Columnist Gerald Davis discusses the importance of delivering a clear illustration and how it can make an impact on the final fabricated product.

Until about a year ago, the staff at King Electrical Mfg. Co. manufactured parts by the thousands without much consideration of the actual demand for those parts. This doesn't happen anymore.

Managers, designers, and manufacturing engineers at Space Exploration Technologies have come up with a new way to design and manufacture a rocket.

Automakers and other manufacturers are interested in utilizing composites more in their manufacturing operations. Composites come with their own set of challenges, and one of the most important challenges is how to join the engineered material to a metal correctly using an adhesive. When joining materials, adhesives evenly distribute loads and reduce labor time.

Press brake operators work under some unique conditions that call for unique considerations in safeguarding.

When a metal fabricating company moves into a new, larger building, it has a great opportunity to take a hard look at production flow. Victory Industrial Products, Batavia, Ohio, did just that and the results were extremely powerful.

Memry has built a business around shape-memory alloys, mainly for customers in the medical arena. It's a difficult, highly specialized field that managers at Memry are betting will grow.

Greenheck has made a science out of quick lead-times. For most products, customers can place an order and receive a custom fabrication within three to five days, and sometimes in less than 24 hours.

For a job shop or manufacturer, maintaining weld quality begins with consistent shielding gas in the gas metal arc welding (GMAW) process. Consistently delivering the correct blend ensures proper arc characteristics and weld quality. Mixing technology, supply gas density, and gas usage patterns can affect the on-site gas blending system's ability to deliver a consistent blend.

For many bending applications, it is common practice to determine the necessary length of tube, run a few samples, make some minor adjustments, and then start production runs. The problem is that the initial evaluation may have been based on safe, by-the-book estimates and calculations. Re-evaluating a bending project might yield substantial material savings.