Smiths Machine – Thursday Dec. 02, 2010

Smiths Machine invites SME Birmingham Chapter 143 to tour their Cottondale, AL Plant #1.

Date:
December 02, 2010

Time:
4:45 p.m. - Social Time (Refreshments provided)
5:30 p.m. - Tour

Location:
Smiths Machine - Plant #1
14120 Highway 11 North
Cottondale, AL 35453


Smiths Machine provides State of the Art Manufacturing through applied integrated engineering, planning, and manufacturing processes. They use Multi-Axis Twin Spindle Turning that can complete all six sides of complex parts in one setting, resulting in higher accuracy in the shortest time. They handle parts up to 600mm diameter and 1.18 meters in length. Their high-tech 5 axis milling machines give the ability to produce the most demanding complex geometry of part sizes up to 1 cubic meter, utilizing multiple pallets and high capacity tool magazines. The Value Added Services include mechanical assembly, surface and heat treatments as well as kitting and customized packaging. A world class inspection department is synchronized with production to ensure the highest accuracy. Inspecting with the latest scanning technology by ZEISS, they can measure all parts they manufacture. Smiths Machine LLC is ISO 9001:2000 CERTIFIED for Quality Management Systems and is a majority female owned business.

PPE requirements not yet determined.


Please register for this event by sending an e-mail to MarkPartyka@yahoo.com or Blane.Vines@nucor.com.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Honda Tour - Lincoln, AL - Thursday, May 13, 2010

Honda Manufacturing of Alabama, LLC invites the local SAE and the SME Birmingham Chapter 143 to tour their Lincoln, Alabama plant.

Date: May 13, 2010
Time: 3:00pm - 7:00pm, Social Hour begins at 3:00pm.

Honda Manufacturing of Alabama, LLC produces over 300,000 vehicles and engines annually, including the Honda Odyssey, the Honda Pilot, the Honda Ridgeline, the Honda V-6 Accord and Honda V-6 engines. The plant sits on 1350 acres with over 3.5 million square feet of buildings and plant. Over 4,000 associates work on-site. Operations include: Stamping, welding, painting, plastic injection molding, casting, machining, assembly and sub-assembly, engine assembly, testing, and quality assurance.

Please bring your PPE equipment: Safety Glasses & Steel-toe boots.

Please, Register via ONLINE REGISTRATION at http://www.inline.com/sme. A $5.00 donation will be accepted at the door for this event.

CONGRATULATIONS! HONDA on a successful, innaugural Barber Motorsports IRL Grand Prix of Alabama.

Questions: contact Mark.Partyka@Siemens.com or Blane.Vines@BhamFast.com

We look forward to seeing you there. Please, mark your calenders, accordingly.

Indy Grand Prix of Alabama - Barber MotorSports

April 9 - 11 Barber MotorSports Grand Prix of AL, IRL

Mark, Blane, Al & Brian showing the new SME Birmingham Banner .

SME Birmingham and Precision Grinding invited SME members and their guests to visit us in the LOT D Camping section throughout the Scheduled events on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We secured (4) tent sites, complete with 10' x 10' canopy tents, a new SME Chapter 143 Banner, and plenty of Southern hospitality.

Enjoying the view from the hilltop above Turns 15 & 16 during the Sunday IRL. Helio Castroneves and the No. 3 Team won the inaugural Barber Motorsports Grand Prix of Alabama.

Event tickets were $70.00 (3) day pass. (Past Commentary) We have these full event passes available for the first (10) members to sign up. (3) day passes allow you to enter the Lot D camping area to join us. Repeat, in order to join us within the Lot D Camping area, you must have a 3-day ticket for the Indy event in order to gain access. Additionally, if you would like to purchase a $50.00 on-site parking pass, we have two available - note, Barber's has SOLD OUT the allotment of on-site parking passes. Please, email or call one of us directly for onsite parking passes. Otherwise, General Admission Public Parking, off-site parking is available at the I-459, Derby Parkway and John Rogers Blvd., Birmingham Race Course. Shuttles should run all day, all three days. Please, click the above link for directions from the north, south, east, and west.

Special Note: One child, 12-under is allowed into this Barber INDY event with a paid ticket. However, those entering the campground must be 13-over. Please, note these rules for children.

Precision Grinding members and staff are bringing grills to Bar-B-Q your favorite foods. Please, bring along your cooler full of your favorite beverages. GLASS CONTAINERS ARE NOT ALLOWED in the park. Please, bring along your favorite outdoor chairs. If you would like to bring additional ICE, SOFT DRINKS, WATERS, SNACKS, MEATS, BREADS or FOODS to share with your associates, we accept all of your support.

Special Reminders: Bring a chair or field blanket. Bring Earplugs or Race Headphones. The Sunday Main Indy race will be broadcast live on radios, bring personal radios. Bring Sun-Block.

Additionally, we should have a locked utility trailer on-site in order to secure belongings for the weekend. If you happen to want to sleep in the Campground at the track on Fri or Sat night, please, know that you are welcome. Please, bring your sleeping bag, blankets, and pillow. We will do all we can to accomodate your needs during the three days.

We plan to hold a "Putting 'n Pitching" contest. We'll also have "Horse Shoes" available. Most Barber events hold a quiet time during Church services in the area from 11a - 12p on Sunday. Lunches and contests will begin at 11am.

Please, visit Barber MotorSports website for a full slate of information about rules and regulations. SME $70.00 tickets will allow you to view all events from the grass hillsides. These tickets will not allow you into the additionally priced paddock area: paddock area tickets cost an additional $60.00. These 3-day tickets will allow you to experience most of the festivities at the track. Please, consider visiting the Barber Museum while there. The museum is unique and extremely interesting.

For all members who purchase tickets directly from Barber Motorsports, please, know that we are accepting $10 donations to attend the campground festivities. Please, register at our SME Birmingham online registration site, and we will be back in touch with you. Please, check the appropriate boxes on the registration site. We will call or email you, ASAP.

Email BrianEverling@phd1.com or Blane.Vines@bhamfast.com with any Additional Questions.

30-40 guests enjoyed a great weekend at Barber Motorsports!

MBUSI Invites SME & SAE to Tour Plant, March 25

Mercedes Benz U.S. International (MBUSI) has invited members from SME and SAE to tour the Vance/Tuscaloosa plant. Please see notes below for further registration information.

About MBUSI:
Seventeen years have passed since MBUSI came to Alabama and North America as the first Mercedes-Benz passenger vehicle plant located outside of Germany. MBUSI is now well into the second chapter of its life, creating new products and expanding its impact on the Tuscaloosa community and Alabama.

Today, Plant Tuscaloosa represents in excess of a $1.29-billion investment. MBUSI currently has just under 3,000 Team Members and a capacity to build 160,000 vehicles. Plant Tuscaloosa builds the second generation M-Class, the R-Class Sports Tourer and the GL-Class full-size SUV. Plant Tuscaloosa also now builds the innovative new clean BlueTEC diesel technology into the R-Class, GL- and M-Class SUVs assembled here.

In 2009, the ML 450 Hybrid was launched in the U.S., and it was announced that MBUSI will build the next generation C-Class, set for launch in 2014. Vehicles built at MBUSI are solely built in Alabama for more than 135 markets around the world.

Tour date: Thursday, March 25, 2010
Tour start place: Plant 1 Lobby (beside Plant 1, east side parking lot)

Refreshments: 4:45pm to 5:30pm
MBUSI Presentation - Phil Johnston: 5:30pm - 5:50pm
Tours Start: 5:50pm (3 groups - sign up 1st come 1st serve)
Tour 1 - 5:50pm start
Tour 2 - 6:00pm start
Tour 3 - 6:10pm start
Tour length approx 1 1/4 hours.

Tour registration: Registrants will be forwarded schedule of events & map to MBUSI Plant 1, East Parking lot.
Tour requirements: Please bring your own PPE safety wear which should include: Long sleeve shirts, safety glasses, hearing protection; Steel toes not required as the tour groups will stay within the tour route. Please, bring along a photo identification so that attendees can be identified according to registration; a driver license should be acceptable.

Additional note=> for any people able to arrive VERY EARLY, they may take a walk thru the MBUSI Visitor Center which is open from 8:30am until 4:30pm, Monday thru Friday.

Please, Register via the open ONLINE REGISTRATION site at http://www.inline.com/sme. Please, check the PAYMENT Box, Not Applicable. There is no fee for this event. We are in the process of modifying the online registration to meet the Mercedes tour requirements.

Questions: Please contact Blane Vines, email blane.vines@bhamfast.com .

Our April Meeting is scheduled for "the innaugural GRAND PRIX of ALABAMA", sometime April 9 - 11, 2010. Please, view http://www.barbermotorsports.com for more information about this Indy car circuit event. Tickets cost $70.00 each (advance payment) for a 3-day pass, Fri - Sun. SME and Precision Grinding will host 4 tents in the Lot D camping area for those wishing to gather together. All individuals must have a 3-day pass in order to enter the campsite area. We will post more information about the Barber Motor Sports event following the Mercedes tour.

Your SME webmaster, Brian.

UAB to host SolidWorks Seminar at Inline 2/22/10

Inline will host our upcoming February 22, 2010 meeting from 5:00 - 7:30 p. Tina Oliver, Assistant Professor, UAB School of Engineering and some of her students will demonstrate the MS Excel Spreadsheet design portion of SolidWorks. Designing a "parts lists" or a "list of materials" from within a CAD program is becoming a standard requirement, inside the sales & estimation departments of many of our companies. Tina has graciously accepted the task to introduce our membership, along with any invited guests to learn more about engaging some of these "higer functions" within CAD programs. Hope to see all of you at our Monday evening meeting.

Tina and the UAB Mechanical Engineering Department also sponsor and compete in the university BAJA competitions. Several of the BAJA engineering students may be in attendance, serving as our guides. UAB also fields a competitive FSAE team, a university Formula1 sponsored team. SME Birmingham Chapter 143 is doing our best to help support, rather to offset some of their financial requirements. As noted, in our January, 2010 blog, several of us attended the FSAE testing & trials at Barbers Motorsports where Auburn, Georgia Tech, and Louisville fielded competitive teams.

Please, register your interest by visiting the Online Registration Form for this seminar event. We're seeking a $25.00 donation to help support some of the endeavors of the UAB BAJA Team.

Directions to Inline:

From I-65 at the Lakeshore Exit, drive west, passing Wildwood and John Carroll High School, until you meet West Oxmoor Road. Turn right onto W. Oxmoor Road, then take an immediate left into the Inline parking lot. Please, find parking available, then enter the main glass doors at the front of the building. We'll meet in the front lobby before moving into the conference room. Note, light dinner refreshments will be served. If you wish to bring along a notebook computer, please, do so. Inline's phone number is (205) 278-8100. Martin Costa, CPA, CEO and his team will serve as our hosts.

No Safety gear required. Please, Email Mark.Partyka@siemens.com with any questions, as he is taking command of the online registration requirements. You may discuss further details with Mark Partyka by telephone at (205) 907-3681.

Review ASM / SME at Tubular Products 01/28/2010

Birmingham SME members invite members from ASM Birmingham to join us for a plant tour at Tubular Products Co. Social time arrival is scheduled for 5:00pm, Thursday, January 28, 2010.

ASM International is a society dedicated to serving the Materials Science and Engineering professions. This is our first opportunity to meet together with this group of professionals from ASM. Let's give them our full support. We are certain to have many interests in common.

Tubular Products specializes in the design, fabrication, and assembly of round and rectangular tubular steel products. Open since 1973, based in Birmingham, AL, Tubular Products Company is a division of Samuel Man-Tech, Inc. Examples of welded assemblies and fabricated components manufactured by Tubular Products include bent tubing, furniture frames, roll bars, canopy supports, frame rails, seat frame components, Engine mount components, and many other precision cut tubing specialty items for industries across the spectrum.

Craig Armstrong, Operations Manager at Tubular, our host is opening the conference room for us to socialize from 5:00 - 5:30p. We'll enjoy light snacks and open conversation. The plant tour should then last for about another hour. Afterwards, we plan to drive together to meet at the Fultondale, Outback Steakhouse for dinner. Please, plan for a $15.00 dinner.

Tubular Products Co.

1400 Red Hollow Road

Birmingham, Alabama 35215

205-856-1300

http://www.tubularproducts.com/

Driving Directions: from I-20/59, take Hwy 79 toward Pinson to Red Hollow Road. Turn left on Red Hollow Road. Take first driveway to the right into the parking lot. Park in the front parking lot, first driveway on the right after turning in. Meet in the front Lobby.

As always, please, remember to bring your PPE - safety glasses. Neither hardhat nor industrial safety shoes are required for this tour. Please, email Blane Vines, blane.vines@bhamfast.com with an RSVP. Brian, Mark, and LaVada are also available to receive your requests.

Sometime during our meeting, we will review our needs for additional Volunteers to step up to assume new leadership roles for 2010. We have considered several opportunities for community participation, including working with the Barber MotorSports IRL event scheduled for April 9 - 11, 2010. Please, consider all suggestions of mutual interest open to group participation. This is your organization, too!

Upon arrival, Rod Dempsey, Reid and several other members from Tubular Products Company walked us through the plant to meet in an upstairs, refinished conference room. Along the way, we passed by most of the production cells and workstations, and we got our first glimpse of the 2nd shift hard at work, manufacturing various jobs for their customers. First glimpse: an incredible amount of production going on inside a clean, modern facilities with many machines and production gear. It's apparant that Tubular competes worldwide to meet the heavy demands for structural tube products.

5:00 - 5:45p we met there in the conference room, introducing ourselves and having light snacks. Members each took a moment to give a brief "30 second standup intro." Then, Blane Vines, our treasurer reviewed several important points, before accepting affirmative votes to accept our SME Chapter 143 2010 Officer volunteers.

Chair - Mark Partyka, Siemens Automation

Co-Chair, LaVada Varner, Alabama Technology Network - ATN

Secretary, Brian Everling, planning to visit Chile for a month

Treasurer, Blane Vines, Birmingham Fastener

Several others SME members, such as Al Hanhauser, Wesley Wolfe, Dewey Duncan, and Guy Carter witnessed the vote, along with our associate friends from ASM.

Blane also reviewed additional, new SME sponsors for the year 2010. Our next blog should show links to our new sponsors. Thank you new sponsors for your support! Then, we talked about several "missions" for 2010.

Rod Dempsey, Project Manager took the floor, reviewing a brief history about Tubular Products, which was opened in 1973 by Charlie Brown & Steve Brown. Today, Tubular Products is a division of Samuel ManTech, a Canadian company. With over 150,000 sq ft inside the plant and over 100 employees, Rod suggested that they're best known for manufacturing "Carrier Coils," aka "large, wire spools for heavy industrial manufacturing."

Several open floor questions led to a better understanding of the various sizes, gages, and types of manufactured products offered at this Birmingham based, tubular manufacturing plant. Then, our hosts walked us about the plant, mingling with production personnel for the next hour. We passed by various cutting machines. We were each amazed to see the number of various dies used amongst manufacturing "just about any type of tube parts requiring additional machining." Another interesting note included watching a specific "rivot hole technique" applied during production.

Thanks, Tubular Products for a great tour! Then, 10-11 of us met for a dinner at the Outback in Fultondale. An excellent evening tour. Hope to see more of you at one of several upcoming tours.

Flagman Request: Auburn Barber Formula1 FSAE

Auburn University Engineering Department is hosting a Formula 1 / FSAE War Eagle Motorsports event at Barber's Motorsports complex on Saturday, January 23, 2010. "Barber Motorsports Park in Leeds and Auburn University's War Eagle Motorsports are putting together a competition practice for University Eligible cars that have passed FSAE tech. Cars will be teched, noised, and braked. Teams will have the opportunity to run through all four dynamic events in one day to practice the demands of keeping up with a competition schedule. AutoX and Endurance will run on Barber's road course. Beginning in 2010, university teams are "sharing" the costs of the event (insurance, ambulance, set-up)," according to Peter Jones, Chief Engineer for the Auburn FSAE team. This is a request for SME members to volunteer to help on Saturday.


At least four (4) of our SME members have volunteered to host our first SME road-course tent event. While there we'll share FLAGMAN and CORNER MAN duties. Sounds like a great time. If you'd like to volunteer to show up at 7:00 - 7:30a Saturday morning, when our training session begins, please, contact Blane Vines - blane.vines@bhamfast.com to make your reservations. As always, we'll have some light refreshments. You may also contact Blane by phone at 205-595-3511 to register.


Auburn War Eagle Motorsports, GTMS Ga Tech, University of Louisville FSAE, and Southern Poly are among the schools invited to compete. FSAE is a Formula 1 understudy division.


Good weather is likely (the probability for snow is low). Bring rain gear if you have the gear. Bring an outdoor chair if you have a comfortable favorite. Blane will be able to send you all pertinent information.


Four SME Birmingham members attended a brisk, windy winter University Formula1 testing & trials competition between War Eagle Motorsports (1 car), GT Motorsports (1 car), and Louisville FSAE (1 car). Our duties, outline approximately 1500 cones around 1.8 mile track with BLUE CHALK. Seven or Eight of us, including 2 Eagle Scouts circled the track, outlining as many cones as practical.


With Approximately 25 volunteers stationed at 17 turns, our job was to serve as "Corner men" and "Flagmen" , to reposition cones, and to radio activity to the control tower. The drivers job included dancing these super-cars around a track, mazed by cones, without tumbling any cones from the BLUE CHALKED BOXES.

Louisville's team drivers seemed to score the better times. Auburn's team drivers improved with every pit-stop, until they seemed to match Louisville's best combination of time less penalties. GT kept engineering the diagnostics on the motor until finding that a high-rpm-idle served them best. All three teams showed well.

All of us met new acquaintances, we all made new friends. We should be able to continue building our relationships with these FSAE Motorsports groups, while helping to support, in some small way, the Major sponsors, such as Honda, Mercedes, and a host of others who have brought FSAE forward.

Food ... yes the food and festivities were excellent. So many people worked many hours to make this trials event a grand showing for active, participating volunteers. We commend everyone involved, especially the student engineers who average working 15 - 40 hours per week, all year for their teams in preparation, engineering, building, breaking down, testing, and trialing their cars.

Any high school student in America with aspirations to become an engineer, especially those considering MotorSports will find a great set of people, all with organizational team spirit and know-how to produce, to compete against over 250 worldwide universities participating in the FSAE program.

SME Birmingham looks forward to future eventful trials with the FSAE and with Barber Motorsports.

Thanks to all of you for a terrific day at the races.

Pictures taken by a GT member, Warren Vannus may be viewed at http://www.flickr.com/photos/wvannus/sets/72157623169862085/