Custom Carbon & Graphite Machining

22 May

Graphite Material Quality Series: Part 1

Note: This blog is the first in a series. Other installments will run, one a month, for the next several months. Semco has made its name in graphite manufacturing, an industry that requires great investment in tools, technology, and training. Our machining capabilities and ability to customize graphite components for clients makes us a go-to for companies that require industrial components made of carbon. This series of blogs will focus on a more behind-the-scenes, but no less important, aspect of our business: the selection and utilization of high-quality graphite material. At Semco, we take choosing the right graphite grade for...

15 May

Semco Carbon Appears in Thermal Processing Magazine!

In this article from the magazine Thermal Processing, graphite machining experts from Semco explore a couple of the most common challenges that manufacturers encounter when machining graphite components for heat treat industries. While Semco machines graphite components for many different applications, the company’s mainstay is manufacturing graphite components used in vacuum furnaces and sintering operations. With decades of experience doing this work, Semco engineers have identified two particular challenges that manufacturers of these components should be aware of in order to produce quality parts and avoid manufacturing mishaps. The first issue explored here is the challenge of measuring electrical resistance...

06 May

The Morning Huddle

At Semco, we are always looking for ways to improve our business by working better and more efficiently as a team. Remaining competitive in graphite industries demands such rigorous self-reflection. As a graphite company, our main goals are producing high-quality work and doing so as efficiently as possible. Assuring high-quality work in a manufacturing setting as large as Semco’s shop floor means frequent and purposeful communication among all employees. One practice that we have implemented to ensure a rapid and open flow of information around the company is what we call the “morning huddle.” Like other techniques we use to...

19 Apr

Graphite Industry Tariff Update

Recently, we posted a blog about the effects of President Trump’s tariff on the industry of graphite manufacturing. Recent events related to trade negotiations with China are again impacting the market for graphite material, particularly synthetic graphite, much of which comes from China. So, how does the tariff issue impact Semco and our clients? The short answer is that the delay in the imposition of the new tariff that would impact graphite has brought little relief to the uncertainty that has made the international market in graphite material unstable over the past year and more. Put simply, the back and...

12 Apr

Dispatch Lists and Work Flow

Every manufacturing facility, like our graphite production facility in Lorain, Ohio, must prioritize tasks so that both human and machine resources are employed to maximize production. At any one time, Semco has many open orders, and they cannot all be completed at once. Running a shop where graphite fabrication for multiple clients is going on at the same time requires a system of information flow. Semco has hit on such a system to manage the flow of information in our workplace. It’s called a dispatch list. We didn’t invent the dispatch list, but we tailored it to our business, and...