Industrial automation is changing the way cutting tool manufacturers operate. Machines can take on the heavy lifting at each stage of production letting workers get on with less repetitive tasks. And while automation may sound costly and complex to implement, it’s not reserved just for big business.
Schunk, a premium tooling and resharpening company in Germany, utilizes state-of-the-art grinding systems and an ANCA workflow RFID system to finish job packets in a chaotic fashion driven by production needs rather than by job order.
The larger the series of parts to be produced, the more important cycle times and tool costs are. Designing machinery and tooling through a collaborative design process reduces cycle times and tooling costs, while improving part quality.
The Integrex i-H series of multi-tasking machines from Mazak was designed to allow for additional automation technologies to be added onto the machine after purchase as a company's production needs grow and change.
Tooling manufacturers must machine tools to cut an evolving array of materials from exotic metals to composites and meet ever-more exacting tolerances and produce more complex shapes and radii.
With the cancellation of IMTS, web-based video reports will take center stage. Fortunately for our audience, Cutting Tool Engineering has been building just such a video library for over a decade.
With demand growing for physical barriers, manufacturers are rising to meet it. Here are speeds and feeds for the machining of polycarbonate sneeze guard bases.