谦卑，Inc。

Chris Daniels gets a call on his cell phone at 4:30 p.m. on the Friday before a long Fourth of July weekend. A customer, a Japanese-owned automotive plant in Kentucky, has broken a stamping die. Mr. Daniels is the general manager of Pyramid Machine of Somerset, Kentucky, a shop that performs die repair and die machining, among other services. For the sake of a tight production schedule, this customer needs to get a working die back in place by Monday morning.

你做的任何事情，手机另一端的联系人说。但有一个问题。这是一个非常大的死亡。金字塔在任何足够大的地方都不拥有机床，可以完成这项工作。（至少，如果发生此事件，则不会发生这种情况。）您可以做任何事情，客户重复。

The solution is this: Pyramid, a shop with about 20 employees, sent a team into the customer's plant, where a large-enough machine was available. A CAD/CAM station was set up near this machine. Pyramid's IT specialist networked the machine so it could receive DNC data for the large program file that would be coming. Shop personnel then set about capturing the die's geometry. They used a dial indicator to measure 2D regions of the die, while 3D sections were sent back to Pyramid to be digitized. Over the course of about 50 hours that weekend, various staff members working together in this way successfully modeled the die and then machined its replacement. The new tool was in production and making good parts in time for the Monday deadline.

金字塔人员与客户的工作employees to carry out this job. One challenge for the customer was to find employees willing to give up the holiday weekend without advance notice. For Pyramid, this was less of a problem. Employees carry cell phones because some part of the shop's workforce is always on call. Employees hired here understand that their personal plans will often give way for the sake of customers' needs. This attitude of humility is one of the most important characteristics the shop looks for when it evaluates a new employee. Compared to this humility, says Mr. Daniels, any lack of prior machining experience is not an important consideration at all.

服务态度是商店的主要竞争优势。CNC加工中心，在金字塔的车间上找到EDM机器和多任务车床都是最新的，但设备与其他商店中的设备不同。同样，该商店无法令人印象深刻的令人印象深刻的成绩。丹尼尔斯先生本人帮助不到6年前开放商店，除了另一家商店的入门级运营商之外的相关经验很少。但是，金字塔所做的是根据客户的术语填补紧急加工需求的意愿和能力，而不是商店为自己选择的时间或优先级。许多合同商店声称将客户满足同样的程度，但如果更多的商店真的能够这样做，那么金字塔就会在其所选利基上的似乎不太安全的持有。

Targeting Transplants

金字塔为日本移植制造商提供服务。对该市场的关注是商店管理层简单计算的结果。金字塔所需的工作，日本植物是那些忙碌的植物。管理层的挑战一直将这些日本客户的优先事项转化为肯塔基州员工的程序。结果是一家甚至是一套，甚至是一个日本设施的外观。生产区保持组织，非常干净，而人员 - 无论是在办公桌还是在机床上工作 - 所有佩戴相同的制服。

但是，为日本拥有的制造商提供影响远远超过外表。重点还确定了至少一次为商店购买。金字塔希望能够为移植工厂进行加工工作，即植物无法为自己和很大程度上有效地做的，这意味着模具工作。无论是修复，修改还是更换，这家商店都会看到很多死亡。而它看到的原因是从客户死亡，而不是CAD数据，是日本工厂通常缺乏有关其工具几何的电子信息。几何信息包含在管芯上。所以金字塔必须依赖数字化。

To do this work quickly, the shop bought a stand-alone digitizing unit—a Cyclone digitizer from Renishaw (Hoffman Estates, Illinois). This unit lets the shop gather the CAD data it needs off of the die itself, or even off of fragments if the die has broken. When a job involves machining a replacement for a die that is still in service, the unit lets the shop digitize the tool quickly enough that the die can be returned to the customer with minimal impact on the customer's production. Because this digitizing machine is kept in the same controlled-environment quality room as the CMM, a typical job for Pyramid not only ends up in the quality room, it begins its progression there as well.

这个数字化器带来了新的业务。金字塔扫描了客户的模具，只需在商店系统中等待潜在客户的几何形状即可获得的价值。一个移植工具现在将所有新的模具发送到金字塔利用这项服务，只要这些商店将在任何这些工具需要工作时准备就绪。要从数字化数据文件中生成刀具路径，该商店使用来自Tebis America（Troy，Michigan）的CAD / CAM软件。该店在很大程度上选择了这个软件，因为它的易用性。至少还有一个以前在商店提供此目的的其他凸轮包，但该系统不太方便，不太直观。这里使用的易用性很重要，因为创建特定NC文件的员工通常具有大量的其他任务来并行管理。在加工中心区域，典型的操作员也设置并监督两个加工中心，除了在笔记本电脑上产生工具路径。

金字塔的典型操作员可能从未看到自己在几年前这样做的任何事情。大多数员工来到商店没有加工背景。例如，负责EDM，热处理和表面磨削的员工在不到2年前的前雇主切割木材装饰。一个在整个商店里监督质量的女性，以前在一个完全不同的制造业，制作衣服。

Working Here

丹尼尔斯先生说，我们在潜在的员工中寻找了很多东西，但加工体验不是其中之一。他很远，更感兴趣的是一个开放的思想和学习意愿。他说，如果一个聪明的员工有这种意愿，那么我们就可以让他或她迅速迅速地获得CNC和加工技术。新员工对金字塔展示其客户的设备表现出相同的谦逊。潜在员工经常被问到，作为采访的一部分，是否愿意迟到，了解如何在自己的时间使用机器。新员工在第一天使用CNC设备。新租用可能是她的第一天的方形材料，但实现这一极大提供了起点。易于通过设备遭受恐吓的员工或商店的步伐通常快速洗掉。但愿意继续学习的员工可以快速推进。丹尼尔斯先生认为经理的重要责任，以确保致力于推进的任何雇员有机会这样做。 A new hire coming to the company with no experience might be setting up jobs after 3 months, and within a year that employee might become one of the operators who routinely juggles multiple machining centers along with a seat of CAM.

去国家

The shop's reliance on customers' own dies to convey geometric information would seem to place a limit on its geographic reach. Most plants can't afford to be without their dies for as long as cross-country shipping times would demand. But Pyramid has found an elegant solution to that problem, and this solution seems likely to provide the shop with its next leap forward in business.

该商店已与加利福尼亚州的计量设备供应商签订了协议。为了数字化目的，本供应商同意充当金字塔的分公司。西海岸的植物现在可以向这个男人附近的设施派遣他们的模具，以便快速数字化，让他只是将数据文件发送到肯塔基州。是什么使得这一协议如此希望，这是它为所有有关人机的利益提供的程度。Metrology供应商不仅从金字塔从金字塔获取业务，而且他还可以满足可能需要计量设备的工厂。如果本协议在加利福尼亚州工作，金字塔将尝试类似的安排来达到该国其他地区的移植。

来自加利福尼亚州第一个这样的工作的数据到4月来了。Metrology供应商可能对任何人都有最惊讶的是，任何人都会看到安排工作。他曾说过，有成千上万的商店。为什么这些植物会转向你？

One of the reasons proved to be the shop's record of service to other transplant manufacturers. The Japanese manufacturing personnel living in the United States comprise a relatively small population that shares information routinely. Among this group, the shop's reputation had preceded it. Humility had helped to create a reputation worthy of pride.