This message comes from Tom Mongan at Subcon Laser. For some reason he experienced problems trying to posting it.

Good Afternoon All.

Just a few of my own personal opinions on the recent job shop meeting, agree or disagree as you please.

I thought the Trumpf presentation on Disk Laser Technology was a little weak and a tad misleading in places. However it was presented misleadingly well!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dennis did a very good job on "Automating the Job shop" although I would have liked to hear more on the pit falls that occurred along the way, but accept time restraints play a major role. I do agree with Dennis on the laser scanner, as it is probably one of the best pieces of innovative technology I have seen in the past 35 years.

Excellent stuff from Martin complemented by Mark on "Web Site Workings and Improving your Ranking", again more time was probably required, as it was, Dave had little or no time for Job Shop Matters.

Lunch was excellent and great to have a chat with like minded people from our industry. It never ceases to amize me how open people are, I am sure if we could get this message across to all job shop members then even more would attend.

Fascinating concept from Neil on Training Laser Operators and accept the task is quite challenging. However I do not think all laser machine operators are up to the task and quite frankly we employ some people here (and I'm sure we are not unique) that a decent level of training would be wasted on them. We do employ some decent guys that would certainly benefit from a structured learning scheme because they show an aptitude and willingness to learn.  I think this is definately something worth looking at and pursuing.

John as always made the floor his own with a "There but for the grace of God" story, ably supported by Lynn Bleakley. I am a little confused with one of Lynn's comments regarding filling out accident forms, did she say "Don't fill them out it's the worst thing you can do" or "Do fill them out etc etc"

The Servosteel guys certainly sparked a lively debate on the floor which may be worth monitoring by job shops to see if the material is beneficial, cost effective etc etc.

Finally away from the meeting one thing I would find of interest at the present moment and may be worth surveying in the future is machine reliability, breakdown time, cost of spares expenditure, service engineer response time. The same sort of thing we do on other surveys, I would be grateful for your thoughts on this.

Kind Regards

Tom