Enter a very smart customer design engineer, with a very explicit Front Panel concept and a very aggressive target price and rollout schedule.  One can already sense the creative juices flowing in our own engineering and manufacturing groups.  Simply stated, the problem is:

• Maximizing the ventilation potential of an extruded front panel
• Preserving the stiffness and providing mounting for a variable set of I/O configurations
• Ensuring regulatory FCC emissions compliance.

The wheels turned, the whiteboards filled with concept after concept, a myriad of possible options.  One solution imbedded a stainless steel panel with machined I/O and venting honeycomb into an extruded aluminum frame. This approach would accommodate multiple I/O configurations for a family of front panels, while passing on the economies of scale by using identical frames and support hardware for all panels.

Another approach would entail creating the entire front panel in an automated, high-speed turret punch and forming operation. This process could be accomplished in a wide variety of sheet metal material thicknesses. Although most of the tooling for the process is already part of the company’s library, custom punch and forming tools are always available.  Advantages associated with this construction are the dimensional repeatability inherent in a single set-up, rapid cycle times, and the requirement for only one finish plating process.

Laser cut, water jetted, and photo etched front panels fall into a category of processes employed typically for prototyping and lower volumes, except in those cases where very small features (on the order of a few thousandths) are required.  These processes are making considerable inroads in the micro-manufacturing arena as well as extending the prototyping process into startup production.  They can often act as bridge strategies until field testing is validated and/or financial milestones are met.

All additive and subtractive material processes, after all, fall into what I like to refer to as the ‘enabling’ category of manufacturing. However, it is the rigor of generating process maps, dissecting the current condition, identifying the waste, learning from quality analyses, applying the body of knowledge, etc to future process development that produces the rewards. It is that relentless application of LEAN techniques that will result in carving out the best solution set for our customers.

Having spent years finessing the machining processes within the Massachusetts facility, maximizing spindle utilization, designing quick change fixtures, again, using LEAN tools for set-up and inspection – the process was elevated to a new level altogether by utilizing a somewhat conventional machining center with high spindle speeds, hyper-cooled miniature cutters, and novel fixtures, while optimizing the process with efficient tool paths, cutting speeds, and feed rates. This is not a particularly unusual story within the CBT family. The methodologies to create winning solutions to customer problems, as laid out in this brief piece, are inherent in the CBT DNA.

Katniss Everdeen, the heroine in the “Hunger Games” has a talent for one thing that she does pretty well, archery. That turns out to be her winning strength, but the mastering of other survival techniques, eagerly learned from competitors and mentors during her training, prepared her well for the unexpected.  So too, at CBT Technology, we have things that we are the best at, but we always keep the armory fresh with the other weapons of successful commerce.  We are consistently prepared to encounter those technically freakish obstacles for which alternative strategies are the answer.

CBT will help create the “winning solution” for your demanding application.  Call us.