Going to New Orleans: People & Companies

There was plenty to see, eat, drink, hear and learn at the United States Cutting Tool Institute’s 2016 Fall Meeting, held in New Orleans Oct. 15-17.

As a former resident of southern Louisiana, I already knew the best places in the Crescent City to sightsee (Lower Garden District), eat (any po’boy stand) and imbibe (Napoleon House). And like any visitor to the city, I encountered funky, joyous music at every turn.

My favorite learning moment was the USCTI dinner held at the National WWII Museum. Visitors experience World War II through the words of world leaders, military personnel, citizens and manufacturers who supported the war effort. Stunning photographs and film clips supplement their stories.

The USCTI meeting also featured engaging speakers, including Jeff Rizzie, Sandvik Coromant Co.’s senior manager of business development. He discussed the need for machine shops to embrace digital technologies in order to optimize their manufacturing processes.

The “way we in manufacturing optimize our processes today is the same way we did when I went to work [as a machinist] 36 years ago: with stopwatches and clipboards,” Rizzie said. For continuous process improvement to occur, all phases of a shop’s operation—from design to machining to outbound logistics—must exist as a single thread on which information travels forwards and backwards. This allows personnel to assess processes with fresh eyes and remove obstacles to productivity instead of devising workarounds.

“We have become so clever at working around problems that we don’t see that they’re problems anymore,” Rizzie said. (To learn more about Rizzie’s thoughts on the digital machine shop, check out the MakingChips podcast at www.makingchips.com/mc074.)

Another compelling speaker was retired U.S. Navy Commander Eric Potterat, who served 10 years as a Navy SEALs psychologist. His practice and research focused on stress reduction, mental-toughness training, operational readiness and personnel selection. He said that when assessing the suitability of a prospective SEAL, the Navy looks for individuals with grit.