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September 2014 Shop Meeting RUCO Products
Posted September 25, 2014

The Kansas City Chapter of the National Tooling & Machining Association (NTMA) held a Shop Meeting at Ruco Products in Blue Springs, Missouri. Ruco is a 46-year-old custom plastic injection molding company. It operates in a 27,000 sq. ft. facility that includes 15 injection molding machines ranging in size from 28 to 300 tons and shot sizes range from .3 to 30 ounces. A tool room is on site for mold repair/maintenance and a 3D printer has been added for prototyping in the last year.

The meeting was sponsored by the National Bank of Kansas City.

After tours and an Italian dinner, the first speaker at the event was National Chairman Ted Toth. He had toured several member shops that day and updated the group on all the events happening at the NTMA office and at the national level.

The next speaker was Omar Nashashibi, founding partner of Franklin Partnership, LLP. The group is a bipartisan government relations firm that works on behalf of NTMA members and the manufacturing industry with Congress, the Administration and relevant government agencies.

Nashashibi discussed many of the pressing issues facing manufacturing and the NTMA in the upcoming year and the current trends in the political races for the upcoming 2014 elections. His topics included taxes, regulations, R&D tax credits, section 179 deductions and many more.

Skills USA 2014
Posted on July 29, 2014

The Kansas City Chapter helped with the 25th and final SkillsUSA National Championship in Kansas City the week of July 23rd. NIMS (National Institute of Metalworking Standards) was the main sponsor of the CNC Milling, CNC Turning and Precision Machining Technology (PMT) events. The chapter helped with these events as they have for the last 25 years.

NTMA member companies volunteering or providing equipment/materials included Crossland Machinery, Haas Automation, R&D Leverage, MCC’s BTC and TCI Precision Metals.

Nearly 150 post-secondary and high school students participated in these contests at the MCC’s BTC.

At a Judges dinner the KC NTMA Chapter and Crossland Machinery were recognized for their 25 years of support and participation.

KC/STL Summer Lake Meeting
Posted on July 29, 2014

The St. Louis and Kansas City Chapters of the National Tooling & Machining Association (NTMA) held their annual joint summer conference at the Chateau on the Lake in Branson, Missouri, on July 25-26. Sponsors of the conference included Federated Insurance, CliftonLarsonAllen, Paulo Products, J&S Tool, Superior Die Set, United Community Bank and Sandvik Coromant.

Friday afternoon started off with a workshop on “The Great Game of Business” by Steve Baker.

A two-hour industry roundtable was then held. It was facilitated by a team from the Quality Coach consultants of Washington, Missouri. Topics covered helping employees obtain an “owners attitude”; training and development of employees; how to keep employees informed and how to encourage and incentivize employees.

Friday night featured a social mixer/dinner and a concert at the Mickey Gilley Theater. Activities during Saturday included golf, skeet shooting and a catamaran cruise on the lake.

The Saturday dinner featured a presentation by NTMA national Chairman Ted Toth. He spoke about this year’s theme (Retooling the Precision Manufacturing Industry), the different programs offered by the NTMA and the importance of training the next generation of employees and owners. The audience at the dinner was brought up to speed on NTMA developments and encouraged to attend national meetings. The featured speaker was Economist Chris Kuehl of Armada Corporate Intelligence on economic trends impacting manufacturing.

April 2014 Shop Meeting at United Metal Spinning
Posted on April 17, 2014

The Kansas City Chapter of the National Tooling & Machining Association (NTMA) held a Shop Meeting at United Metal Spinning in Kansas City, Missouri. The meeting was sponsored by Environmental Air Tech.

The evening started with tours of the 5th generation family firm. The 84-year-old company offers metal spinning. This unique process takes a flat piece of metal and makes a cyclindrical object without a seam. The pieces produced include: funnels, goblets, light fixtures, fuel cans, missile nose cones, and can be made out of all types of metal including: steel, aluminum, brass, bronze, copper, stainless steel, pewter, silver, and even gold.

United Metal Spinning can produce parts manually or with CNC equipment. This allows them to make prototypes or small runs as well as large runs.

The speaker for the event was Don Hamer, national sales manager for MicroAir Clean Air Systems. He discussed air quality issues and regulations in the industry and the various methods to deal with them.

In other chapter business, Ruco Products, Blue Springs, Missouri, was presented a new member plaque.