It's Monday morning after a long holiday weekend, and the first shift is starting with a bang. The slit coil supplier is late with your delivery, the second-shift maintenance person has called in sick, the mill operator is going to be late to work, and you wish you were still at the beach with the family.

The level of technology used these days in the tube and pipe fabrication industry varies quite a bit in terms of age. Some of it is a bit antiquated, to put it kindly. Many tube fabrication shops use equipment that is more than 50 years old.

In the power piping industry, turnaround time on a boiler pipe project typically is from 20 to 36 weeks. But J.F. Ahern Co. (JFA), Fond du Lac, Wis., a company ranked as one of the Midwest's top 10 mechanical contractors according to the May 2002 Contractor magazine, isn't typical. Neither were the results JFA achieved when it switched to induction technology for pipe preheating.

Precision abrasive wheel cutting is a small but important niche in the abrasive cutting field. It can be used to cut many types of parts, including metal rods, tubes, extruded shapes, and even wire. It is most useful in operations characterized by small parts, hard-to-cut materials, and tight tolerances.