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RMG BLOG

The Mazak is here and a lot of other good Stuff

Is been a crazy few weeks since my last blog entry, however we have not been sitting idle. Finally our new Mazak Nexus 6800 Arrived on Monday and it is currently being installed. It took a good long day to get everything moved in, and our Mazak engineer is working diligently to level the machine, and hook everything up, our goal is to make a part in a week. It was unfortunate that John Sr was not at RMG this past week as he is away, however to be honest, he probably got tired of the 56 photo text messages that I sent him of the progress that day. The most stressful point in the day was them squeezing it through the bay door. With less than 4” on each side of the machine and less than 12” on the top, our Rigger made it fit without even having to get a running start.
I also had a really cool experience with Embassy Suites Hotel Chain. After coming back from the MDM West show, I got talking with Bob Hoffman who is a serious coffee lover. And we got talking about the lack of good coffee at not only the Anaheim property, but at their Chicago property where we stay for IMTS every two years. We love their hotels, and their two room suites, but their coffee just stinks. It tastes like cardboard, and it can take lessons from even the worst truck-stop brand.
I decided to call the customer service line and see what happens. After being on hold for 7:46 seconds, I met a representative.. She took my information including the “complaint” and told me the property manager would get back to me in three days. The classic brush-off I figured.
Nope. I got an e-mail from the manager thanking me for my input and that they would bring it up at the next property review meeting. The next day ( day #3) I got an e-mail from the customer service line representative making sure that my issue was addressed, and informing me that there was now a credit in my Holton Honors account. Figuring that this would be a good opportunity to Bring up Chicago’s bad coffee, I did and I Have had the same positive responses. Kudos to Hilton and their customer service for caring. I will find out if they did anything ...

A little about RMG

We recently had a customer come to our company and notice our little construction project in the shop. It looked a lot nicer than it did a few weeks ago on my last blog entry as we have poured the concrete and it looks like wea re expecting a really big machine. The customer asked us if we did everything ourselves to prepare for the machine, and proudly answering “yes”. He then asked why? The answer “ because its fun”
We have the concrete poured with a small addition, four handprints. The Handprints, three generations of Memmelaar’s, are now embedded in the concrete at Royal Master. This is really kind of cool for a lot of reasons. Running Royal Master has always been the same family lineage since 1950. Growing up, it was a part of daily conversation, what projects there was, tradeshows that were upcoming, My father going on the road and visiting customers, was normal conversation for our dinner table. My mother held it all together in those years as my father grew the business, making it what it is today.
As we wound down the Machining center that we are replacing, the K&T as it was known as, became a all consuming part of my household life, and my father’s also. In an attempt to stockpile enough parts to get us through two months of downtime, we would run 7 days per week for 5 months. As the pallet train was unreliable, Rich Fletcher and myself would set up a long running job usually about 2.5 hour run for the weekend, and off we would go. I would usually go back every 3 hours on the weekend to change parts, sometimes even on the way to “date night” with my wife to get out one last part.
During the day on Saturday and Sunday, my two daughters would take turns going back to the shop with me. The big machine fascinated them, and making it run was the part they loved the most. Both daughters would help change the parts, and my youngest loved to press the button sequence to make it run another cycle, my oldest loved the fact that the 2” insert end mill looked like a disco ball, and we had to wait for it sometimes to engage the part so she could say over and over, “cool”
The day we took the machine ...