Raptor-Ready Dovetail Blanks, produced for patented Raptor workholding fixtures, are available from TCI Precision Metals.

The design adds a dovetail to one surface of the material before production machining. It locks securely into the workholding fixture, allowing the part to be fully machined on five sides. Once complete, the dovetail can be trimmed off, or the part can be clamped using traditional methods to add details to the final surface...More

TCI Precision Metals, a family-owned precision manufacturer producing close-tolerance blanks from aluminum, stainless steel, and other alloys, has installed a Schelling fm8 precision plate saw at its facility in Gardena, Calif.

The saw can cut aluminum and other nonferrous metals up to 6 in. thick at speeds up to 100 FPM. The computer-controlled machine achieves tolerances of +/-0.005 in. within 0.005-in. squareness ...More

3/20/2020

RE: Open for Business

To our valuable customers and suppliers,

I would like to share with you how Governor Newsom’s executive order will affect our status to remain open and
working. Executive order N-33-20 states that;

”To protect public health, I as State Public Health Officer and Director of the California Department of Public Health order
all individuals living in the State of California to stay home or at their place of residence except as needed to maintain
continuity of operations of the federal critical infrastructure sectors, as outlined at https://www.cisa.gov/identifying-
critical-infrastructure-during-covid-19. In addition, and in consultation with the Director of the Governor's Office of
Emergency Services, I may designate additional sectors as critical in order to protect the health and well-being of all
Californians.”

“The federal government has identified 16 critical infrastructure sectors whose assets, systems, and networks, whether
physical or virtual, are considered so vital to the United States that their incapacitation or destruction would have a
debilitating effect on security, economic security, public health or safety, or any combination thereof. I order that
Californians working in these 16 critical infrastructure sectors may continue their work because of the importance of
these sectors to Californians' health and well-being.”

We fall under at least 3 critical infrastructure sectors as defined by the U.S homeland security as critical during the
COVID-19 outbreak as defined at https://www.cisa.gov/topics/risk-management/coronavirus/identifying-critical-infrastructure-during-covid-19. Three of such
sectors that we supply are; Critical Manufacturing Sector, Energy Sector, and Healthcare and Public Health Sector. These
sectors are vitally important to the function of our government and needed infrastructure systems. It is important to
understand that Executive Order N-33-20 also orders that businesses in these sectors continue their work.

We will remain open during this time to support critical sectors. We will continue to practice all recommendations from
the CDC and state and local agencies to protect our employees and their families.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Stay safe,

Ben Belzer
Presiden and COO

TCI Precision Metals, Gardena, California, announces Matt Erickson (pictured) as director of sales for the company effective immediately.  Matt brings with him extensive experience in industrial operations, sales, program management, and a customer-first management style...More

TCI Precision Metals, Gardena, Calif., has named Matt Erickson as director of sales. He has extensive experience in industrial operations, sales, and program management.
The company is a family-owned precision manufacturer producing close-tolerance, machine-ready blanks from aluminum, stainless steel, and other alloys.

 

Continued Investment in High-Volume Solutions Improves Customer Value

TCI Precision Metals announced, today, it has completed installation of its new high precision plate saw, the Schelling fm8.  The saw is the latest in a series of investments the Company has made over the last 12-months in precision, high-volume equipment intended to reduce turnaround time to customers, increase efficiency, and continually improve quality.

“Our goal is to exceed our customer’s expectations in quality and efficiency.  Our Machine-Ready Blanks are custom produced to net or near-net size with close tolerances, both dimensionally and in flatness, eliminating the need for shops to do in-house materials prep. Machine-Ready Blanks arrive clean, deburred and individually packaged, ready to go from receiving directly into the customers CNC machining center(s).  The reason customers come to us is, we can prep materials for finish machining better, faster, and more efficiently then they can do it themselves,” said Ben Belzer, President and COO. “The better we are at what we do, the more value are customers realize,” added Belzer.

The new Schelling fm8 plate saw is best-in-class, capable of cutting aluminum, stainless and other nonferrous metals, up to 6-inches in thickness at speeds up to 100 ft/min. The saw is computer controlled, capable of nesting parts for minimal scrap, and cutting consistently at close tolerances of +/- .005” and within .005” squareness. For even tighter tolerances, duplex milling, double-disc and Blanchard grinding services deliver +/-.0005″ all around.

Founded in 1956, TCI Precision Metals is a family-owned precision manufacturer producing close tolerance Machine-Ready Blanks from aluminum, stainless steel and other alloys. Sawing, Waterjet Cutting, Grinding, Milling and Finishing operations with the added benefit of being a plate and sheet distributor make TCI Precision Metals a one stop materials source for precision Machine-Ready Blanks. The Company also welcomes customer supplied materials.  TCI Precision Metals serves the needs of the medical, oil & gas, aerospace, industrial equipment, defense, food packaging, semiconductor and many other industries.

For more information, call 800-234-5613, or visit: http://tciprecision.com

##

 

TCI Precision Metals announced Matt Erickson as Director of Sales for the Company effective immediately.  Matt brings with him extensive experience in industrial operations, sales, program management, and a customer-first management style.  

“We feel Matt is a perfect fit for TCI Precision Metals and are looking to him to provide expanded hands-on customer interaction, both in the field and through our internal sales and customer service team,” said Ben Belzer, President and COO.  

The Company continues to invest in people, equipment and processes to further extend its value to customers, by eliminating material prep and other time-consuming operations, such as hogging out or adding features that require large amounts of material removal.  With technology improvements in duplex milling, waterjet cutting, precision sawing, and grinding, TCI Precision Metals can efficiently remove more material than ever before, delivering a greater range of precision Machine-Ready Blanks.   

Founded in 1956, TCI Precision Metals is a family-owned precision manufacturer producing close tolerance Machine-Ready Blanks from aluminum, stainless steel and other alloys. Sawing, Waterjet Cutting, Grinding, Milling and Finishing operations with the added benefit of being a plate and sheet distributor make TCI Precision Metals a one stop materials source for precision Machine-Ready Blanks. TCI Precision Metals serves the needs of the medical, oil & gas, aerospace, industrial equipment, defense, food packaging, semiconductor and many other industries.

For more information, call 800-234-5613, or visit: http://tciprecision.com

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Make or Buy?

Near net size pre-machined materials, or what we refer to as Machine-Ready Blanks, are designed to increase the efficiency of production machining by eliminating material prep.  Machine-Ready Blanks can be virtually any size or shape and can include added features, but typically they are square, rectangular or round stock milled to your custom specifications.  We provide Machine Ready Blanks for all types of jobs, including prototypes, first articles, short runs, and production runs. Production jobs typically provide the greatest return for customers due to volume multipliers in per piece efficiency and overall cost savings.  Machine-Ready Blanks show up on your receiving dock clean, deburred and ready to go directly into your machining centers. Seems straight forward, right?

Not so fast, most shops are capable of producing in-house or piecemealing their own material prep and pre-machining.  Some shops still chose to purchase oversize raw materials and send it out for first ops like heat treating, grinding or milling.   The materials are then either staged internally for additional prep work necessary to finish machine (depending on the job) or it is machined to size as part of the finish machining process, which increases production time and adds wear and tear to equipment.  What you end up with is raw materials moving around for days or weeks before the high-value process of finish machining begins, and any delays along the way create bottlenecks that can stop production in its tracks. The question remains, why? We continue to debate the topic of ‘make or buy’ with shop owners and OEMs reluctant to source Machine-Ready Blanks and have concluded; it is simply a matter of company culture.

Maker Culture

Makers are craftsmen who are steeped in tradition and want to maintain control over every aspect of the manufacturing process - “We have always done it this way and will continue to do it this way.”  Net raw materials price is a motivator for this group and it often outweighs the benefits of saving time, increasing efficiency or improving capacity.  For Makers, the thought of cutting a single PO and having pre-machined materials show up ready to load and go is usually met with some skepticism.

Manufacturing Culture

Manufacturers are no less committed to quality, but their motivation is driven by constant process improvement, increases in efficiency, maximizing throughput, and bottom line profitability – “If you can save me 15-minutes per part and help me avoid bottlenecks, let’s talk.”  Manufacturers tend to look at the bigger picture.  If pre-machined materials cost a little more than raw stock, but has multiple operations already completed, they realize a net gain.

I am not here to tell you how to run your business or judge your materials and process decisions, but we are passionate about the value we provide and our commitment to quality and customer service.  When it comes to sourcing pre-machined materials, Machine-Ready Blanks ticks the boxes in each of the Better, Faster, Cheaper categories:

Better

Faster

Cheaper

So, when it comes to pre-machined materials the question remains, Make or Buy?  You decide.

Thanks for reading –

Ben

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TCI Precision Metals has announced a line of Machine-Ready Blanks designed to eliminate material preparation, and support automated loading and unloading of machining centers engaged in light-out or semi-lights-out operations.  Machine-Ready Blanks for lights-out operations pull from TCI Precision Metals' experience in producing close tolerance, pre-machined blanks...

More-West  More-Midwest  More-Northeast

Helps Reduce Buy-to-Fly Ratios-

Buy-to-Fly Ratio (BTF) is a term used mainly by additive manufacturing suppliers to substantiate the efficiencies of 3D printing.  The BTF analogy is a good one, all things equal, but they are not.  There are many different manufacturing methods available today, each with inherent strengths and weaknesses.  One of the tenets of additive manufacturing is its ability to produce near-net-shape parts that can be finish machined with little to no material waste.  The concept of near-net-shape manufacturing has been around for a  long time in the form of Machine-Ready Blanks and Feature-Added Blanks.

When deploying near-net-shape manufacturing strategy, material typically arrives at your shop with one or more operations completed.  This reduces the amount of material removal necessary, and in many cases allows you to get right to the high-value process of finish machining.  In the aerospace industry, near-net-shape manufacturing is also used to reduce BTF ratios. The BTF ratio is the weight ratio between the raw material (buy) used for a part and the weight of the finished part (fly).  In aerospace the average BTF ratio is 11:1, or for every 20,000 lbs of material, less than 2,000 lbs of parts are produced. Reducing the BTF ratio means more efficient use of material and usually reduces processing time of the finished parts.

Several manufacturing processes, including casting, forging, stamping, and most additive manufacturing techniques potentially deliver low BTF ratios.  Due to surface requirements and other details, finish machining is still usually required for each of the processes, and of course, there are other considerations and trade-offs as well, such as, tooling, forming processes, and material limitations.

Machining (subtractive manufacturing) is the most common manufacturing process; it is flexible and produces strong, accurate parts.  Though machining can be expensive and is thought to deliver lower BTF ratios due to the subtractive nature of the process, this is not necessarily accurate. There are substantial savings in time and processing by starting a production machining job with near-net-shape material, or Machine-Ready Blanks.

When machining flat parts from sheet or plate stock using near-net-shape material, the BTF ratio playing field quite often favors machining.  Waterjet cutting allows for nesting of parts, and CAD cut added-features minimize waste. The material can be ground flat to close tolerances on all sides, and arrives at your shop clean, deburred and ready to load directly into your CNC machining center for finish machining.  Remnant material removed during production of the material can be re-purposed, virtually eliminating waste and delivering a BTF ratio of nearly 1:1.

Flat net-size Machine-Ready Blank shown with finished machined part.

BTF ratios in general are harder to reduce when machining dimensional parts, especially those requiring a large amount of material removal.  However, there are still productivity gains to be realized by starting your production job with near-net-shape material. Material prep is eliminated and the number of in-house operations can be further reduced, for example, rough cutting, hogging out material, or adding additional features.

Feature Added Blank Services

Feature-Added Machine-Ready Blank with a large amount of material removed to create steps.

Material specs and application will ultimately dictate your manufacturing process options, but maintaining a goal to start with near-net-shape material Machine-Ready Blanks will always save time and money, while improving production throughput.

Thanks for reading -

Ben

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