Cost cutters

So when someone warns that there is antifreeze in your toothpaste, ask which antifreeze. Some are illegal adulterants added by criminal cost-cutters, and their products are quickly recalled. Others (like glycerin, propylene glycol, or salt) are generally recognized as safe and are reasonable household ingredients. 

Because plant engineering and maintenance labor cost are visible, these functions are frequent targets of cost cutters. Invisible to top management and buried in overhead or other categories are... 

Selection of hnear or radial (rotary cutter) samphng is made according to mechanical instahation factors often on a basis of flow quantity. Smaher flows can be sampled in a cost-effeciive manner by rotary cutter samplers (frequently termed vezin design samplers, see Fig. 19-4). 

The cost of an electric-drive rotaiy-cutter sample of the smallest size manufactured—suitable for gravity sampling of fine particulate solids or shiny flow—including timer and control unit was approximately 5,000 in 1996. 

O Farrell TJ, Choquette KA, Cutter HS, et al Cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analyses of behavioral marital therapy as an addition to outpatient alcoholism treatment. Subst Abuse 8 145-166, 1996... 

If laboratory personnel are expected to perform repairs and maintenance, the proper tools must be available. This is particularly true in an educational laboratory, where stockroom personnel have a multitude of repair and maintenance jobs to perform. Only the highest quality tools should be purchased, as they will cost less in the long run. A cheap screwdriver, for instance, will soon begin to wear and damage screws that are hard to replace. It may even slip and cause injury. An almost right wrench will damage nuts beyond use. A cheap wire cutter may leave a few strands of wire uncut, an annoying and possibly hazardous condition. 

No specific costs could be found for the cutter, Cu-201 an anchor-type agitator, Ag-301 an epoxy-lined tank, D-101 and the waste treatment system, WTS-801. Further, the F O B. costs of the sand filter, WTS-701, and the extruders, EXT-501, had to be calculated from the installed costs. 

One way to estimate prices of items when they cannot be found is to compare them with other items that might be similar or to items that might be expected to cost about the same. To be conservative for the cutter, it was assumed that a blender would cost at least as much and probably more. Its price was equated to that of a similar size blender ( 5,000). In place of an anchor-type agitator, the costs for a propeller-type agitator was used. Similarly, it was assumed that an epoxy-lined tank would cost the same as a rubber-lined tank. 

About 8% of HSS are produced today by powder metallurgy (P/M). This amount is steadily increasing, in particular in the field of cutting tools (gear cutter, endmills, taps, and broaches) [8.10]. More carbides can be added compared to conventional HSS and a finer particle size and more uniform distribution of the carbides can be achieved. However, the costs are still higher than for conventional tool steels, which retards a more general applicability [8.10]. 

Unfortunately, several difficulties prohibit us from using this model to predict the operation cost. First, the cutter path is not known at the process-selection time. Generating a cutter path for each possible process to be machined would be very time consuming. The second problem is the availability of coefficients for each combination of tool-material type and workpiece-mateiial type. There is little published data for tool life equations. Most of the tool life and machinability data are published in terms of recommended feed and speed. With these two major problems, this approach will probably not work for real-world problems. A quick and dirty way must be found to estimate the cost. 

From earlier comments, it becomes evident that metallurgical characteristics, dimensional tolerances, flatness, parallelism, surface finish, and so forth of the tooling are equally vital to high strip quality as the operator and machine. Often, strip processors fail to evaluate and understand how grades of steel (or carbide) for cutters and spacers, dimensional accuracy, care, and maintenance all affect the quality and cost of their slitting operations. 

Apart from ground stability and support, the most important economic factors in machine tunnelling in hard rock are cutter costs and penetration rate. The rate of wear is basically a function of the abrasive characteristics of the rock mass involved. Penetratton rate is a function of cutter geometry, thrust of the machine and the rock strength. 

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