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Engineered Mechanical Systems

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Engineered Mechanical Systems

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Engineered Mechanical Systems started in 1990 in response to the need by other manufacturers to have

Engineered Mechanical Systems started in 1990 in response to the need by other manufacturers to have quality built equipment in a timely manner. As the customer base increased, Engineered Mechanical Systems Inc. diversified into different areas of fabrication and manufacturing to better serve our clients and not become limited to one industry. As we continued to grow, a sales force was added to target areas not yet reached by our company. In May of 2000, we moved our operations to 118 Parmenas Lane. We started with a mere 25,000 square foot facility and since then have expanded to 120,000 square feet with our latest addition in the fall of 2017. This has allowed us to provide a more strategic location for our customers and our employees as well as allowing us to expand our capabilities and add more machines to our shop.

10/28/2026

Stainless gets specified for food and process equipment because it cleans well. It does, but the metal only gets you part of the way.

What makes equipment cleanable is its shape.

A smooth, non-porous surface gives residue nothing to hold onto. A crevice or a badly placed joint gives it somewhere to sit.

None of that is decided by the material callout. It's decided by the corners, the seams, and how easily the thing can be cleaned and maintained.

Design the shape for cleaning first. Then choose the grade that suits the application.

10/27/2026

A 3/8" fillet isn't 50% more weld than a 1/4" one. It's 2.25 times the metal.

The number beside a fillet symbol is the leg length. A flat-faced, equal-leg fillet is a triangle whose area is half the leg squared. So the metal grows with the square of the size.

Take those two sizes as an example. Say a joint designed for a 1/4" fillet gets drawn as 3/8", because that's what the last print had. The 3/8" leg lays down 2.25 times the metal per inch.

The floor takes that number literally. That means more passes, more wire, more arc time, and more heat going into the part.

TWI puts the consequence plainly: "weld shrinkage is proportional to the amount of weld metal." So the distortion climbs too.

The extra metal doesn't buy the strength it seems to. TWI notes that design strength is based on throat thickness. A fatter, convex bead doesn't raise the allowable design strength.

What size the joint needs is your call, so the check here is smaller. Was each size on the drawing chosen for this joint, or carried over from the last one?

https://engineeredmechanicalsystems.com/welding/weld-symbols/

10/26/2026

Most shops you vet can show you an on-time record.

The more useful question is about a deadline they missed. What went wrong, and what did they change afterwards?

Nobody hits every date. A shop that can walk you through a miss is showing you how it behaves under pressure.

There's a second tell, and it costs nothing. Watch how they communicate before there's a contract. How fast do your questions come back? Do they pick up on your specs and details?

That's usually the best communication you'll get from them. If it's poor now, it's not likely to improve once the work starts.

https://engineeredmechanicalsystems.com/laser-cutting/look-laser-cutting-welding-manufacturer/

10/25/2026

Press brake marks on polished stainless usually show up as two faint lines. There's one either side of the bend.

The tooling touches the sheet in only three places: the punch tip and the two die shoulders.

The shoulders do most of the marking. As the punch drives down, the sheet is pulled into the V. It slides over both shoulders under full bending force.

That's why the marks come in pairs, on the outside face.

10/24/2026

Whoever welds your part, one question is worth asking first. Are the welds inspected against your callouts, and by whom?

A weld symbol is an instruction, and it's worth knowing who checks that it was followed. EMS lists a licensed AWS QC1 Certified Welding Inspector. QC1 is the AWS specification for certifying welding inspectors.

If there's a weldment drawing on your desk, bring it along with the symbols you're unsure of.

https://engineeredmechanicalsystems.com/get-a-quote

10/23/2026

A tight thickness tolerance feels like it should keep a plate flat.

For most features on a drawing, that instinct is right. Under ASME Y14.5, GD&T Rule #1 says the limits of size control form. Hold the size tight and the form usually comes along with it.

Stock is the exception, and the rule's own list of exceptions names it.

Plate, sheet, and bar made to an industry standard carry that standard's limits for flatness. So a face left as-furnished is held to whatever the material was bought to. For rolled carbon plate, that's ASTM A6.

The thickness tolerance printed beside that face doesn't govern its flatness.

Often that's fine, because plenty of faces never touch anything that cares.

The trouble is the face that has to bolt to something. The material standard was never written with your mating part in mind.

That face needs its own flatness box. The rest can usually stay as-furnished. Saying so on the drawing saves a guess on the floor and keeps the routing short.

https://engineeredmechanicalsystems.com/inspections/flatness-callouts/

10/22/2026

"Do you laser cut?" is a yes-or-no question. For a copper or aluminum part, it's the wrong one.

Steel is the easy case because it isn't reflective. A number of different lasers cut it without much trouble.

Reflective non-ferrous metals like copper and aluminum are the hard case. Many of them can't be cut on a standard CO2 laser and need a fiber laser.

So if your part is in a shiny metal, ask something narrower. Which laser would you run this material on?

A shop can truthfully say yes to laser cutting and still not have the laser your part needs.

https://engineeredmechanicalsystems.com/laser-cutting/best-metals-for-laser-cutting-projects/

10/21/2026

Which side of the reference line is your fillet symbol on?

Under the AWS A2.4 convention, a symbol below the line means weld the arrow side. Above the line means the other side, and on both sides means both.

It's the mark most often read backwards, because the arrow looks exactly like a leader line. It isn't one.

The fitter reads it before anything is tacked. A symbol on the wrong side of the line welds the wrong face.

https://engineeredmechanicalsystems.com/welding/weld-symbols/

10/20/2026

Send a finished part out to be coated and it joins somebody else's queue. At somebody else's priority. It comes back with a date attached that has nothing to do with yours.

Then it travels again. A coated part isn't one you can handle casually any more, so that last leg is where the damage tends to happen.

Painting, powder coating and plating happen in house here. The part gets cut, formed, machined, welded and finished without leaving the building.

What ships is ready to install.

https://engineeredmechanicalsystems.com/get-a-quote

10/19/2026

Two inspection problems look nothing alike. They turn out to have the same answer underneath.

One. The part is too big to move, or it's bolted into a line that can't stop. So the measuring device goes to the part instead.

Two. The part is thin enough that a hand gauge would push it out of the very tolerance you're trying to check. So the measurement has to be light-contact or no-contact.

Different problems, same rule. The measurement can't be allowed to change the thing it's measuring.

Once you're looking for that, a lot of inspection decisions get easier.

https://engineeredmechanicalsystems.com/inspections/scenarios-where-an-inspection-is-helpful/

Address

118 Parmenas Lane
Chattanooga, TN
37405

Opening Hours

Monday	7:30am - 4pm
Tuesday	7:30am - 4pm
Wednesday	7:30am - 4pm
Thursday	7:30am - 4pm
Friday	7:30am - 4pm

Website

http://www.engineeredmechanicalsystems.com/

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