Training your staff for micromanufacturing

As companies move into micromanufacturing, they often fi nd a lack of specifictraining resources. Th ere are at least 10 key areas where more training resources are urgently needed (see sidebar). Given the space constraints, I’ll limit my discussion to an often-overlooked area: documenting shop procedures.

Disciplined application of documented shop practices are often the mark of an economically successful shop. Have you fully documented your practices for making microparts? Accomplishing that typically involves answering two questions: how do you document what you learn on each job, and how do you train your staff on what you know?

Document and preserve

The first step is to identify the practices and information that are so important to your shop that they should be documented and preserved. The definition of “essential information” differs from shop to shop, but anything you consider unique should be formally recorded.

If you tell your workers that edge breaks considered normal on traditional parts will make microparts unusable, and that part thickness determines how much edge break is allowable, record that. To define flaws in threaded microparts, explain how microthreads should look under a microscope. If you tell workers when it is acceptable to substitute tooling, how to measure runout on 0.005"-dia. cutters and when not to touch a surface, document those items.

Nonmachining practices must also be preserved. For example, many micromanufacturers do not allow blowing moisture off parts since the parts can be easily blown away.

While key production factors are typically recorded in formal shop instructions, details that are often not documented may also be vital for manufacturing success. In many instances, the details for one part are the same as those for the majority of parts and deserve to become a shop practice. The “tips and tricks” you learn from one process may prove valuable when bidding a new job.

In some shops, the machinist, assembler, inspector or boss keeps a private “black book” of the unique little things he or she does to make a particular setup work well. That is not a good solution because the information is not shared.

History jackets

Domaille Engineering LLC, Rochester, Mich., an “ultraprecision” machine shop that performs micromachining as a core competency, takes a different approach. Alan Burgess, national account manager, said the shop’s operators and inspectors write down the unusual issues they face on each job and how they solved them. That information is put into history jackets, or folders, for individual parts.

If the part is ever rescheduled, the staff reads the history file to learn the issues. This is an informal, quick and easy way to provide the training needed for a specific job. It works well for a shop that has many customers and produces a wide variety of parts.

The staff at Domaille Engineering meets weekly, and sometimes daily, to discuss production issues that should be added to a history file or a database. These documents are then added to the company’s training materials. This process helps the shop answer questions such as: “What training issues did you not get that you should have? Who has that information? What did you learn that we should include in our training?”

Large companies typically prepare formal shop-practice procedures that explain the unique needs of micropart production and assembly. They include that information in their formal training, and most use software that helps assure and measure training effectiveness. Most of these systems also provide a training history and a training calendar for everyone in the shop.

One particularly effective way of documenting shop practices is to use photographs and words. For micromanufacturers, this requires a skillful photographer because the depth of field at high magnification is so small. Domaille’s Burgess said his company trains new employees using a dual-head microscope, which is also called a teaching microscope because both teacher and student can see the same image simultaneously. That type of scope allows instruction and performance evaluation.

While the benefi ts of documenting micropart practices are obvious, I have found there is little published information about this topic. Please let me know if you have knowledge of effective micromanufacturing training programs or materials. I would be glad to develop a list of training resources and distribute it to whoever wants it. µ

About the Author: LaRoux K. Gillespie spent 40 years producing precision parts to stringent QA and regulatory standards. Telephone: (816) 942-5497. E-mail: laroux1@earthlink.net.