Author Archives Bossard

What to Look Forward to With Self-Tapping Screws

A self-tapping screw

Productivity is everything in your operations. So, it only makes sense that you choose fasteners that will support your efforts to save time while still focusing on quality. At Bossard, we have the solution in the form of self-tapping screws.

Save on the Process

When you’re working with wood, plastic, or metal, you typically must drill a pilot hole before using a screw. This means that you have to change the bit on your screwdriver at least twice if not three times because of gaging the size.

With a self-tapping screw, you save time. This is because they drive their own hole. All you need is a screwdriver and the self-tapping screws. You can create perfectly fitted threads just like that.

Ideal in So Many Scenarios

You will find that self-tapping screws are great for use in a variety of scenarios. Particularly when you are fastening two materials together, you can use these.

You can choose the type of screw tip that works best for the scenario, too, including:

  • Blunt 
  • Flat
  • Sharp 
  • Piercing

Once you identify the type of tip that you need, the rest is, as they say, history.

Of course, there are a few things to know when you’re dealing with self-tapping screws. If you ever need to disassemble the application, stripping the screws is possible. When you reassemble, you would need a slightly larger screw. To avoid stripping, use a metal insert from the very beginning. This may be necessary if you plan on disassembling and assembling at any point in the life of your application.

Shop for What You Need

At Bossard, we have a wide array of self-tapping screws that you need to boost productivity and get the job done. These screws come in a variety of shapes and sizes like all the traditional screws you use.

The only difference is, when you begin using these, you’ll see that the time to get the job done decreases, as do labor costs.

For more information on self-tapping screws, contact us at ProvenProductivity@bossard.com.

September 13, 2019
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6 Key Features of Bossard’s Interactive Supply Chain Platform

ARIMS

How materials flow through your supply chain is critical to the productivity and profits of your enterprise. The key to getting a handle on this process is having accurate information. ARIMS, our interactive supply chain platform, lets you manage your orders and inventory with an intuitive interface. With it, you can:

  • Merge all your suppliers into a more streamlined supplier base.
  • Integrate with your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system so the inventory recorded in your systems matches your physical stock.
  • Coordinate the flow of materials and information for your global inventory.
  • Improve predictability and efficiency by accessing your data at the point of use, such as through a smartphone.
  • Analyze big data about your supply chain in real time and make changes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
  • Bring Industry 4.0 into your factory by implementing machine-to-machine (M2M) communication.

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ARIMS rewards you with these benefits by providing the following functions for managing B- and C-parts:

  • ARIMS Analytics reveals your articles, locations, orders, and deliveries using reports and graphs. Users are also able to export this information. This function relies on big data to deliver real-time data, allowing you to look at how your production is doing at any time.
  • ARIMS Interactive lets you optimize your production by adjusting assembly lines. You can submit changes and view your current and past change requests. Customize your dashboard and system options to fit the way your enterprise operates.
  • ARIMS Mobile enables complete access through Android and iOS devices such as smartphones and tablets. Even if you’re on the production floor, you can locate articles and check orders in real time.

Do you want more information about how ARIMs can improve your supply chain? Please contact Bossard today at ProvenProductivity@bossard.com for a demonstration.

September 06, 2019
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How to Reduce Costs with Bossard Expert Assortment Analysis

Expert Assortment Analysis

It may be surprising to learn that only 15 percent of the total cost of a fastener comes from itself. The remaining 85 percent stems from other activities like procurement, logistics, and assembly prep. So, if you’re looking to reduce costs by examining your fasteners, you need to reduce the number of different ones that you use.

Helping you define what fasteners to rely on is the core of Expert Assortment Analysis. It assists you in determining head shapes, recess types, materials, property classes, platings, and dimensions. When utilizing this method, there are many advantages:

  • Cut unnecessary elements by looking for similarities and substituting when possible.
  • Reduce the complexities of purchasing, warehousing, and assembly by defining the fastener assortment from which you can pick.
  • Increase productivity, which improves profitability.

You can choose from three service packages:

  • Basic analyzes your entire production line to look at the assembly tech, such as fasteners, the assembly processes, and tooling. It then estimates cost savings based on Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) principles and presents proposals on what you can do.
  • Advanced includes Basic services but adds Technical Verification to verify that the proposed technical improvements will work with your processes. We also create a bill of fastener materials in drawings. These are all presented in a report to you that includes physical samples.
  • Superior builds on Basic and Advanced by developing an implementation plan. We create a project team and define priorities. We then support a Research and Development engineering team that implements the plan. Finally, we conduct training for your employees both at our facilities and at your location.

If you want to know more about how this service can improve your company’s bottom line, please contact Bossard today at ProvenProductivity@bossard.com. Expert Assortment Analysis is one of the many services we deliver, which can include Expert Education, Expert Teardown, and Expert Walk. We’re here to serve you.

August 30, 2019
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How to Meet Top Quality Standards with Bossard Expert Test Services

Expert Test Service

Meeting top quality standards, especially in fastening technology, requires thorough testing of your prototype or products. Bossard provides Expert Test Services at one of our 14 accredited testing laboratories around the world that meet ISO/IEC 17025 certification. The following tests are available.

Available Testing

  • Coating Thickness Measurement – measures thickness through X-rays to verify the required protective coating.
  • Corrosion Analysis – looks at the type of corrosion that may appear on your components and develops countermeasures to reduce it.
  • Failure Analysis – determines why a bolted joint fails, such as corrosion, change of friction conditions, or incorrect tightening torque.
  • Fastening Optimization – helps you choose the right fastener for your application and provides specifications if desired.
  • Friction Coefficient Testing / Torsion Testing – determines the friction coefficient, tightening torque, and clamp force of your bolted joint.
  • Hardness Tests / Hardness Profile Measurements – uses measure indentations to test surface hardness, core hardness, case hardness, hardness profile, and other mechanical properties.
  • Joint Design Calculation – discovers what loads and stresses a critical bolted joint undergoes. We can then recommend how to optimize the joint during design and assembly.
  • Loosening Analysis – determines if you are using the right clamping force for highly loaded bolted joints. It considers the temperature of use, vibration, and forces to transmit, among other factors.
  • Salt Spray Test – examines how a spray of a saline solution affects various coatings created to prevent corrosion. The test may last up to 1,000 hours.
  • Spectral Analysis – identifies a wide range of materials using, for example, such ranges of 31 different elements for iron and 21 different elements for nickel
  • Tensile and Compression Strength Testing – calculates yield point, elongation at fracture, tensile strength and other mechanical characteristics.
  • Torque Analysis – tested in our labs or at your location on original working pieces made from metal or plastic. It gauges the tightening torque of your application.
  • Ultra-Sonic Preload Measuring – evaluates how the length of a screw changes when tightened (pre-load). You can measure ultra-sonic preload with your application at your location.

For more information about our Expert Test Services, please contact us at ProvenProductivity@bossard.com.

August 23, 2019
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Learn How to Design Your Best Product with Bossard Expert Design

Design Your Best Product

The development of our Assembly Technology Expert services improves the use of fasteners in prototypes, new or existing products, and current assembly processes. But they are also useful for having you focus on fasteners when you’re still designing it through the Expert Design method.

What is Expert Design?

When you create a new product, beating the competition while maintaining high quality and safety standards and minimizing the time to market is no small feat. Integrating fastening functions can be demanding, even though the function of a fastener is often seen as trivial.

Based on 3D prototyping and CAD Big Data Analytics, our Expert Design method recommends ways to use materials and optimize assembly to increase the success of the final product.

The benefits include a better in-place cost because you choose the best fastening option, lower production cost due to faster assembly processes, and a lower life-cycle cost because the incorporation of the correct fastening solutions happens from the very beginning.

Technical Resources

To help you with this method, Expert Design offers you the following online resources.

  • Online Calculators and Converters for Fasteners. Includes converters for torque, pressure, length, and force for free. If you log in, you also get hardness converters, a pilot hole designer for tapping screws and ecosyn®-plast, and more online calculators for technical design. Many of these online aids are also available through an app that is available either on the iOS App Store or the Google Play Store.
  • CAD Online Portal. This online portal allows you to view and manipulate a variety of fasteners in 3D or 2D while giving you specific information about their sizes and uses. If you find a component particularly useful, you can generate a CAD model or create a PDF datasheet but only if you log in first.
  • Technical Information. Enjoy a variety of useful white papers, conversion tables, articles, diagrams, and reference values about all types of fasteners and joints. You can download PDF versions of what you find if you log in.

Discover what else our Expert Design services can offer you. Email us today at ProvenProductivity@bossard.com.

August 16, 2019
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Discover the Unexpected Potential of Your Products with Bossard Expert Teardown

Bossard Expert Teardown

With the capacity to analyze your current processes and improve the design of reliable products, Assembly Technology Expert (ATE) services seem ideal for prototyping or the creation of new products. But what if you want to improve a product that already exists or your current use of fasteners? That’s where Expert Teardown comes in.

What Is Expert Teardown?

As its name explains, Expert Teardown disassembles your pre-existing product to discover how it uses its current parts and fasteners. Our engineering specialists look at every inch of the detached components to understand how they function alone and as a part of the whole, and how they advance relevant operating requirements and standards. Our staff can then come up with ways to improve reliability and quality while saving you time and money.

Some of the benefits of Expert Teardown include optimized process flow, increased efficiency with reduced complexity, a safer design, and lower total costs.

Packages

Expert Teardown is available in three packages.

  • Basic. This package focuses on Analysis, which looks at fastener use and assembly into the final product. Improvement potentials and tentative cost savings may arise.
  • Advanced. By building on the findings of the Basic package, this option emphasizes the Verification of processes, estimated costs, and projected results. Bossard will confirm recommended solutions on- and off-site before presenting them in a technical report. Physical examples are also shown.
  • Superior. After the groundwork laid by the Basic (Analysis) and Advanced (Verification) packages, implementation can proceed. It starts with detailed design specifications and thorough documentation of new assembly procedures. Bossard completes assembly and usage instructions. After reviewing the results, training in the new implementation proceeds on- and off-site.

If you want to find out how Expert Teardown can affect your particular product, please contact us at ProvenProductivity@bossard.com.

August 09, 2019
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Learn More About Assembly Technology with Bossard Expert Education

Bossard Expert Education

Although fasteners may form a small part of your manufacturing process, their successful use has a big effect on how your product hangs together in your customer’s eyes. Learn all that you can about fastening technology through Expert Education, a major part of our Assembly Technology Expert services. We customize our training sessions to your application and business.

Options

The following are some of the training formats available:

  • Seminars. Our live seminars combine both lectures on theory and practical workshops to teach fastening topics. You can join scheduled public sessions or have us develop a customized seminar for your employees held at your location.
  • Webinars. This option maximizes convenience by giving you short learning sequences that you can view at your desk or home when you have free time.
  • E-Learning. We’ve developed an Internet-based platform that allows you to go through a wide range of fastening information by self-studying at your own pace.

Topics

While we can cover any fastener information during our sessions, the following are some of our most popular topics. They are available both as public seminars or personalized to your needs.

  • Basic Introduction to Fasteners. All about fastening elements and how to choose the best ones. Why do DIN, ISO, and A2 matter?
  • Technical Introduction to Fasteners. How bolted joints work and how they’re affected by assembly tooling. Discover the mechanical properties of fasteners, how to prevent corrosion, and how multinational fasteners affect costs.
  • Securely Fastened Joints. Designing and defining a bolted joint to optimize quality and lower the Total Cost of Ownership.
  • Corrosion. Reducing or avoiding corrosion on any joint with the correct materials, design, and coatings.
  • Cost Savings. How to save on costs by up to 40 percent by choosing the right fastener.

The following seminars cover the qualifications needs of those involved in fastening technology, according to VDI/VDE 2637 standards.

  • Technical Fastening Competence. Guidelines and standards for the use of fasteners and components.
  • Design of Bolted Joints. How to design joints and choose fasteners for the best tightening methods.
  • Calculation of Bolted Joints. Calculating bolted joints and selecting the correct fasteners for tightening.
  • Innovative Assembly. Evaluating and standardizing tooling used for tightening.

Find out more about our Expert Education options by contacting Bossard at ProvenProductivity@bossard.com.

August 02, 2019
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Optimize Your Assembly with Bossard Expert Walk

Optimize Your Assembly

Our Assembly Technology Expert (ATE) services aim to make your company more competitive by maximizing your use of fasteners and reducing the time to market of any products that depend on them. Derived from the well-known industry techniques Gemba-Walk, Walk-the-Line, and more, Expert Walk is one of the more extensive ATE methodologies.

Together with one or more of your engineers and front-line workers, a Bossard team member walks through your entire manufacturing process to discover what happens during production. As we inspect your assembly lines and workstations, we focus on fastening technologies and how to optimize their processes and tools.

Benefits

Optimizing how fasteners integrate into your process can lead to time and cost savings when it delivers better products and eliminates waste. Quality goes up when you use the right fasteners and look at more efficient ways to assemble your product. Your productivity goes up even as the cost of production goes down.

Packages

To give you the best results, you can choose from three Expert Walk packages that offer different combinations of Analysis, Verification, and Implementation.

  • Basic. This initial package focuses on Analysis. Bossard examines your entire production line is to verify assembly processes and technology, particularly when they involve fasteners. We estimate the potential cost savings of any improvements based on the Total Cost of Ownership, which combines the cost of quality, service, delivery, and price.
  • Advanced. Building on the Basic foundation, this package continues with Verification. It proves that technical improvements are possible while recommending proposals for new and proven solutions. We present a report about these proposals and provide physical examples.
  • Superior. Starting with Basic and Advanced services, this package proceeds with Implementation. It develops a plan with a project team that prioritizes goals. We lead the R&D team during implementation of the proposals, review the results, and lead training both on- and off-site.

Our Expert Walk can be the first step to developing the best solutions for your fastening challenges. Please contact Bossard today at ProvenProductivity@bossard.com to discover how this method can work for your company.

July 26, 2019
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Understand the Background of Assembly Technology Expert Now

Assembly Technology

When you develop a prototype, you consider every component and process. You want the final product to meet or exceed your well-considered specifications while getting to market as quickly as possible. Efficiency, process optimization, and continuous innovation help develop your competitive edge.

To assist in implementing these strategies with your fasteners, we’ve introduced our Assembly Technology Expert (ATE) services. The services can help reduce costs and cut production time. They focus on educating you on the science of fastening, boosting product design by improving joint assembly, and optimizing the fastening process.

Take Advantage

To advance these goals, you can take advantage of the following ATE services:

  • Expert Education. Become an expert in fastening technology by attending training sessions customized to your operations. Discover the engineering principles, applications, and assembly technologies needed to integrate fasteners into your production process.
  • Expert Design. Focusing on fasteners at the start of product design can change the game for your product success. Bossard’s expertise in fastening technology, assembly methods, and technical resources help in choosing the right fastening design, speed up assembly processes to reduce production cost, and lower the life cycle cost with the best fastener quality.
  • Expert Walk. You can reduce cost, optimize assembly, improve quality, and increase productivity by looking at your operations. By walking through your assembly lines, work areas, and fastening elements, you can hone your processes and production tools.
  • Expert Teardown. Build up the unexpected potential of your products by tearing down and looking at their joints and fasteners. We’ll disassemble your creation into its individual components and fasteners. Our technical specialists can then examine every inch, understand functionality, and recommend improvements to quality, reliability, and cost.
  • Expert Test Services. Bossard ensures that your prototype and products meet quality standards through testing in one of our 14 state-of-the-art accredited labs around the world. Our testing facilities have ISO/IEC 17025 certification.

Resources You Can Use

We invite you to gain more information about fasteners and ATE services by exploring our online Technical Information and Tools. Check out our white papers, tables, and articles on fastening technologies, and use our online calculators and converters. You can also contact us through our convenient website form or at ProvenProductivity@bossard.com.

July 19, 2019
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What is MultiMaterial-Welding Technology (MM-W)?

What is MultiMaterial-Welding Blog

The next innovative process offered by Bossard is MultiMaterial-WeldingTM (MM-WTM) – an innovative fastening technique which utilizes ultrasonic vibrations to install composite fasteners in modern composite honeycomb and sandwich materials. Bossard’s MM-W technology improves assembly time and reduces the number of components required for assembly, resulting in time and in-place cost savings.

MM-W

MM-W technology uses friction generated by ultrasonic energy to permanently install rod or collar-shaped thermoplastic fasteners into a variety of composite substrates. This assembly technique creates stronger bonds, requires no pre-treatment of surfaces and produces no waste. This makes MM-W an innovative solution to use in place of more traditional fastening elements in lightweight materials.

The MM-W assembly process can be manual or automatic, resulting in a total process time under two seconds. MultiMaterial-Weldingis an efficient and quick process. If reducing assembly time in composites is a goal of your organization, Multi-Material Welding is well worth your time to consider in your manufacturing process.

For more information, check out www.bossard.com or contact our engineering department at ProvenProductivity@bossard.com.

July 12, 2019
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