Early in my career I came to the conclusion that what most people see as a problem is really the result of the problem.

In about 1966-67, I was supposedly the “expert” in everything in the design of machining tooling and manufacturing facilities for efficient operation. I guess I must have been okay at my job even though I was very new at it and mostly staying one step ahead of others around me.

But back to my original statement.

At that time Con Met, the company I worked for, was rapidly growing and adding high-powered machines to manufacture Class 8 truck wheel hubs. As part of this, the first machine in the process was a 100 horsepower lathe that completed all the rough boring on a rough aluminum casting. This machine’s slide had only 2 degrees of freedom to complete its job. It moved in and out at 90 degrees to the machine’s longitudinal axis, and lengthwise left and right. A heavy solid steel block was mounted on the slide that contained up to 13 fixed cutting tools, depending on which style hub was being machined.

One day I received a call from the floor supervisor that they had a problem with this machine. When I asked what the problem was, he said it was machining a taper in the bearing bores. So off I went to try to figure out was going on.

Part of my assessment was always to ask questions like what, when, how, why, and so on.
In listening to the answers, I determined what the supervisor saw as the problem had occurred as soon as they changed the setup from one hub to another. Further, this “problem” had not occurred on any other set up since the machine was installed several months earlier.

So, in thinking about this, it was obvious it was either a problem in how the slide moved while operating, or with the tool block that was mounted on the slide. It was highly unlikely it was a problem with the actions of the machine, so it had to be something with the tool block. But this had been set up and used several times before, so in my brilliance I pushed on the tool block while the machine was idle and low and behold, it moved slightly on the slide. It wasn’t supposed to do that.

My next question was, “Has anyone checked the bolts that attached the block to the slide?” The operator looked at me indignantly but checked, and guess what: he had forgotten to tighten the bolts that held the block to the slide. He then was embarrassed and finished the setup.

After that, the hubs were machined well within dimensional tolerances, and all was well.

So, what does all this dialog mean?

The taper being machined in the hubs was not the problem. It was the result of the operator not properly attaching the tool block to the slide.

From this I learned it is always important to determine if what we define as the problem is really the problem, or do we need to look a step or two back to find what has resulted in what others think is the problem.

Ken Kaiyala
6-14-2018