Manufacturing

There are different recycled materials in the world and serves as a component for some products like home appliances, industrial machinery, cars, and construction material. A good number of these components are metals which are used in the manufacturing of several products. We have two types of metals: ferrous and non-ferrous metals. For the benefit of this post, the focus is on ferrous alloys only.

You’d get insights on ferrous metals and the reasons why it’s a useful element in the production process of manufacturing companies. The common forms of ferrous metals would be highlighted with details of their unique components. Furthermore, its peculiar properties in its different would be identified as well.

Definition of ferrous metal

Ferrous metals are elements with iron and magnetic properties which offer little contention to rust. Most ferrous metals are good conductors of electricity which makes it a suitable element in the manufacture of electronics. The metals are durable and possess malleable strength like cast iron and steel. The metal can be extracted from iron ore in the earth’s crust which contains compounds like iron oxide.

Ferrous metals are mainly composed of iron, and they are used in the manufacturing of commercial and domestic tools, shipping containers, industrial pipes, construction, rails, tools, nuts and bolts, machinery, aircraft, drills, and electrical appliances. Iron and steel remain the most common forms of ferrous metals.

Ferrous metals include the following:

• Steel
• Alloy steel
• Carbon steel
• Cast iron
• Wrought iron

The features of carbon and alloy steel

Steel is a ferrous metal, and about 40% of steel production in the world is made from scrap because it’s cheaper to make use of recycled steel rather than to produce new steel through the mining process. Furthermore, recycling steel gulps less energy in comparison to forming steel from raw materials. The physical properties of steel aren’t lost during the recycling process so it can be used again. About 500 million tons of steel is formed from scrap materials and manufactured using different melting furnaces like electric-arc, induction, open-hearth, crucible, and Bessemer converter.Continue Reading

Within the manufacturing and engineering industry, the pressure of keeping up with demand can often lead to a situation where you’re producing just enough and working just hard enough to keep going at the same rate, but not taking advantage of opportunities to grow.

Unfortunately for some firms, branding and business success has evolved significantly, becoming highly focused on digital marketing and new promotion channels like social media. The manufacturing industry has been criticised in the past for being too traditional and slow to adapt, which has cost many long-running firms dearly.

Here are four major ways you can develop your marketing strategy within your niche and make it work for you, so you can avoid falling behind.

1) Start with a plan

You need a cohesive strategy before you start trying to advertise your company and sell your products or services. Manufacturers have different aims, but generally speaking your objectives are likely to include increased leads, sales, repeat purchases and brand awareness.

Considering these goals plus any specific growth targets you have, a plan should be created that covers a specific time frame and is understood thoroughly by all relevant parties.

2) Pay attention to your website

A large proportion of manufacturers don’t consider their online presence a priority, and as a result they are left with an out-of-date website that isn’t really a part of their strategy.

Your website represents your brand when people take an interest in finding out more, so it needs to be optimised for conversions as well as for search engines (so you can be found organically in the first place). It needs to be professional, attractive, engaging and informative, plus it should be designed to work on mobile devices.Continue Reading

It’s important to always be looking to the future within this industry, and looking for ways your business can develop to stay ahead of the curve. Technology is a major part of this, as it can improve efficiency in almost every area of your business.

Of course, it’s not possible or wise to invest in every new technological innovation before it has proved itself. However, there is a knack to catching new trends at the perfect time, when you can safely bet they’re going to go mainstream but the market isn’t saturated yet. Here are a few prime examples for 2017.

3D Printing

Although the process has actually been around for decades, the last five years or so have seen 3D printing finally become commercially viable across a range of industries. In certain manufacturing niches, creating complex parts with high accuracy has been made much easier and more cost effective thanks to this advancement.

The main difference we are currently seeing in the market is that small firms can now afford to adopt the same printing techniques as the bigger companies. This is going to create a wider gap between the most cutting-edge firms and their rivals who are slow to adapt.Continue Reading

The term “sustainable” is used to describe many different techniques and trends, but in essence the word is self-explanatory. Being sustainable simply means you can keep your business going in the future. The alternative is that you run out of finite resources (whether that’s fuel, cash or customers) and go out of business. It’s worth remembering that sustainability is not really optional, it’s essential for the survival of your firm.

With this in mind, let’s consider some of the short term benefits of getting ahead of the curve when it comes to environmentally-friendly manufacturing.

Cut down on energy bills

Energy efficiency reduces your costs directly, although some initial investment may be required. On a monthly basis, changing your practices or infrastructure may cost more at first, but annual savings are likely to be significant. In a similar way, you can cut costs on supplies and materials by recycling more internally and wasting less.Continue Reading

Gears are something we don’t tend to think about in most industries, even within manufacturing and similar fields to a certain extent. They have been part of our machinery designs for thousands of years, and are an essential element of modern engineering across the board to this day. The practical of applications of gears are almost unlimited, across almost every industry including automobiles, aerospace, medical, military and more.

The manufacturing process for gears is complex, and an in-depth knowledge of all these relevant industries is required for any business in this industry to do well. This is why the market is currently dominated by a relatively small number of leading UK suppliers, who design and manufacture precision worm gears, helical and straight bevel gears, gearboxes and more.

Essentially the reason we rely so heavily on gears is due to their simple but effective function. They are a method of transferring energy from one action to another, converting one form of movement into a different one and facilitating a small but vital part of a bigger process. Because of the varied demands that can be placed on them, gears for manufacturing, vehicles and other equipment must all be produced to an extremely high standard. They need to be robust and reliable to ensure the machinery they power isn’t at risk of failure.Continue Reading

Manufacturing is a phenomenally broad and complex industry which is directly related to the profit margins of almost all businesses. For that reason, new technologies and innovations are constantly being developed, and we’re always hearing about the next big thing that’s just on the verge of taking over the market. Whether these predictions will come true is always hard to say, but at the moment the groundwork has been completed for any one of the following five trends to finally come to the forefront in the next 12 months.

1) Predictive analytics

Waiting for trends to emerge and adjusting strategies accordingly is rarely a cost-effective exercise, but businesses are often forced to use these trial-and-error methods to figure out what direction to steer themselves in next. Increasingly, however, the value of extremely detailed analytical software and consultancy is becoming clear, and perhaps offers an alternative to this reactive approach. So much data is now available about customers, logistics, production processes and so on that it’s becoming easier than ever to predict future trends and respond faster. As this continues to take off, we expect to see more businesses benefiting.

2) Metal 3D printing

Although this is not a new trend, 3D printing has taken some time (decades, in fact) to develop to a point that it’s proving valuable to mass manufacturers. Printing with metal rather than plastic is an even more advanced branch of the technique, and one that is starting to quite literally take off. Aerospace giants such as Airbus have started to embrace the technology and we expect to see more of it throughout the engineering sector.Continue Reading