Machines/Accessories/Controls

Yamazaki Mazak Corp. and Murata Machinery, Ltd. (Muratec) have collaborated in the development of the MAZATEC SMS, an advanced manufacturing system designed to provide efficiency by performing unmanned machining. It incorporates the internal factory material handling technology of Muratec with the advanced horizontal machining centers and multi-tasking machine tools of Mazak Corp.

The U.S. manufacturing industry is rushing to embrace technology as a critical part of its processes and plans to make new technological investments in 2017, but barriers to Industry 4.0 adoption still exist, according to Automation Alley’s 2017 Technology Industry Report. According to the report, 85% of national manufacturing executives said their company plans to increase budgets for technological advancements; nearly a third of them plan to increase their budgets by 10% to 15%.

According to newly released figures by industry analyst EDA, new machine tool equipment sales jumped from 1,288 units in November 2016 to 1,744 in December—its highest number of the year and just slightly under 2015’s highest monthly number of 1,825 units, also in December. Used machine tool equipment sales also jumped at the end of 2016, from 762 units in November to 1,241 in December. That’s still well below its 2015 peak month of 1,637 units sold in October of that year.

After being packed into 11 crates and travelling from Neuhausen, Germany to Baltimore by boat, and onto its final destination by truck back in December, a 20-foot-long, 135,000 lb. industrial machine from Zimmermann was moved into place over the course of several hours at the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology.