Medical & Healthcare

Value-added services shorten lead times and increase sales opportunities for parts manufacturers. The decision to bring traditionally outsourced services in-house can be an expensive and scary proposition—one with the potential to either transform a company or send it into bankruptcy. Yet that's exactly what many manufacturing companies do, and often they are pleased with the results.

Suhner introduces the Rotomax flexible-shaft machine, a unique unit with interchangeable hand pieces that allow a user the freedom to perform a variety of machining operations with a single machine. The Suhner Rotomax functions as an angle grinder, straight grinder, drum polisher, belt sander, tube polisher or die grinder, simply by changing the hand piece.

Dorner's new 2200 LPZ/Z-Frame conveyor comes with one or two pivot points and features an extremely low profile to fit under machinery or any other tight spots. The 2200 LPZ is Dorner's lowest profile Z-Frame conveyor and the first such offering in the newly redesigned 2200 series platform.

Tsudakoma has developed the new RDS series direct-drive rotary tables. This series utilizes Tsudakoma's proprietary direct-drive motor system, enabling the rotary table to achieve high speed and acceleration with no backlash.

Alicona is expanding its range of production-integrated measurement solutions. The producer of high-resolution optical 3D measurement systems is demonstrating how new automation software allows laboratory measurement systems to be automatically used as part of the production process.

The sales, engineering and executive staff at Doosan Machine Tools America hosted a festive open house recently, celebrating the company's recently expanded Technical Center in Pine Brook, N.J. The company welcomed valued customers and its North American distributor network.

I generally consider myself to be a positive person. However, these past few weeks have tested my resolve. It's not the roller-coaster daily life as a machine shop owner, but the stark reality of losing employees and friends to serious illness that's been especially hard to take. Thankfully, illness doesn't always mean death.

Say "EDM" and most manufacturing folks think mold, tool and die work. Yet sinker, wire and hole-popping EDMs are often employed in conjunction with, or as alternatives to, traditional part-making processes, such as milling and turning.

Lasers are good for far more than slicing sheet metal and defending against alien space invaders. Without them, many of today's high-tech products would be impossible to manufacture. Microfluidic devices, integrated circuits, medical stents and catheters, automotive fuel injector nozzles are all drilled, milled, surface-textured and ablated via laser micromachining.

Ever machined parts so small that they not only fit on a penny but can sit on old Abe's nose? Cutting parts and part features in this Tom Thumb world often comes with Titanic-sized challenges, such as unexpected cutting tool breakage, deburring parts the size of typical burrs and machine tool spindles speeds that come up short.

The HAINBUCH SPANNTOP high-precision workholding system offers users the option of converting the basic chuck for OD, ID and 3-jaw clamping operations with a change-over time of 2 minutes or less. Equally important, in each mode, the chuck delivers proven performance and high repeatability, according to the company.

GF Machining Solutions, , will purchase micromanufacturing machine builder Microlution Inc., Chicago, according to a comany news release issued May 11. Described as a specialist of micro-machining based on milling and laser technologies, Microlution was founded in 2005 and reportedly generated $10 million in 2015 with a workforce of 30 employees.