Bad news from the backcountry. After two weeks of waiting for the right weather conditions, a local extreme skier lifted off in a light helicopter this morning to drop into fresh powder on a technical slope at 13,000 ft, hoping to shoot some high-quality action footage. The flight and the drop went okay—just not the…
In “The Twits,” a short story by Roald Dahl, Mr. and Mrs. Twit, a disagreeable older married couple, play a series of nasty pranks on each other. One of these tricks is particularly illuminating for manufacturers and repair shops relying on torque tools to properly assemble products or handle maintenance jobs. To get back at…
If you know something’s broken, you can fix it. But if you know how something got broken, then you can prevent it—and anything like it—from breaking in the first place. Which would you rather be able to do? In the assembly world, ideally, pieces in production don’t break at all. But, inevitably, they will and…
Without the right assembly tools, you don’t have a production line. It’s the tools, after all, that allow your workers to assemble the pieces into a product. That doesn’t mean that finding the right tools is easy, though; each product is different, each factory is different, and there are hundreds of different tool options. How…
Smart window fans this week. Then smart floor lamps next month. After that, it’s a dual job; half the stations on the toaster ovens, half the stations on the air conditioners. Each product comes with its own set of specifications, its own production sequence. Reconfiguring the floor for each setup will be tricky, but that’s…
When Van Halen toured, they included in their contract a singular technical demand: bowls of M&M’s backstage, with all the brown ones removed. Rock star arrogance and capriciousness? Actually, no. The shows they put on were complex and technical, involving excessively heavy staging and sometimes explosive pyrotechnics. So when David Lee Roth would find brown…
Can you open a can with a hammer? Sure. But it would probably be easier with a can opener. Special jobs take special tools; using the right tool for your job saves effort and increases productivity. In the business world, specifically in manufacturing or equipment service and repair, saving effort and increasing productivity means lowering…
You don’t have to be a maestro to know that no matter how grand your piano is, you can’t play it if it’s out of tune. It’s similar when you’re working with torque tools; you can’t properly tighten your fasteners if your tools aren’t in calibration. In fields like manufacturing and maintenance, tightening fasteners is…
Roller coasters are thrilling. Riders soar and dive and flip upside down. They get blasted out of tunnels and splashed down through ponds. It’s an experience that causes people to grip their handrails, white-knuckled, to scream in terror, to pant for breath, and, when it’s over, to laugh. The intended effect is to expose riders…
Whether you’re in manufacturing or maintenance, it’s essential to use the right tools in order to get the job done right. After all, the tools you invest in will determine the type of work your business is capable of handling. Understanding the differences between similar tools and choosing correctly between them is, therefore, an important…