Letter from President, August 2024
July 31, 2024
To our valued NES customer and associates,
There are a lot of things that go into making a good wine.
You can have the right variety of grapes, but the climate, soil and topography also need to be correct for maximum development. Proper pruning, canopy management, pest control and harvesting time also play an important role, and we haven’t even gotten into winemaking techniques, attention to detail on sanitation and quality control, blending and perhaps most notably patience.
Developing a talented workforce is very similar, and if you don’t recognize that it’s easy to fall into the trap of saying, “I can’t find good people with the right skills,” or “the schools aren’t teaching the students the skills needed to work in manufacturing.”
I’ve heard and read these types of statements all around the country. Naturally, it might make sense to hear this coming from rural areas like our hometown of Olean, New York, but interestingly I hear them in large metropolitan areas as well. So, is this a real issue or is it just easy to place responsibility on others to develop your workforce, forgetting that we, as manufacturers, have the ultimate responsibility to train our workforce to perform the specific tasks we need done?
Yes, there are fundamental building blocks that someone needs to possess to enter the front door and line up at the “starting line.” But ultimately, as employers, we’re the ones who need to deliver them to the finish line. Customers ask me all the time if we struggle to build a workforce in a smaller community. The answer is no. But there is a process that involves many steps, including effort and, like winemaking, patience.
This month’s feature article takes a break from bearing talk and focuses on the role we play in the lives of the youth within our community; sharing with them what we do, why we do it and what the education path is that leads to our starting line and progression to the finish line that serves us all well.
Bearing radial clearance in the mounted condition is a very important characteristic for the design engineer to consider to ensure there is sufficient compliance within the bearing. This month’s technical brief describes a simple calculation method to estimate the loss of radial clearance when an interference fit is involved.
Summer is in full swing. Take time to enjoy it.
Let’s roll,
Chris Napoleon
President and Chief Engineer
Napoleon Engineering Services