Archive for March, 2010

Your army is lost, your navy destroyed and you are now a captive in an enemy camp, the war is over and you are defeated. As you lay in your chamber, starving, cold and bloody you ponder of what the next day will bring and then you think back to what went wrong.

Each battle you focused on like a laser, counting the tasks that led to each victory, strategies that made you seem undefeatable. The battles, while never easy, were never a problem either. You took the enemy down each and every time but this time it was different.

Your mind races back to the moment you knew you were in trouble. It seemed like the enemy came out of nowhere, swarms of troops from every direction, bullets, bombs and missiles strategically hit you on all fronts. But how, you had complete focus on the battle and thought you knew the enemy well.

The problem is the enemy changed. While you were focused on the battles they assembled in mass, hidden on the battlefield until they came at you with ferocity you were not prepared for and overran your defenses. You failed to see the entire battlefield through the heat of battle.

Business can be a lot like war. We focus on the heat of battle, battling to maintain our lead times, making good parts and keeping the customer happy. Yet we sometimes fail to see the “battlefield” and the opportunities that are headed our way. Soon the orders come in and we are not prepared for the volume. The lead time slips, the quality suffers and the customer becomes unhappy.

The economy appears to be recovering and the uptick of demand is starting. It’s a buyer’s market because everyone is hungry for business and because everyone put purchases on hold, they need it as quickly as you can get it to them. If you are not prepared you will be overran with the demand and will not be able to satisfy the customer.

As an OEM of hydraulic presses and equipment we see the battlefield and know the influx of capital purchases is upon us. Our customers that see the battlefield as well are ordering now to be prepared for their customers. Will you be ready to deliver a “shock and awe” campaign for your customers and blow their socks off or will you be overran, left cold and bloody, pondering what went wrong?

Beckwood Slab-Side Press Example

In lieu of traditional two-post hydraulic presses, which feature two housing posts & are optimal designs for shallow-bed applications, slab-side designs are often the smarter frame configuration.

In a slab-side design, two solid plates of steel are used in place of the posts. This change from post to slab-sides increases the ease of assembly & can result in a net decrease in price of the press. Also, this substitution often allows for the use of less expensive, non-lubricated guide bushings on those presses which feature guided rams.

While the slab-side configuration is most often used on smaller, low tonnage systems, it has also been implemented successfully on larger units well in excess of 200 tons.  Finally, the lighter, compact design of a slab-side press lends itself well to applications featuring small heated platens for use in laboratory-type environments.