Alex Krulikowski

I found some great quotes about the importance of tolerances. They exemplify the importance and impact of GD&T.

Tolerances have far more impact on cost, quality, and customer satisfaction than they have traditionally been accorded. Often during product design, the focus is on the nominal specification and its effect on functional quality.

The discipline and clarity that GD&T brings to the tolerancing task in undisputable. The methods of GD&T are profoundly useful in communicating tolerances, and play a critical role in how tolerances are ultimately relayed to the manufacturing community.

- C.M. Creveling

Tolerance Design – A Handbook for Developing Optimal Specifications

Over the past few years, more and more ETI clients have requested GD&T training outside the U.S. This year, our “global” GD&T training has taken us to more places than ever before.

We started out the year in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. Soon after, we trained in Malaysia, England, and Colombia.

Our upcoming GD&T training schedule takes us to India, Venezuela, China, Thailand, Mexico, and another trip to Colombia, by the end of the year.

In most of these places, the students learned English as a second language. This means the “language of GD&T” will be their third language.

My hat is off to these dedicated students. I can’t imagine learning a new skill in a language other than my own.

To see a map of all the places ETI has trained, click here.

Ancora Imparo,
Alex

In an earlier post, I told you about the upcoming ASME Y14 Committee meeting and invited you to attend. Here’s a little more information about the standard review process.

There is a draft of the new standard out for public review. The public can comment on it until the October 21st deadline. Your input is valuable.

If you can’t attend the meeting, you can still comment. Here’s a quote from the ASME site:

Public comments may be submitted on proposed draft new ASME Standards, and on proposals to revise, reaffirm or withdraw approval of existing ASME Standards.

Comments should be addressed to [gomezc@asme.org] with a copy to the Board of Standards Review, American National Standards Institute, 25 West 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036. Fax: 212-840-2298; e-mail: psa@ansi.org

The public review proposal is available in hard copy for $85 from:

Mayra Santiago, Secretary A
E-mail: ansibox@asme.org,
ASME Codes & Standards
Three Park Avenue, MS/23E2
New York, NY 10016

I am always looking for ideas about training methods and how to maximize the benefits of training. I use these to improve how we develop training materials, present classes, and sell training. Sometimes I even come across a great quote that can help to make a point with a client.

I recently ran across an article that may help other trainers: “The Manager’s Responsibility for Employee Learning,” by Jeffrey Berk. It appeared in the July 2008 issue of “Chief Learning Officer” magazine.

The article focuses on the importance of management support and participation for a training program to be successful.

A few quotes from the article:

“To have a lasting effect on employees, learning programs must receive buy in and support from an organization’s managers”

“For any learning program to be successful, no matter how good or bad the program, there must be manager responsibility and involvement to maximize the impact on the job.”

Data Point – “Sixty percent of employee development programs can be considered as scrap learning,” according to Knowledge Advisors research data.

Jeffery then describes his top ten practices to boost manager responsibility. I will highlight a few that I believe are important:

• Conduct a pre-assessment and have the manager discuss with the employee, prior to the start of the training, expectations from taking the course, resources needed to continue skills development after the course.
• Prior to attending the training managers should have a brief meeting with the employee and review the course objective and relate them to specific job tasks.
• Provide specific projects in which the employee can apply the training with a reasonable time frame.

If you have any articles like this on training topics, please share them with me and I will post them so others can benefit as well.

Ancora Imparo,
Alex Krulikowski

As most of you know, I’m a member of the Y14 Standard Committee, and we’re in the process of updating the standard. Many of you may not realize that the general public is invited to attend.

Please think about attending the next meeting:
October 05 2008 08:00 AM - October 10 2008 05:00 PM, Sunday - Friday

Venue and location information:
Crowne Plaza Memphis Hotel
http://www.ichotelsgroup/h/d/cp/1/en/hotel/memss
300 North Second Street
Memphis Tennessee , United States

Here’s a link to more info:
http://calendar.asme.org/EventDetail.cfm?EventID=6008

It’s literally been years in the making…we started developing this workbook more than 5 years ago, but other projects got in the way. Computer-based training, web-based training, developing new courses like the Engineering Drawing Requirements, the System Approach to Component Tolerancing, and lots of other products and services always seemed to take precedence over our new workbook.

We kept plugging away, and we can finally offer this valuable tool for practicing GD&T concepts. The official title is The GD&T Workbook With Engineering Drawings, by Alex Krulikowski. It’s a companion to the Fundamentals of GD&T textbook and will be part of all ETI’s fundamentals workshops.

The content matches that of the textbook and also fits pretty seamlessly with the GD&T Trainer, so anyone using the our CBT or web-based training might want to use this for extra practice. I recommend working the exercises after you’ve completed a lesson, but before you try the quiz.

Seeing the GD&T concepts you’ve just learned applied to an actual part drawing is a great way to get hands-on practice. Anyone who already knows GD&T can also use this for review and practice.

The workbook is available in our online product catalog.

I have several of your published books and appreciate very much the insights and explanationsyou have provided for the ASME Y14.5M-1994 standard. Your published works have contributed greatly to my success in the area of GDT.

Click for larger view

In the drawing above, I have a coplanar datum A as primary, into which are two holes that are used as secondary datum and tertiary datum C. Datum B is defined by a TOP to datum A. My question: Is it wrong for the secondary datum B to be defined by a TOP to datum A? If it is not wrong, is it considered poor drawing practice?

Respectfully yours,

Jon Houck GDTP S-0507
Engineering Checker
Woodward Governor Company

Hi Jon
Thanks for your kind words. Your question illustrates a common problem on drawings.

Although not explicitly prohibited in Y14.5, I do believe that most committee members would agree with the following explanation. I do not recommend this practice. With only a single datum reference (the surface) only perpendicularity is being controlled, not location. Therefore, a perpendicularity tolerance would communicate the requirement much more clearly. In my opinion, this would certainly be considered a questionable tolerancing practice.

If datum B was two or more holes, then a position tolerance could be used with only a single datum reference as shown on your sketch. With a pattern of holes being toleranced, the position control would be controlling the spacing (location of the holes to each other) of the holes, which then makes sense to use position.

I hope this answers your questions. If I missed something or if my answer is not clear, let me know and I will try again.

Best Regards
Alex Krulikowski

We’re excited about this new training option.

Companies can order live web instead of traditional onsite workshops. Individuals (or one or two employees) can attend a live web public workshop.

GD&T live web training is just like a classroom workshop, but it’s delivered and attended entirely over the internet. The instructor is here at our site, teaching the same content as our traditional workshops. We have q/a time and interaction, so it’s just as personalized as a regular workshop.

The only thing missing is the cost of flights, hotels, and rental cars - and the travel time to and from the workshop.

With the soaring price of gas and companies needing to cut costs, the live web training can save money without sacrificing much needed GD&T training

ETI is starting a blog.

Why?

Like many corporate blogs,  the ETI blog will announce new products and services, keep you updated about our public training schedules, and let you know about Alex’s speaking engagements and newly published articles.

However, the heart of the blog will be dedicated to GD&T.

We’ll keep you up to date on the new standard. We’ll inform you about new developments in industry that involve quality issues. We’ll focus on news items that pertain to manufacturing and recalls that may have been avoided by using GD&T.

We’re adding a Q/A portion where you can ask Alex his expert opinion, and see comments that follow from other readers. Alex will also offer tolerancing insights culled from his years of experience working with GD&T on the job and teaching GD&T to thousands around the globe.

Alex will also provide training and mentoring tips on how to keep companies up to speed on geometric tolerancing so they remain competitive in the global industrial marketplace. He’ll give tips for those who are learning the fundamentals, as well as those who are ready to tackle the system approach for component tolerancing.

The format is fluid, so who knows where this will take us? We only know one thing: if it involves GD&T, you’ll find it here.

We look forward to hearing your comments, insights, and viewpoint.