Medical & Healthcare

GenSwiss, Westfield, Mass., recently partnered with Louis Belet SA to become the exclusive North American representative for Louis Belet precision carbide cutting tools and PCD-tipped milling tools, according to a Feb. 17 news release from Genevieve Swiss Industries Inc.

Tech-Etch, Plymouth, Mass., which specializes in the etching, forming, heat treating and finishing of components made from metals with superior spring characteristics, offers prototypes delivered in 5 days.

Specifications for particulate and film-residue cleanliness are a matter of course for many machined components. In addition to the parts cleaning procedure, manufacturers must consider the entire process chain when seeking to efficiently achieve and maintain the required level of cleanliness.

At roughly twice the price of a vertical machining center, do horizontal machining centers make sound financial sense? Absolutely, according to Scott Baldus, product specialist at Okuma America Corp. The Charlotte, N.C., machine builder offers both VMCs and HMCs, yet, Baldus noted, HMCs provide, on average, more than three times the spindle utilization of VMCs.

When drilling, perhaps no variable is as important as the workpiece material. It dictates drill geometry and substrate, tool coating, coolant application, and speeds and feeds. While known for its relative softness and ductility, misconceptions abound among those who regularly drill aluminum.

Cutting external threads is one of the more difficult machining operations. Achieving the proper thread form can be challenging, and tool chipping and premature tool wear are often problematic because of insufficient surface speeds and high cutting pressures.

Hwacheon Machinery America, Lincolnshire, Ill., recently appointed two new sales directors: Bob Pellegrini for the Eastern half of the United States, and Dan Pierce for the Western half, according to a Jan. 26 company news release. The two, who were promoted from regional sales manager positions held at the company since 2012, will be in charge of sales and dealer support.

Coherent Inc., Santa Clara, Calif., recently enhanced its series of large-area, high-speed PowerMax-Pro laser detectors to enable power measurement of laser beams of up to 375W continuously, 600W for shorter durations, and modulated peak powers as high as 15 kW in intermittent (long-pulse) operation, according to the company. The PowerMax-Pro detectors, introduced in 2014, are based on Coherent's proprietary thin-film sensor technology that combines the broad wavelength sensitivity, dynamic range and laser damage resistance of a thermopile with the response speed of a semiconductor photodiode.

Fischer Technology Inc., a Windsor, Conn.-based manufacturer of instrumentation for coating thickness, material testing, nanoindentation and material analysis, announced plans to open a new office in Livonia, Mich., to provide technical sales and service support for the Michigan area.

Though up two-tenths of 1 percentage point since December 2015, economic activity in the manufacturing sector contracted in January for the fourth consecutive month as measured by the Manufacturing ISM Report on Business, which is published monthly by the Institute for Supply Management, Tempe, Ariz.

Harry Moser, the founder and president of the Reshoring Initiative, an industry-led group out to prove offshoring is not always the best economical decision for companies, takes issue with the recently released 2015 A.T. Kearney U.S. Reshoring Index, which suggested that the reshoring trend was an aberration. A.T. Kearney, a global management consulting firm headquartered in Chicago, reported in December that its reshoring index dropped to -115 in 2015. A negative value is said to indicate net offshoring, according to the consulting firm.

A partnership between GF Machining Solutions, Lincolnshire, Ill., and a Colorado community college that brought 5-axis training to the school's machine technologies program recently earned recognition from the Obama administration for its efforts to confront an estimated 2 million manufacturing jobs expected to go unfilled over the next decade, according to a GF Machining Solutions news release issed Jan. 21.