A Bit about CrossWind

This week, as I was searching around for inspiration for our blog, I was feeling extremely uninspired.   I really do try and find a subject that relates to CrossWind’s field (swiss screw machining,  manufacturing , medical device components, etc), but also to blog about things that are interesting to people that aren’t in those fields themselves.   Nothing was calling out to me this week and I was feeling very frustrated.     Then I happened to hear a conversation between 2 employees about needing skilled workers and how hard it is to find one that has experience working with the tight tolerances that we do and I started thinking about where other companies find their skilled workers.   Do they take years to find what they’re looking for like CrossWind has?   Do they try staffing firms?   Do they start looking overseas for talent?   This isn’t something that is just limited to our field.   This is a problem that almost all industries face at one point or another.   What is the solutio

In the medical device industry, before a product is realized, there are generally multiple prototypes made.  This can get very expensive.  With the technology of 3D printing becoming more and more available how do you know if that's what you want to use for your prototype?  Should you have it machined?  What about injection molding?  What’s the most cost effective?  What will get to you faster?  Today I will discuss the pros and cons of all 3 methods. First of all let’s look at 3D printing.  3D printing is explained as such: “ The creation of a   3D printed  object is achieved using additive processes. In an additive process an object is created by laying down successive layers of material until the entire object is created. Each of these layers can be seen as a thinly sliced horizontal cross-section of the eventual object. ”.  There are obvious pros to this.  Making only a couple of pieces is relatively cheap.  You don’t have tooling for machines, you don’t have to pay for th