Society of Manufacturing Engineers
Mid Kansas Chapter 230 - Salina, Kansas

December 2005 Bulletin
Updated November 28, 2005. - Click for latest update.

Christmas Party and Officer Election at Martinelli's - December 14, 2005!

Recent Meetings
September - A-Plus Galvanizing
For the September meeting, SME 230 visited A-Plus Glavanizing, and were guided by Joe Tost, operations manager on a very interesting tour of the facility.

A Landoll Company Semi Trailer after Galvanization.	Galvanizing kettle filled with molten zinc at 800F	Assembled trailers, antenna masts, roadway beams, and trailer fenders after galvanization.

We started out at Martinelli's, and our server was Amber, who did a great job of making sure we were well fed. We spent a bit of time going over some of what was learned at the Tri-chapter meeting in July. As a result we decided to implement some of the ideas in our regular meetings. Julia brought up "Lean for Small Shop", a book by SME that incorporates many ideas that can be effectively used in just about any operation, without all the overhead and teams that sometimes bog down Lean Manufacturing and Six-Sigma programs at large companies. I have also been reading "Getting Factory Automation Right the First Time." This book is basically a page by page lesson on how to implement modern equipment without making huge mistakes. I have made some of the mistakes in the book in the past, so I can vouch for it's realism.

The floor was opened up to members to give suggestions to help improve the chapter. One idea is to have the meeting on Thursday night every other month. Many of our members have either 3 day shifts, or have other activities on Wednesday nights. Changing the meeting night would give people a chance to attend who would not normally be able to, and every other meeting it could be a whole different group.

Some ideas for tours were also brought up. One is to visit the NCRA Refinery in McPherson, which is currently undergoing a major expansion and upgrade. Our contact there would be Ken Simms. Grainbelt has installed additional laser cutters at their facility, and has completed a Powder Coating facility which was under construction last time we visited. Stresscast south of town manufactures many types of concrete products. There is a plating and andodizing facility in Minneapolis which has gone under the radar too long. I will be able to give a tour of Automation Engineering, in conjunction with our January meeting.

After everyone was done yakking, we headed out to north Ohio for our tour of A-Plus Galvanizing. Galvanizing is the process of dipping ferrous materials in molten zinc to add a protective layer against rust and corrosion. The zinc bonds to the part chemically, forming a layer between 3-10 thousands of an inch thick.

The first step in galvanizing steel parts is to remove any oil or grease by placing them in a caustic bath. A-Plus has giant plastic tubs that entire assemblies can be immersed in. After being degreased, the part is rinsed in clean water. After the base has been neutralized, the part is dipped in pH2 sulfuric acid at 140F to clean and expose the outer surface of the steel. The part is again rinsed in water. After this rinse, the part must be galvanized soon to prevent rusting.

The galvanizing tank is a giant kettle heated from below with 14 high velocity natural gas burners that keep it at 800F continuously. The part is lowered into the galvanizing kettle from above with one of four 50 ton cranes from a height of up to 80ft above the tank. The part is then allowed to stay in the zinc for a period of several minutes, depending on the original thickness, and the finish desired. The zinc not only adheres to the cold part due to a mechanical freezing process, but also binds to it on a molecular level.

The part is then removed and quenched to cool it for further processing. On some parts, touchup work is done, where workers grind to verify proper adhesion, and may flame spray areas that may not have been well coated. After the part is ready, it will be shipped out the truck dock for delivery to a customer.

Any item left in the zinc will adhere to it, and the zinc also starts to form on the inside walls of the tank. Periodically this must be removed with a dross removal scoop, which is a bulldozer sized implement which is dragged thru the bottom of the tank to clean it out.

A-Plus has it's own water wells and a chemical reclaim system to continually process the water in the acid, base, and rinse tanks. None of their waste water enters the sewer system. They currently use teflon tubing to transfer the heat from the boilers to the prep tanks, but will soon update to using direct fired graphite blocks to transfer the heat to the acid.

A-Plus has from 40-70 employees, depending on workload, and the main kettle contains 4.2 million pounds of zinc. Much of their work is utility poles, but they do a wide variety of other items as well. Recently they have been galvanizing Landoll trailers for Bradley Fighting Vehicles, antenna masts for cellphone towers, and stuctural steel items. They also have a south plant for urethane coating of lower parts of poles, etc. to be set into the ground without concrete. This adds an extra barrier against corrosion, and reduces the installed price for utilities. The plant covers 172,000 sq ft on 80 acres of land. The acid baths contain the largest one-piece plastic tubs ever built. They are 95 feet long and 14ft deep.

It was a very informative evening, and we would like to thank Joe Tost for a great tour.

UPCOMING MEETINGS
If you have some ideas for tours or programs, please let us know!

Treasurer's Report
According to Julia, our account balance on September 23, 2005 was $1,464.67

Webmaster Report
If you have an email address please send it to Ryan Hampl at bigrbandit@yahoo.com. Make sure to put SME somewhere in the subject line so my spam filter doesn't pitch it. As an organization we need to keep our costs in line, and electronic bulletin distribution really helps.

Chairman's Corner
Hey there folks! I would like to thank everyone for a great year as the chairman of your chapter. It has been a great experience, and one that involves a lot more work than I originally imagined. Modern manufacturing is full of interesting twists, and sometimes deadlines slip, which is why there was no October newsletter or tour. I would like to recommend that next year, we make sure that we have a few people on an events committee to line out the next several months worth of tours and meetings. We have plenty of contacts in local manufacturing, but need a few folks on the phones to line things up. Perhaps this is a project some of our retired members would like to take on. As for myself, I will gladly continue to be the chapter Webmaster/Bulletin Editior, unless we can find some students to do it for us. . . hint . . . hint . . . hint!

Since the last meeting, Julia has attended the Lean Manufacturing Professtional Development Conference in Memphis. People who had been to others said this was one of the best. Based on some of these materials, she could do a presentation some time when we are in a pinch. She may share some "Lean Manufacturing Nuggets for the Small Shop"--little short bits that we could throw on the end of each month's dinner meeting. This is assuming we could add about 5 minutes to our meal meeting--a little more if people wanted to discuss are share ideas based on the monthly "nugget". The idea would be to share quick, simple ideas a shop/plant could use, based on Lean tools and principles. Since most Lean Manufacturing practices are also just good practice bits, people don't have to be into Lean to benefit. This might be a way to encourage more talking and sharing of ideas during meetings.

Another idea is to revisit the list of SME videos that are available and borrow one of interest for a presentation sometime. We might circulate a list of available video topics at a meeting and see what people might be interested in. There are some good videos and most of our facilities are reluctant to pay the $100's of dollars for them; especially if you don't know how good the info will be in the video. It's been a couple years since we did our last video. Actually, I have found that we can rent the videos for $35 from SME, rather than buy them, so that is even better. Sounds like Julia has some very good ideas and great leadership potential in our chapter.

I have also recieved some examples of other chapter's websites and newsletter from other chapters from Bruce MacKender. Northern Colorado, Chapter 354 has some very interesting activites planned. Here's a link to their latest newsletter if you have Adobe Reader to open it up http://chapters.sme.org/354/smeb0501115.pdf We have also recieved some interest from Stephanie Sauls at Wichita State, who is setting up a Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing class.

If anyone has any comments, ideas, scathing ridicule, or jokes, please do not hesitate to E-mail them to Ryan Hampl at bigrbandit@yahoo.com.

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Chapter Sponsors - Please support our manufacturing partners. Additional ads will be posted from time to time

Last Meeting Sponsor: A-Plus Galvanizing, Inc. 1100 North Ohio Salina, KS 67401 785-820-9823 aplusgalv@aplusgalv.com www.aplusgalv.com Joseph Tost, Operations Manager
Southwestern College Professional Studies Preparation courses for the SME technologist and engineers certification exam. We also offer preparation courses for the ASQ, QAPICS, and ISM certification exams-the ASQ courses are online. In addition, we have relevant degrees, many of which are totally online George Heinrich, Technical Advisor Ph. 1-888-684-5335,ext 119 E-mail: gheinric@sckans.edu	www.powermotionsales.com
Industrial Peddler A division of Weir Enterprises, LLC Machine Tool Sales and Broker 1537 17th Rd. Clay Center, KS 67432 Phone (785) 632-6306, Fax (785) 632-5000 ipguide@hotmail.com	FESTO Pneumatics and Motion Control - Kevin Ost kevin_ost@festo.com
SME230 Advertising rates 1/2 page (320x480) -$125.00/year Business Card - $35.00/year	Last Month's Tour - K-State at Salina COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY & AVIATION ENROLLMENT The College of Technology & Aviation is the newest and fastest growing of all the colleges at Kansas State University. Approximately 1,000 undergraduate students (70 percent male, 30 percent female) are enrolled at the Salina Campus with 89 percent of students coming from Kansas. ACADEMIC PROGRAMS The College of Technology and Aviation offers two and four-year programs in the fields of engineering technology and aviation (including professional pilot). The academic programs are designed to prepare people directly for the world of work and are very application oriented and laboratory intensive. Students learn by doing. The college regularly places more than 95 percent of its graduates and each year several employers actively recruit on campus. College of Technology and Aviation Kansas State University at Salina 2310 Centennial Road Salina, KS 67401-8058 785-826-2640 or 1-800-248-5782 (toll free in Kansas) http://www.sal.k-state.edu/