestions to help refine every process until 100% efficiencies along with 100% non-defective products are achieved plantwide. Striving to refine and improve every process in the business, from office procedures to purchasing to production to delivery, each to the highest efficiency, the kaizen manufacturing principle seeks to eliminate the wasteful procedures and the non-productive business practices.
As we walked through the plant, we all noticed how well their teams worked together. The manufacturing lines appeared to achieve a balanced harmony between work and production. Approximately 300 workers per shift work together within extremely efficient and modern assembley areas, robotic welding centers, conveyor systems, workcell stations, inspection cells, and automated loading equipment. We were able to view how the kaizen manufacturing philosophy has helped the TS Tech Alabama team to produce and deliver from 400 - 800 sets of seats to the Honda, Lincoln plant, daily. Recent analysis indicates that their internal failure rate is less than 0.5%. Additionally, TS Tech Alabama maintains 100% quality product delivery to the Honda assembly plant with 0% failure. Most of us have probably not achieved such quality results in manufacturing at our own plants. SME Birmingham congratulates TS Tech on reaching the highest in delivering quality.
SME visitors included members from Ajax Tocco of Boaz, Bluewater Thermal Services from Athens, and Pneumatic Automation from Birmingham
We wish to extend our highest regards and thanks to our hosts, Brian Cochran and the whole TS Tech Alabama plant.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Thompson Tractor Tour Highlights
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Thompson Tractor tour 08/27/2009 5 - 7 pm
Monday, August 3, 2009
Nucor Steel Tuscaloosa Plant Tour
Nucor Steel Tuscaloosa shut down the plant for our Thursday evening, end of the month tour. As a result, fifteen SME members and guests were allowed to "get close to the equipment" during our tour of the mill.
Our three hosts, Jon, Dave and Johnny welcomed us into their conference room for a brief history of this Tuscaloosa coil and discreet plate mill, along with some light refreshments.
We first climbed the stairs to the top of the mill to see where scrap steel is loaded into the Electric Arc Furnace. We saw the ladle metallurgy furnace that handles 150 tons of newly melted steel. Next in line, we stepped up to the mixing and testing portion of the mill where we were surprised to find that when adding Vanadium, steelworkers throw the whole can full of these precious rocks into the mix. Our tour guide, Jon Walton, let us know that temperatures get extremely hot along the way, beginning at 2300 degrees Farenheit before cooling toward 1000 degrees upon exiting as a finished product, prior to shearing. During production, most of the workers wear heavy, heat protection gear.
We followed the stairs down the path where the steel is poured into the slabcaster. As a rule, Nucor Tuscaloosa generates a standard-sized 5 1/4" slab in order to produce a uniform beginning size for all of their finished coil and discreet plate products. Again, SME members and guests were able to take a closer look at the cooling mechanics of the slabcaster while the mill was shut down. On the other side of the mezzanine, our guides showed us a "from-the-top view" of how the Steckel Mill works these slabs until the desired 5.26" thickness and flatness is achieved. As we made our way into the plate rolling, control room, we viewed monitors showing close-ups of various coil-rolling inspection points. Here, the slab is rolled to the desired coil thickness, then sheared, coiled to a rolled size. At this point, the desired thickness coil has been produced.
Additionally, we viewed the shear lines, the discreet plate lines, and we saw both, finished coils and finished 1/2" to 1 1/2" x 96" x 480" plates. At that time, all of these plates had metric measurements and specific heat and plate numbers written on their edges.
Both, during our introduction and the closing remarks, Dave Reinhold stressed the efforts made for adhering to the highest Safety Standards in the industry. Nucor prides itself on promoting Safety and Environmental Stewardship, while producing some of the highest quality steel products in the world. Dave took the time to answer several of our questions.
We finished our evening with a seafood dinner at Wintzell's. Al Hanhauser a member from the Mercedes Tuscaloosa plant shared one of the more interesting conversations when he introduced us to the new Mercedes SLS Series production vehicles that should rival the Ford Mustang AV-X10. Further, Nathan Cox, from COX MHP, an invited guest from the Mississippi SME chapter suggested that Alabama and Mississippi continue joint tours. Nathan suggested several upcoming Mississippi plant tours that would be of interest to our members.
SME Birmingham members and guests thank NUCOR STEEL for giving us this opportunity to see their Tuscaloosa coil and plate production facilities. We are also thankful for the invitation to come back when the mill is under heavy operation in order to see the steel produced live.
Friday, July 10, 2009
July & August SME Plant Tours set
With a business philosophy committed to safety, productivity and profitability, Nucor maintains strong business ethics while promoting excellence in environmental stewardship. Nucor has always been committed to producing superior quality. Demonstrating their committment to leading the industry, Nucor Steel Tuscaloosa was the first mill in the US to install Steckel Mill machinery, leading the whole steel industry toward improving production efficiencies while reducing costs. This new innovation provided a better technological implementation for incorporating "scrap steel" into the production process, while also maintaining higher flatness standards and greater consistencies for their plate products. Jon Walton, a Process Metallurgist will be conducting the facilities tour.
Directions: Go to http://www.bing.com/maps
Nucor: 1700 Holt Rd. NE, Tuscaloosa, AL 35404
Wintzell's Oyster House: 1 Bridge Ave., Northport, AL, 5 miles SW (on the Banks of the Black Warrior River)
Please, remember to bring your PPE Safety Gear: safety glasses, hard-hat, steel-toed boots.
Thompson Tractor Company has invited us to tour their Tarrant facilities on Thursday, August 27, 2009. Thompson CAT is the full-line Caterpillar equipment dealer across Alabama and panhandle Florida and represents Mitsubishi Caterpillar forklifts across most of Georgia. While Thompson has always stood tall promoting Safety, Training, and Construction Partnerships, today, additional attention is being devoted to Promoting Environmental and Energy efficiencies. This Birmingham / Tarrant, Pinson Valley Parkway (Hwy 79) location is the corporate headquarters for Thompson Tractor. Details about this event, along with a time to meet is forthcoming.
Please, remember to bring your Safety Glasses for this tour.
Please, consult http://www.sme.org/ or email BrianE@PrecisionGrinding.com if you would like to know more about SME Chapter 143, Anniston, Birmingham, Gadsden, Tuscaloosa, AL.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
UAB Mechanical Engineering Tour
Bharat K. Soni, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of the UAB Mechanical Engineering Department and his staff hosted a tour for us on Thursday, April 30, 2009 at the Business / Engineering Building at the University of Alabama Birmingham.
Dr. Alan Shih, a specialist in numerical geometry, introduced us to the Modeling & Computational Simulations Lab, touching on subjects such as Emergency Response modeling; medical, anatomical and bilogical simulations; and modeling projects involving manufacturing, assembly, and technical training. Dr. Soni stands at the bottom right of the picture above.
Dr. Vora from the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) took time to explain how India is ramping up to support automotive manufacturing. With 16 Million people riding 2-wheelers every day in India, companies such as TATA are beginning to mass produce smaller, less expensive automobiles in order to reach this 2-wheel market. Dr. Vora, along with Dr. Soni support automotive research competitions such as BAJA, FSAE & AWIM that support student engineers working together to improve vehicle technology from Formula to BAJA racing. We thank Dr. Vora from Pune, India for taking time from his busy schedule to visit us during his three week trip to the US.
While there, we met several student engineers who were working in the UAB Machine Shop on both the BAJA project car and the Formula project car.
We thank the UAB Mechanical Engineering Department, especially Dr. Soni and his staff for taking time out of their Exam Week scheduling to support our group.
If you would like to join us at any of our SME Meetings or tours, please, visit the SME website to view our touring schedule or contact Brian Everling at 205-942-2491 or BrianE@PrecisionGrinding.com.
Monday, April 6, 2009
O'Neal Steel Plant tour March 26, 2009
O’Neal offers a vast array of metal products from multiple distributions centers across the United States and Mexico along with recent activity as far away as China.
The plant tour featured a view of their automated metals storage and retrieval machine, manufactured by KASTO. This "parts picker" demonstrates how O’Neal continually works to increase efficiencies, improving upon their multi-stage processing capabilities. Automating processes trim costs of production, further enabling O’Neal to provide fabricators, job shops, and a wide variety of OEMs with exactly what they need, when they need it, at competitive prices.
The KASTO parts storage machine is seven stories tall with over 4000 compartments. With a single crane and multiple conveyor lines, this 21,000 ton capacity storage and retrieval system is awe-inspiring to view in action.
Our SME Chapter 143 membership regularly tours Manufacturing facilities across Alabama in order to view Leaner Manufacturing techniques. Through community cooperative manufacturing plant tours, these members are able to gain insight to share with their own companies to improve upon manufacturing quality assurance efficiencies. We are fortunate that O'Neal team members, Henley Smith, Marketing Director; Todd Johnson, a member of Sales; and Steve Holley, General Operations Manager for the Birmingham plant were able to schedule an afternoon shift tour for us to see their operation while under light production. We offer sincere thanks to O'Neal Steel for allowing their members to host our tour.
Directions to O'Neal Steel Offices:
Take I-20/I-59 to Birmingham, Exit Tallapoosa Street, take a left to go underneath the interstate. Approximately 2 blocks, at Stockholm Valve, take a left. Drive to the next block, 41st Street S. and take a right. Follow 41st Street across the railroad tracks. You'll see the corporate office on the right. We'll meet there preceding 3pm.
For more information, please, contact Brian Everling, BrianE@PrecisionGrinding.com or LaVada Varner, LVarner@atn.org.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Jan 27, 2009 Lawson State - Bessemer Meeting
Donnell Perry, Manufacturing & Engineering Instructor along with Nancy Wilson, Division Chair are graciously hosting our meeting. We look forward to hearing about their growing Manufacturing Curriculum, especially about their latest explorations into Manufacturing Robotics.
The Ethel H. Hall Automotive Building Auditorium, labeled as #4 on the campus map http://www.lawsonstate.edu/Campus/Bessemer.pdf is our meeting site. This is a 4Mb pdf file.
Take I-59 to Exit 108, Academy Drive. Go east toward Bessemer Super Highway 11. Turn north (left) onto Hwy 11. Less than 1/2 mile ahead on the left is the Lawson State - Bessemer campus. The Ethel H. Hall building is clearly labeled on the .pdf map. Please, visit http://maps.live.com/ and type in "Academy Drive Bessemer AL" to find an excellent map.
We will hold Elections for 2009 Posts. All members are welcome to volunteer for a position. Tina Brudnicki, our Southeastern Coordinator for SME plans to attend to help us formulate a solid 2009 gameplan. A light dinner will be served.
Expect to meet a few additional guests.
Brian Copes from Calera High School's Shop Rat program may be looking for partners to help build better relationships from Shop Classes to Manufacturing Education courses offered at Alabama high schools, Alabama small colleges, and the manufacturing community. We applaud Brian for having already enlisted over 100 manufacturing companies toward helping his shop rats with Auto Manufacturing.
If you would like to meet with us, please, send us a note. We will be happy for you to join us.
Questions?
Please, contact Brian E., BrianE@PrecisionGrinding.com or 942-2491. Or contact LaVada V., lvarner@atn.org or 616-9766 for more info.