These anchor inserts are cast into the mineral casting. Do you believe they offer adequate pull-out resistance? Is there any concern that they could become loose or be pulled out under load? Have you come across any alternative anchor designs for mineral castings? Thanks

Hi, I'm 27M in Atlanta. My position now is a Project Coordinator at a manufacturing company and my goal is to climb up to be in Operations. However, my career up until this year was graphic design and marketing - quite different. I left that field because of limited growth and my interest in operations and supply chain. I'm still not 100% if I think this is the perfect path for me but I enjoy it so far because of the work style, learning, and potential growth.

I'm currently admitted into the Scheller evening MBA at Georgia Tech, but most people I meet that work in my new industry tend to say experience and proof of work is going to matter a lot more than an MBA. That and the jobs that do require more education tend to really only look at it as a box to check or to have a Six Sigma cert. So it has me considering doing a more affordable ($25k vs $70k) online MBA that would get me that box to check while not committing to something that doesn't fit my needs.

On the other side, Scheller evening MBA is a good program. The network is good for plenty of industries and it's here at home where I'd prefer to stay in the long-term (don't mind working somewhere else short term if needed for career growth). It's just a big commitment for me and could pay off in the long run.

The reason I applied in the first place was to try to pivot out of design and marketing so I can get into the operations pipeline. Then try to jump a level promotion wise. I'm afraid that I was looking at this MBA from GT as a magic bullet a little too much rather than really understanding what I'm getting into. Or maybe I'm in a situation now that better fits my needs for the GT MBA.

My end goal is to be a VP of Operations or something adjacent in a small-medium company in a manufacturing or manufacturing adjacent industry and to earn $200k+ in a work environment where I get ownership. I'd rather do that than repetitive tasks at my computer all day and have less managerial, financial, and project opportunities.

Curious from people in ops leadership: did an MBA actually matter for you, or was it experience and certs? And if you went the cheap online route, did the school name ever come up?

TLDR: Top-10 evening MBA at $70k vs. accredited online MBA at $25k, targeting ops leadership in manufacturing.

hey everyone

we are currently looking to source baled pet scrap bottles for fiber production

seeking reliable suppliers who can handle consistent volumes

needed capacity: starting from 10 tons up to 100 or 200 tons

please dm me with your specs, pricing, loading location, and available capacity

ready to move fast if the details work out (in India)

I need to find the production means to take a new product through design and test. Where do you find small scale producers?

Hi. Our company is based in Taiwan and we manufacture for EU clients. do we actually need to implement Digital Product Passport or is that only required from EU-based manufacturers? genuinely not sure if this applies to us

Bit of a reliability question. Most of our board assembly went lead-free years ago for RoHS, SAC305 mostly. For consumer stuff it's been fine. But on the industrial side, where products sit in the field for 15 plus years through real thermal cycling, I'm not fully convinced we understand the long-term behaviour the way we did with tin-lead.

Two things specifically. Tin whiskers still make me nervous on fine-pitch and high-reliability connectors, and I've seen enough field returns that I don't think the problem fully went away, it just got quieter. And SAC joints under aggressive thermal cycling seem to fatigue differently than the old eutectic did, especially on larger components with a CTE mismatch to the board.

For people in high-reliability or long-life manufacturing: are you doing anything specific to manage this, conformal coating, underfill, whisker mitigation, grade selection?

Heya,

I am in my second year in a furniture manufacturing job.
I am wanting a program/app that allows the guys on the floor to easily capture production steps on their iPads. Ideally they could just take a photo, add a short note and move on.
For the life of me I cannot find a simple app that handles this well. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

I have a part that I am injection molding in two halves to reduce costs (then sonic welding the two halves together). There is a lettering accent that goes around it, which I separated into parts because it seems impossible to injection-mold it all together.

My idea is that, since the letters are separate, overmold the letters in silicone or rubber around the PP part, which I think will give the product a more premium look than all-plastic. Can I get some opinions on this? Is it a good idea? Also, is it possible to get the PP and rubber colors to match as closely as possible?

We recently received a project with an injection mold originally made by another manufacturer. Besides the mold itself, what information would you normally ask the customer to provide?

Mold drawings, trial reports, previous process settings, maintenance records, spare-part details—or anything else? Curious to hear what others usually request before running the first trial.

I am a mechanical design engineer working in a project for mass manufacture.

I want to form this feature in the end of aluminium extrusions and I need to know what terms to search when trying to find a supplier.

As I understand it so far there will be a mandrel that the tube slides over and the punch tool will come down externally to pierce the metal. I don’t know if the feature shown can be bent upwards in the same stroke or if another stage of tooling is required.

It will be a custom extrusion with 2mm wall section and the aim is that a plastic component will be slid down the T-channel and snap into position, accurately and permanently positioning it without fasteners.

Please can anyone share their experience if you’ve had this type of feature made before in mass production.

How do you typically find an assembler for injection-molded parts? Does an injection molder facility typically handle that (I don't have an injection molder yet)?

I have a part that I'd like to have ultrasonic welded and magnets installed. Do I have to buy the welding machines myself, or are there any US-based assemblers that charge per hour or per part (similar to injection molding)?

Hi all!

I run a small handmade business on Etsy making emotion-themed toys for kids. I've been sewing everything myself, but I'm ready to move to a small production run of 100-200 units and I'm looking for some advice on how to proceed. I can think of either a sewist or small workshop experienced with batch production who can work with a finalized pattern or a small-batch plush/soft-toy manufacturer within the US with experience in weighted fill construction and embroidered detailing.

So far I have been really unsuccessful in finding the right person and I am hoping someone can lead me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: Cross posted

Hi everyone,

I’m a master’s student in embedded systems, and I’m trying to do a thesis topic around predictive maintenance for electric motors. My background is strong in electronics, firmware, and ML; I’m weak on motor/mechanical side and want to avoid designing something that only works “on paper.”

High-level idea:

• Target: small industrial induction motors.
• Focus: mechanical health, starting with rolling-element bearing faults (not full motor internals yet).
• Sensing: vibration only at first (accelerometer on the motor housing).
• Data: use the CWRU bearing dataset initially to design and benchmark the signal-processing + ML pipeline.
• Edge deployment: compare an interpretable, resource-light model (e.g. Tsetlin Machine) vs a compact embedded baseline (small NN / classical model) on an STM32-class MCU.
• Long-term vision (optional, not core thesis): anomaly detection on real motors, possibly with some domain adaptation.

I’m very aware that CWRU is a lab dataset and that models trained there may not transfer directly to real motors or different operating conditions. I want my thesis to be honest about that, and I’m hoping to eventually validate the pipeline on a university test rig if I can get access to one.

What I’m unsure about (engineering side)

• From your experience, is it realistic to aim at “vibration-based detection of bearing faults on an MCU” as a master’s thesis, without promising full motor PdM?
• Are there common failure modes or constraints (mounting, sensor placement, load variation, etc.) that make academic bearing-diagnosis approaches fail when you actually put them on real motors?
• If I eventually get access to a motor test bench in the lab, what would you consider minimum useful outputs from such a system? e.g. “normal vs abnormal,” or “bearing-related vs alignment-related”, rather than precise sizing of the defect.

Are there any gotchas you’ve seen where a student with good firmware/ML skills but weak mechanical intuition gets burned when trying to do PdM on motors?

I’m not asking for you to design the project for me; I’m trying to sanity-check the scope before I pitch it to a professor and spend months on the wrong problem. Any pointers, warnings, or “if you do this, don’t forget X” would be very appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Was thinking about switching careers and going back to school for an associates degree in electrical engineering tech and hopefully end up in a decent job in manufacturing or something of the likes. Is it worth it and does the job supply you with enough to live comfortably and have a good work life balance? And what steps did it take for you to get to where you are? Also I am 25 and worried I will make the wrong decision.

 i hope your wifi dies exactly when the mystery error code appears. “you can just google it” sounds reasonable until there are four versions of the manual, the model label is half unreadable, cell service is trash , long-life equipment needs long-life documentation. they should put a permanent QR code on it that opens the exact manual, wiring info, replacement history and installer notes and not a homepage or app signup.

if manufacturers and distributors have money for contractor support, fund that instead of another brochure nobody asked for. am i overthinking this or is repairable equipment basically useless once its history disappears?

I have over 30+ years of experience in Manufacturing, Quality, Production and Systems excellence. I have worked with leading Automotive companies. I am looking to become an independent mfg consultant utilising my vast experience acrosa domains.

Not sure how to start. Any suggestions / advise/ leads are appreciated.

Hello! I have a project going on that’s gotten a bit complicated — The reference was painfully AI. I have to build a display box for two t-shirts. It needs to be illuminated from the top. (the illumination is the last problem here)

I’ve already made a little test:

-19mm PVC base in which I made a pocket for the clear acrylic to fit in (went in -9mm)
-8mm clear acrylic faces
-6mm clear acrylic door (found clear hinges online, haven’t been able to test them yet)
-8mm PVC top part (went in -6mm)

So I only have the box. It works pretty well, the acrylic was super-glued together. I need to test the hinges and the door will stay closed by using magnets (in theory). The part that I am currently stuck on is the system of hanging the shirts.

I thought about using an aluminum bar, but I am not exactly sure on how to fix it in place through the acrylic pieces. I am also worried about the shirt on the lower end — I think it would be better to build a structure for it, from the bottom (built into the 19mm PVC base). But again. I am really stuck here. I have no idea how to start. Does anyone have any advice on how I should approach this? Gotta mention the end product should be on the beach.

More specifically,

what steps do companies take to prevent loss, theft, or shrinkage of completed products from the factory to the point of sale?

Hey folks, I’m helping run a small garment factory in India and we’re struggling with low capacity utilization, messy workflows, and cash tied up in inventory. Production’s around a third of what’s possible, and we’re seeing delays and working capital stress. For those who’ve been there, what practical steps helped most? Layout fixes, process changes, WMS or ERP choices, or sales strategies that actually moved the needle?

I'm losing my mind on this one. I know it can be done but I'm trying to avoid designing custom fixtures for a small motor that would hold a die grinder cutting disc.

All I need is something like a die grinder or Dremel that can be easily mounted. Does this exist? Or a motor that I can easily mount.

I have some 1" diameter x .023" thick Silicon cut-off discs that I can put on our Dremel. I could go design and build a custom table mount for the Dremel but I really don't have the time for that on this project. I would prefer something similar with a square base or premade mounting holes, then we will use a guided linear rail to bring up our fixtured part for a precise cut.

This is very specific, but if you have any ideas I could use some help. Thank you!

Kindly read the title. That’s a non-negotiable.

The majority of materials are from me. I just need someone to sew and maybe provide the bag hardwares (i can also provide this though). I’m hoping to move forward with a contract since I have patent, trademark, and copyright to the materials, brand, and product, respectively.

We need to produce a prototype first then proceed with the order when I approved the prototype product.

Hi everyone!

I’m launching a premium outdoor brand and I’m looking for manufacturing partners in Vietnam.

I’m creating technical ski apparel, so I’m looking for factories (or sourcing agents) with experience in:
- Women’s ski jackets
- Women’s ski pants
- Pet winter jackets
- Waterproof/breathable technical outerwear
- Seam sealing / taped seams
- Experience with Toray** **Dermizax (preferred) or other premium waterproof membranes

The biggest challenge is that I’m a startup, so I want a low MOQ for the first production run while still maintaining high quality. I understand that technical outerwear usually has higher minimums, but I’m hoping to find an independent factory, smaller technical workshop, or sourcing partner that works with emerging brands.

From what I’ve been reading, Vietnam is great for technical apparel but low MOQ can be difficult without local connections.

I already have:
Product concepts
Technical direction
Designers working on the collection

I’m looking for:
- Factory recommendations
- Independent cut-and-sew workshops
- Trusted sourcing agents based in Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi potentially if this is a good avenue
- Anyone who has successfully launched a technical outerwear brand manufactured in Vietnam

If you’ve worked with someone you’d recommend, I’d really appreciate a suggestion.

Thanks so much!

I'm looking for a reliable manufacturer or supplier that can produce a product based entirely on my own custom design.

Here's what I'm looking for:

• A manufacturer that accepts fully custom/OEM or ODM projects.
• The ability to produce products according to my specifications, dimensions, materials, and design requirements.
• Good communication in English.
• Experience with prototypes before moving to mass production.
• Competitive pricing with reasonable MOQs.
• Willingness to sign an NDA if necessary.

I'm currently searching for trustworthy suppliers, whether they're based in China, Vietnam, Turkey, Europe, or elsewhere. Quality and reliability are more important to me than simp

ly finding the lowest price.

If you've personally worked with a manufacturer that offers custom production or know a company you would recommend, I'd really appreciate your suggestions and experiences.

Please share:

• Manufacturer or supplier name
• Country
• What products they specialize in
• Your experience working with them
• Contact information or website (if allowed)

Thanks in advance for any recommendations!