Posts Tagged ‘manufacturing’

No Need for Special Glasses As We Now Offer 3D Load Cell Design As Standard

We are now pleased to offer all our customers 3D models as standard on all customised load cells. As well as supplying a comprehensive range of stock load cells, don’t forget we supply customised sensors for a wide range of applications in a number of industrial markets, including the oil and gas, process control and materials handling.

“We have been providing 3D models on request for a couple of years. However, now we are being increasingly asked to provide 3D models so customers are able to rotate the images in all planes to ensure that the load cell is suitable for their particular applications. Our design department has recently been evaluating a number of different software packages and we have now decided on the best one that suits both our customers’ needs and ours.”

We recognise that offering 3D models and 3D interactive PDFs will help you visualise the load cells in situ and enables changes to be made relatively easily and quickly before the product goes to manufacture. For more information on load cell design, call us on +44 (0) 1983 249264 or email info@lcmsystems.com

Expansion Continues for LCM Systems and Customers Benefit from Increased Product Ranges

A combination of customer demand for our ex-stock and customised load cell products and an increase in the number of the market areas served, has resulted in major investment here at our Isle of Wight HQ. Since the start of 2012, our manufacturing and storage facility has increased by 70%, providing an expansion of the testing facilities, as well as an increased area to hold next day delivery load cells and instrumentation. An increase in the workforce over coming months will further strengthen LCM Systems’ expansion plans.

We have seen a steady increase in demand for our customised load cells from a range of different market places, especially our heavy duty shackle load cells for the offshore oil and gas industry. The manufacture and testing of these large sensors require additional space and so we have expanded our facilities by purchasing the next door unit. Consequently, we are now able to handle an increase in orders and the extra space has also meant that we have substantially increased our storage facilities so customers can benefit from a larger range of products available to be dispatched ex-stock.

Do you Download 2D and 3D Drawings?

We are currently evaluating new software that will produce our engineering drawings in 3D. Would you find this useful if you could directly download 3D drawings of our load cells so they could be specified directly into your designs?

Is there More or Less Legislation?

It was way back in 2010 that I talked about the coalition’s plans to reduce red tape for small businesses, particularly in the manufacturing industry. Do any of you think that this has happened yet?

Once again, in the Queen’s Speech in May this year, the Coalition said that new legislation will “cut red tape”. There is a great summary at The Manufacturer journal about what this would mean for manufacturing. Can’t see anything in there about how the red tape will be cut – can you?

And, of course, there has been a lot in the news about the Beechcroft Report on no fault dismissals. Again, an informative piece from The Manufacturer, who spoke to people throughout the manufacturing industry about how they think this legislation would affect business.

I’d be really interested to know what legislation you would like to see relaxed as it really interferes with your day to day business.

Honesty is the Best Policy – Especially When It Comes to Delivery

In my last post I spoke about the importance of managing customers’ expectations and I think that it was key to having such a successful year.

One of my philosophies is ‘always to be honest to customers’. There is no point promising a 3 week delivery, when we know that it is going to take 4 or even 5. All it does is cause problems for everyone. Although our load cells can be a small part of a larger system, they are often “mission critical”. This means that misleading our customers on delivery dates can cause the engineers serious problems. It also means we would spend more time answering calls from irate buyers and customers demanding to know when their load cells were going to be delivered, than we would manufacturing the products that have been ordered.

It is worth bearing in mind, if you go out and get 3 quotes, 2 manufacturers give you a 6 week manufacturing and delivery time and one gives you 4 weeks, the chances are you won’t get it in 4!

That said, of course we will bend over backwards to help accommodate all our customers’ needs and, in fact, that is one of the reasons that we have expanded our factory to enable us to stock our most popular products for same or next day dispatch.

So, don’t be left waiting for your products. When we give a delivery date, we’ll stick to it!

How Do You Decide Who To But Your Load Cells From?

I know this is a very difficult question to answer, but it is one I often find myself discussing both internally with people here at LCM Systems, my marketing people and friends down at the Golf Club. What makes people decide to buy? And in this case, I am talking about technical and engineering products.

Sometimes it’s obvious, the company you buy from is the only one that offers the exact product for your precise application. We often find this when engineers approach us for sophisticated and complex weighing systems, our design engineers are the only ones who truly understand what is required from the load cells and how they can seamlessly integrated to solve their application conundrums.

But what else drives people’s buying decisions? Of course, a product that is used in critical applications, particularly those with heath and safety implications need to be of the highest possible quality, otherwise lives could be at risk. I’ve written about this in a previous blog on LCM Systems’ Shackle load cells.

What about some of the intangibles? Is it important to you that our products are manufactured in the UK? Is delivery a key factor? What about price, is that the be all and end all of your search for load cells? With our internet sales growing year on year, I suppose it is also easy to forget that some people find that having a knowledgeable, helpful and friendly voice at the end of a phone to guide them through their buying decision is a major factor in deciding what company they buy from.

I’d love to hear from you. What is your Top 5 list of what influences your buying decision with respect to your engineering components? And most importantly, if you buy from LCM Systems, how do we rate?

Decisions, decisions

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So Where is Engineering’s Future

Following my last blog entry on women in engineering and listening to university after university announcing the maximum Â£9000 tuition fees, I wonder where the future of engineering lies.

The industry really needs to start encouraging more young people into this diverse and interesting profession. I was delighted to see that on the Isle of Wight GKN Aerospace has pledged that they would take on 11 new apprentices to add to the 27 already employed at its East Cowes site. i think that engineering really is a ‘hands-on’ profession and the idea that the young and talented will learn their skills in real-life situations contributing to the manufacturing output of the UK fills me with joy.

SO, do you think that the future of engineering is in more practical training rather than 3 years at University and massive debt?

Load Cell Technology Improves Accuracy of Centre of Gravity Systems

With our long history of working with the boat racing industry, we have had many yearsâ€™ experience developing Centre of Gravity (CoG) solutions. Now, we are one of the few companies that can provide engineers with easy to use systems that not only accurately and quickly calculate the CoG, but also offer reporting through specialist software. And not only for boats, LCMâ€™s expertise provides innovative and intuitive CoG systems that are used for a wide range of applications including calculations during oil platform manufacture and siting, for weight distribution measurements, monitoring stress during the movement of large structures and more recently in the pharmaceutical industry where accurate powder drying methods are required.

LCM Systemsâ€™ Centre of Gravity solutions can range from a simple system with only 3-4 load cells to large, complicated structures that may require 30/40 load cells to calculate the correct CoG. The software, customised for each application, allows the data to be fed directly from the load cells to a PC or laptop. This means that both visual and numerical outputs can be displayed, results can be exported into other packages for further analysis while reports can be easily produced and customised. Most importantly, human error is reduced as the software carries out the calculations and any changes in the CoG can be seen immediately on screen.

We supply a comprehensive range of load cells including D-cells, wireless and larger capacity products such as our own CPA series of compression sensors available with a rated load range from 2tonne to 1000tonne. The software is also available configured or provided â€˜rawâ€™ to customers as a development system.

Exciting Times as LCM Systems Expands

Well, we looked and looked for new premises here on the Isle of Wight but couldn’t find anything suitable for our exciting expansion plans. (I should have added this as one of the disadvantages to my last blog entry.)

However, we didn’t give up, looked at all the options and are now underway with extensive expansion plans to our existing factory so we can provide a comprehensive range of load cells ex-stock. This is a very exciting time for us as we know that many of our customers will benefit from faster, in many cases, next day delivery.

With clever project planning, we have also managed to minimize disruption to our manufacturing facilities. We aim to keep our production promises and most customers will not see any changes in their delivery schedules during the building work. Over here in the UK we are about to embark on our second 4-day weekend, thanks to the Royal wedding, so it will be a busy one for us as we move some our larger pieces of production equipment to their new homes.

Watch out for some photos – coming soon!

Working on the Wonderful Isle of Wight

I’ve spoken before about how great it is to work on the Isle of Wight. Some of the personal advantages include the short and picturesque commute to work, the golf courses (see my previous blog entry ) and exquisite restaurants. From a business point of view, the Isle of Wight is said to be the home of the foil strain gauge originating atÂ Saunders-Roe when the company’s Electronics Division was tasked with developing an alternative to the wire type strain gauge that was holding back development of new helicopter components and so with its history, there is a strong sense of pride and no shortage of skilled workers. We are also right on the doorstep of some of the most innovative and successful boat racing companies in the world and are lucky enough to be their suppliers.

Probably the major disdadvantage is that some courers see us as an offshore isalnd and we have to pay unacceptable surcharges. However, we try and source what we can from suppliers on the Island and we have built up an excellent network of suppliers and business contacts.

We are also members of the Isle of Wight Chamber of Commerce and have just been featured in their monthly magazine Island Business. Unfortunately it’s not online at the moment, but here are some PDFs of our 3-page spectactacular

Posts Tagged ‘manufacturing’

No Need for Special Glasses As We Now Offer 3D Load Cell Design As Standard

Expansion Continues for LCM Systems and Customers Benefit from Increased Product Ranges

Do you Download 2D and 3D Drawings?

Is there More or Less Legislation?

Honesty is the Best Policy – Especially When It Comes to Delivery

How Do You Decide Who To But Your Load Cells From?

So Where is Engineering’s Future

Load Cell Technology Improves Accuracy of Centre of Gravity Systems

Exciting Times as LCM Systems Expands

Working on the Wonderful Isle of Wight

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