The Clock Project

Lessons Learned

The most important aspect to consider during this project is time management. It is crucial that you leave enough time to rework pieces when the results do not go according to plan. Also, be prepared to rethink a process when the work deviates from the expected working process or results. The most important lesson from this project is to not allow failures or mistakes to discourage you. Many things did not go according to plan during this project, and many pieces had to be reworked. While these mishaps can be frustrating, it is important to not allow these events to affect your productivity. I suggest that in the event of a workpiece failure, you step away from the troublesome workpiece and working on something else until you are ready to rework the piece.  

Cost Estimate to Make One Clock 

The clock consists of 5 components, a brass pen holder, steel pencil holder, brass nut, clock face, and an aluminum base,  whose raw stock can be purchased from McMaster-Carr. The added total of each components raw stock is calculated below:

Other materials are needed to produce a clock by hand, including sand paper, dial calipers, coolant, cutting oil, and safety glasses. It is assumed that tooling and machinery are provided by the machine shop at which the clock is produced. The added cost of these items is calculated below:

The cost of the manual labor required to produce this clock must also be considered. A reasonable salary in Fort Collins for an inexperienced machinist is $20 per hour. The total cost for the time put into this project is calculated below:

The total cost of one clock would be $1962.20 after the cost of materials and labor. Most of that cost is due to the cost of labor.

Improving Clock Production and Efficiency

To improve the efficiency of clock production, I suggest that as much of the process as possible be automated. The brass and steel pieces could be cut with a CNC lathe. A worker would only be required to flip the pieces around in the lathe chuck and ensure that the machine is running correctly. If the lathe does not have a tailstock that can be automated, then custom work holdings can be manufactured to allow the drilling and tapping operations to be performed on a CNC mill. Multiple acrylic clock faces can be cut using a CNC waterjet at a time. The aluminum clock base can be machined entirely on a CNC mill. A worker would only be required to turn the aluminum piece over so that the bottom could also be machined. The brass nut could be CNC machined, but the turret lathe is already a very efficient tool to use for this process since it is specialized to make the 3/8-16 UNC brass nut out of brass hex stock. The brass and steel pieces could be tumble polished in large batches if the clock production is commercialized, and the finishing of the aluminum base could be done with programmed robotic arms after being CNC machined. The rounded edges of the clock faces would still have to be done my hand using an edge breaker. 

Cost Estimate to Make 10,000 Clocks 

Because the process of machining 10,000 clocks does not require much manual labor, the cost of labor can be eliminated. However, the cost of running the machines must be accounted for. The quantity of parts needed accounts for the excess needed to allow for material lost through cutting the stock to size. The total cost of parts needed for 10,000 clocks is calculated below:

If it costs $5 per hour to run the machines needed for the clock production, and the machines can complete 1 clock in 1 hour, it would cost $50000 in machine labor to produce 10000 clocks, making the cost of each individual clock $54.71