Alex Krulikowski

We’ve been pretty busy this spring, preparing courses, books, workbooks, and charts to keep pace with the new ASME Y14.5-2009 Standard.

Aside from that focus, we also finished developing our latest web-based training course on engineering drawing requirements. The course contains four lessons that cover:

• The definition and uses of engineering drawings
• Types of engineering drawings
• Appropriate standards and documents specified on engineering drawings
• Basic part definition required on engineering drawings

The web-based course is geared to people who work with and interpret engineering drawings. It’s based on Y14.100-2004 and Y14.24-1999 standards, takes about 4-6 hours to complete and can be purchased for 30-, 60-, or 90-day access. It includes practice problems, quizzes, and a drawing packet containing 12 engineering drawings in printable PDF format.

With many companies undergoing budget cuts, this online workshop is perfect for those who need training but can’t travel to our public workshops. You can read more about the course and the complete list of drawings that are covered at our ETI Learning Center website.

We also have a tutorial that you can view to get a preview of the course. View the tutorial.

By now, many of you have heard that ASME Y14.5-2009 has been released. The new version of the dimensioning and tolerancing standard for GD&T incorporates many significant changes, including:

• New symbols and terms
• Revisions to concepts, symbols, and terms
• Clarification to existing concepts

Many companies are in the midst of cost-reduction programs and are under intense pressure to increase productivity. As a result, the timing of this new standard’s release has caused an unexpected challenge for industry. Changing dimensioning and tolerancing standards is a major effort, and the decision should be made with as much information as possible.

Here at ETI, companies have been requesting information about what is going on in industry relative to dimensioning and tolerancing standards. With that in mind, I have created a short survey to collect statistics regarding companies’ plans for either adopting the new standard or adopting ISO standards.

When the survey is complete, I will share the results with all the survey participants. I will also provide a white paper of my personal insights on the benefits and risks of early adoption. It will discuss points to consider when deciding to adopt the new ASME standard or change to ISO standards.

I hope you will take a few minutes to complete this short, 10-question survey. The individual results will be confidential; only group data will be published.

Best regards,
Alex

I recently co-authored an article with my colleague James R. Roll about the importance of using GD&T for detecting bad design before production. The article, “Avoiding Design Problems With Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing,” was published a few weeks ago in Machine Design magazine.

Here’s a short excerpt:

Datum selection is the best place to start when managing variation during the PDP. A robust datum scheme uses datums that best prevent the parts from moving out of position, minimizes the number of items in a tolerance stack, is well controlled within the part (location tolerances and rigid features) and is shared by as many manufacturing processes as possible.

The datum scheme is largely driven by the product-build strategy and system requirements, thus it is important to consider the effect of datum selection early in a PDP (requirements and system design phases). The design-and-build strategy defined at this stage will have the largest effect on product quality with the least cost. Mistakes made at this stage will be expensive to fix at later stages, if they can be corrected at all.

Please read the full article at the magazine’s website here and let me know what you think. I look forward to your feedback.

I’ve just returned from the ISO TC213 meetings in Berlin. There are many interesting new changes in the works for upcoming ISO dimensioning and tolerancing standards.

I’ll give more detailed information regarding the workings of the ISO standards development in future blog entries.

As the globalization of manufacturing continues, I believe the ISO standards will play a more significant role in the U.S. The next ISO TC213 meeting is scheduled for September 2009 and is tentatively set to take place in San Antonio, Texas, USA.

An article on the reliableplant.com website about the current economic issues in industry caught my attention. The title says it all: “Economics Drive Need for Change [in] Management Expertise and Outcome.”

In the article, ESI International revealed the top 10 project management trends that will impact both private and public sector organizations this year.

Two of the trends listed were:

1. People Will Come Before Technology
   Organizations will increase their demands for smart third-party guidance that ensures technology investments deliver enhanced performance. This will result in greater recognition of the critical role people play, leading to increased recognition that employees need the right skills and knowledge before applying processes for consistency and adding technology to deliver increased efficiencies.
2. Right-sizing Staff with Demand Driven Resource Management
   The adoption of demand-driven resource management will increase significantly in 2009. Its ability to right-size internal staff and draw on outside contractors when demand requires will be viewed as an essential cost containment approach leading to greater organizational performance and efficiency.

The first point mentions the importance of employees having the “right skills and knowledge before applying processes.” In this economic slowdown, some companies are wisely taking advantage of more time to train their employees, and ETI is meeting those needs with our excellent GD&T training options.

However, many companies are also striving to finish products quickly, and their workforces may be overloaded. As the second point mentions, they may need to “draw on outside contractors when demand requires.”

ETI Adding Engineering Services
In line with meeting our customer needs, we now are offering engineering services. Our engineering services include design checking, adding GD&T to customer designs, and tolerance analysis. These services are competitively priced and will be performed by industry experts. Call our sales team for a quote on your specific need, or request a quote online.

Link to article: http://www.reliableplant.com/Article.aspx?articleid=15207

ETI is celebrating the new year with the largest company-wide sale in our 24-year history.

From January 5th to March 31st, 2009, we’re offering discounts on all of our training (onsite, public, traditional web-based, and live web training). When you book your training, you’ll also receive discounts on the workshop materials.

Contact a GD&T representative today to build the perfect training package for your organization. We will create a package customized to your specific company training needs, at special discounted pricing.

Your company can receive exceptional discounts on:

• Onsite workshops and training materials
• Public workshops
• Web-based training
• Live web training

Call a representative at 1-800-886-0909 to discuss the best training option for your organization, and to discover how much your company can save during our first quarter sale.

Don’t miss this exciting opportunity to receive ETI’s expert GD&T training and materials at these low, low prices!

I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday season. This may help you with your home decorations…

In the book, Customer Centered Products, Ivy Hooks and Kristin Farry share some observations about the American culture’s urge to improvise…

We have worked with project managers and engineers who believed that solving the unanticipated problems under the gun was “the fun part of the project.”

In my own experience, I have also met many managers and engineers who would prefer to fix problems through testing, rather than through proper drawings and analysis.

Since we have a competitive edge in the U.S. with our comprehensive product development processes, let’s use them to our advantage. Let’s focus on identifying and solving problems in the design phase, before hardware is built.

Hi Billy,

Based on your description and the drawing, there is not enough information to give you an accurate answer. I would need to see the actual drawing and I need to know how this part fits and functions in the final assembly. Whether this is a final product drawing or a detailed assembly with separate parts at each end will influence how the drawing is dimensioned and toleranced, also.

For example, if this in a single part drawing that has one continuous hole through the full length of the part, then it would be appropriate to specify this hole as a single datum letter and reference it as a primary datum in the feature control frames.

However, if this is an assembly with two separate flange details at each end, then it is appropriate to specify the holes at each end as separate datum letters since they are separate features. However, if the part relies on both of these holes at each end to provide the primary location and orientation of the part, then you would reference them as co-primary A-B datum features in the feature control frames. For example, A-B.

Thanks for writing. It’s a good question. If you’d like to send more detailed information privately, I can give you a more specific answer.

“The economic success of manufacturing firms depends on their ability to identify the needs of customers and to quickly create products that meet these needs and can be produced at low cost.”

- Karl T. Ulrich and Stephen D. Eppinger,
Product Design and Development, 2004

A great book! Should be required reading for all product engineers.

My thought is that functional dimensioning supports Karl’s quote because it protects the customer needs and provides the largest possible tolerance for manufacturing.