Production Machining - Your access to the precision machining industrial buyer.
Issue link: https://pm.epubxp.com/i/864777
had an idea to improve gear grinding, and Illinois Tool Works was born. Today, ITW is a Fortune 200 company based in Glenview, Illinois, that employs more than 50,000 people worldwide. Nestled into a neighborhood of single family homes and small businesses, Miller Electric's headquarters is located in Appleton, Wisconsin, in a nine-building campus with four more buildings on the outskirts of the city. Miller Electric moved into the first building of this complex in 1942. Today, ITW Welding's Appleton locations have approximately 1,300 employees and a total of about 3,000 workers. ITW Welding annual sales is $1.7 billion. Standing Out to the Inside Adam Utecht, engineering director of the Components Division, says, "We are an internal fab shop to ITW Welding, and we are a profit center. One of the things that's unique is even though we build components for other ITW Welding divisions, they don't have to buy from us," he says. Mr. Utecht has been with the welding division for 10 years, starting as a mechanical engineer intern and working his way up from there. "ere are certain markets we want to play in. We have narrowed these markets down to our four core competencies," Mr. Utecht says. About 60 percent of what goes into welding equipment comes from ITW's internal position, with the remaining 40 percent coming from the outside. e Components Division has about 370 to 400 employees, depending on seasonality, but has only five supervi- sors for this entire area. How does the division do this? By using a enlightened employee empowerment program: each of the 15 -20 manufacturing cells in the division work as an autonomous team, managing themselves as their own small companies. Each team elects its own representative, not to serve as a boss, but only to discuss any issues with the supervisors and engineering management. Each cell will get an order, review it, schedule its own production, corre- spond with engineering managers, order the necessary materials to complete the job and deliver it on schedule. is is a true just-in-time (JIT) production mind-set facility. Each cell even has its own mission statement to guide them. Each day, the cells prepare a status report on their current jobs. Only those that show a late status are on the report that is sent to the supervisors. Only then will the supervisors dig in to help with whatever the cell needs to get the job back on track. "No problem, no involve- ment. We really rely on our team leads and our shopfloor :: A FANUC robot, using a double-headed Schunk gripper, is integrated into the process by loading and unloading the rotary transfer machine. :: Shown is a sampling of the welding nozzles produced in a continuous flow process across the rotary transfer machine and hydraulic press. Captive Shop Must Still Compete productionmachining.com :: 35