5 Reasons to Reshore Manufacturing Operations
You may have noticed that reshoring has become a hot topic in the manufacturing industry in recent years, due in large part to the global pandemic disrupting global supply chains and leaving many manufacturing suppliers scrambling to fulfill their customers’ orders. Is now the right time for your company to join others in bringing supply […]
How to Avoid Tolerance Stacking Problems When Designing Mating Parts
If you’ve partnered with a precision machining company to make assemblies or subassemblies, you might already know that mating parts can present tolerance stacking challenges. For our purposes in this piece, let’s talk about tolerance stackups that occur with mating parts. Before manufacturing begins, the tolerances for each part must be calculated together and considered […]
Inside Reata’s Successful Summer Internship Program
The saying, “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” is often credited to Mahatma Gandhi. Whether Gandhi said those words verbatim or not, it’s a principle we can get behind at Reata Engineering. The manufacturing industry faces unprecedented challenges in training, hiring, and retaining skilled workers during a massive labor shortage. But […]
How Lights Out Manufacturing Benefits Precision Machining Customers
As a future-forward precision machine shop, Reata Engineering is always looking for ways to become more efficient so that we can serve our customers better. The Industry 4.0 tools we use in our shop allow us to measure our workload and give us greater visibility into areas for improvement. When analyzing our data, we realized […]
5 Ways Reata Is Mitigating Manufacturing Workforce Issues for Our Customers
Recently, a manufacturing intern asked our team, “Do you think our industry’s workforce problems are here to stay?” Our answer? No. Look, we know manufacturing is experiencing a massive labor shortage and that precision machine shops face unprecedented challenges in training, hiring, and retaining skilled workers. We also know the labor shortage is the #1 […]
6 Reasons to Tell Your Precision Machining Partner about Your Part’s Application
At Reata Engineering, we excel at overcoming manufacturing challenges and machining complex parts that not only meet all specifications but also function flawlessly. However, to do our job well, we first need a firm grasp of a part’s application. Understanding the intended function of a part before a precision machining project begins helps us identify […]
Could Your Complex Parts Benefit from GD&T Profile Callouts?
If you’ve ever needed precision machining services to make parts with complex surface curves or shapes, you might already be familiar with profiling. In geometric dimensions and tolerancing (GD&T), profiles describe a 3-dimensional tolerance zone—an area with a uniform boundary—around a part’s surface. All surface elements must lie within that boundary to be considered in […]
How Industry 4.0 Helps Us Meet Customer Needs
Have you noticed how time seems to have shifted since the internet connected us to each other? Today, we expect immediacy in all our interactions. We no longer have the patience to wait three days for mail, an hour for a fax, or even 10 minutes for an email. When we send a text, we […]
5 Ways Reata Overcomes Global Manufacturing Challenges
Global supply chain issues and labor and material shortages continue to impact the contract manufacturing industry at every turn. There are fewer workers to perform essential manufacturing operations and transport materials and parts. And the raw materials themselves are more and more difficult to procure due to increased demand and prohibitive prices. These challenges are […]
DFM Tip: 4 Facts to Know About Perpendicularity
Have you ever wondered what the difference is between the terms perpendicular and perpendicularity? “Perpendicular” is an elementary geometry term that conveys two lines, objects, or planes intersecting at a 90-degree angle. “Perpendicularity” is a geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T) term that has a very specific, and slightly different, meaning. GD&T terms are frequently used […]