Greater Smoky Mountain Chapter 107

Recent Events & Announcements

Recent Events

Dr. Cynthia Trudell and the Joint APICS Meeting

October 28, 2003 The joint meeting with APICS inspired all in attendance. Dr. Trudell came out and gave her views of leadership in volatile times. She perspicaciously presented today’s time in respect to historical events and showed how our world is always in a state of flux. For leaders to guide their companies through these changing times six necessary attributes are needed: creative insight, sensitivity, focus, patience, adaptively and flexibility. These attributes must also be present in the company. It must be both responsive and imaginative to be able to surmount each new hurtle. Additionally a company must trust and respect employees and visa versa. This allows the employee means to solve problems and the company the ability to maneuver. This tenet aids Sea Ray in achieving its goals. Dr. Trudell definitely inspired us to go out and take charge.

Our thanks goes out to APICS for inviting us to attend. We are looking forward to continued association. If you would like to see what else the local APICS group has planned please check out their website at http://www.apics-knoxville.org/events.htm.

First Annual Manufacturing Summit

November 11, 2003 Our first annual manufacturing summit was held at the Airport Hilton and was a resounding success measured by the discussion brought out throughout the entire evening. Our guest speaker this year was State Senator Tim Burchett. We appreciate him coming by to give us his perspective and insights. We were sorry the honorable Ken Yagar was unable to attend due to illness.

The evenings conversations centered on our communities need to advance manufacturing, factors causing company’s to leave, ways to sustain our current jobs and how we can entice new jobs to our area. Our community is has a lot to offer potential manufactures; educational resources, technology corridor, centrally located just to name a few. Our chapter proved tonight that we can be effective advocates for the manufacturing community.

The night’s events also included awarding this year’s recipient of the President’s Award, Lynne Murr. She was presented with the award for her work in keeping up communication for the chapter.

Although we have not had advertisers in our bulletin in the past, we wanted to express our appreciation to the sponsors for the night’s events by displaying once more to a wider audience. These ads are placed throughout this bulletin. Please take the time to let them know you appreciate their support of this event and manufacturing as a whole. The summit was video taped, a copy is available in our chapter library for check out.

Are you interested in our manufacturing communities future success and growth, have interest in continuing communications? Then definitely watch for next year’s event. But, don’t wait to become involved. One of our chapter’s goals is to be a driving force for manufacturing growth. So join in and help us make a difference.

Radio Spotlight

November 24, 2003 Our chair Ralton Emory was invited to speak on a local radio talk show hosted by Hallerin Hilton Hill on 99.1 FM/AM990. This event was excellent in bring our chapter to the attention of many people as well as allowed us to open up discussion about our local need for manufacturing growth and what can be done. Ralton did a wonderful job. I hope everyone tuned in.

An Education in Polymers

Thank you’s are in order for this instructive presentation. Bob Rollins of Industrial Plastics Works is responsible for setting this presentation up with his supplier, PolyProcessing. Dr. Raed Al-Zubi flew out especially for the presentation. He did an excellent job of explaining the complex world of polymers.

Everybody cringed when he whipped out the periodic table of elements, but Dr. Al-Zubi used it to explain polymers verse ceramics and metals. By breaking the table up into two groups, metal and non-metal, the three types of materials can be formed as follows: metal combined with metal creates a metal, metal combined with non-metal creates ceramics and non-metal combined with non-metal creates polymers.

Monomers, the basic unit of a polymer, are linked together to form chains of polymers. The resulting chains determine the polymer’s mechanical properties; the larger the chains and the higher the crystals formed by these chains the higher the strength. Low-density polymers have large amorphous regions and few crystalline regions and are relatively weak. The high-density polymers are just the opposite. The longer the chains and the larger the crystal regions the harder the material is to manufacture. The third type of polymer is a linear polymer, which has long chains with low branching, and provides the ease of low-density polymer’s manufacturability with the strength characteristics of high-density polymers.

One principle draw back of the material listed above is the when it fails, it "unzips", the chains start to unravel and nothing prevents a crack from propagating. Therefore, these materials are unsafe for applications where containment is required. This brings us to the final type of material, high-density cross-linked polymer. This material transforms the linear polymer by linking individual chains with each other, forming a strong material, which resists unzipping. Each time a chain starts to unravel, it is stopped at the cross-link.

Dr. Al-Zubi showed us some awesome tests his company ran which illustrates this unzipping of the low and high density polymers and the same test run using a cross linked polymer. The visual of these tests were very impressive and definitely impressed the audience with the meaning of the discussion. Thank you Dr. Al-Zubi for your time and effort in preparation of this exquisitely simple and limpet presentation.

Election Results

During our December meeting, elections were held. The people were voted in for the 2004 board:

Ralton Emory Chair

Garret Hendrix Chair – Elect

Sam Jones Treasurer

Brian Koozer Secretary

Lynne Murr Bulletin Editor

Ray Ford Web Master

Johnny Crowell Recruitment

Thank you to all those who served this year. Your efforts are very evident. Please let them know you appreciate their service to this chapter. It is through the dedication and efforts of the board members that this chapter is growing.

Additionally we are searching for someone to fill the position of Promotion Director. We will continue to search for someone to fill this position. If you’re interested this or any other committees please contact Ralton Emory at Ralton_Emory@denso-diam.com. No one will be turned down. If you want to get involved, we will put you to work.J

New Members

Please welcome our newest additions to the chapter.

Dec-03 David Smith Pinnacle Steel

Dec-03 Dr Hampton R. Liggett, PhD University of Tennessee

Training Challenge

Ever thought it would be great to have one of those fancy anacroanims to put after your name? Want to impress someone and let them know you take your work seriously? Well we think it helps you and your company. These exams are not for the faint of heart. Many companies are even requiring their employees attain these certifications. We want to help so tell us what your interested in and we’ll schedule a study session in July or October. The exams available through SME are:

CMfgT: Certified Manufacturing Technologist

CmfgE: Certified Manufacturing Engineer

CEI: Certified Enterprise Integrator

CEM: Certified Engineering Manager

Please respond to Ralton Emory rlremory@msn.com or Lynne Murr murrlynne@aol.com. Tell us what you want so we can make it happen.