New year is always a time for reflection; achievements of the the past year and commitments and goals for the new one.

Maybe we didn’t see as much work as we’d like to (what business ever does?). But what we did do, we did right. Our AS9100 certification requires us to look a the past years performance in the form of KPI‘s (Key Performance Indicators) for all internal processes, and while I personally maintain high standards of quality around here, even I was impressed:

  • On-time delivery: 100%
  • Bad parts/rejects: 0

I know our quality system requires us to commit to constant improvement, but it’s hard to improve on that…

And we did well enough this year to be able to refresh our 5-axis machining department with a new Haas UMC-500 machining center, and it is a definite step up for us:

  • 15,000 RPM, 40 Horsepower
  • Coolant thru spindle
  • Full probing and tool pre-setter
  • 30 Tool capacity
  • Full 5 axis machining

Here you see it still partially wrapped:

It’s being powered up and set up as I write this. Training starts next week and there’ll be substantial work to get to the point where we’re making good parts. At least they call it work. For me this is one of the reasons I love doing this stuff. I’d be hard-pressed to label this as work..