Industry News

Last week's blog post on the successors of Rosie the Riveter inspired a reader to share her own experience as an early woman in manufacturing. Lois Anderson was tasked with walking into plants in Southwestern Michigan to convince dubious managers and workers to use new methods to improve their production quality and efficiency. In the end, she helped them excel.

User error is a more common cause of unplanned downtime in the manufacturing sector than almost any other sector, according to a new Vanson Bourne global study, sponsored by ServiceMax from GE Digital. Unplanned downtime triggered by user error is 23% compared to as low as 9% in other sectors. (And did that robot just snicker?)

Economic activity in the manufacturing sector expanded in October, and the overall economy grew for the 101st consecutive month, say the nation's supply executives in the latest Manufacturing ISM Report On Business. The October PMI registered 58.7 percent, a decrease of 2.1 percentage points from the September reading of 60.8 percent. This indicates growth in manufacturing for the 14th consecutive month and continues expansion consistent with pre-hurricane levels.

Stephen Winn, owner of Winn Manufacturing Inc., blogs about how his search for information on bending formulas came up short when he relied on the popular Internet search engine. "It was about that time that I saw my 20th Edition of the Machinery's Handbook sitting in the corner of my desk," he writes. "Within about 10 minutes I had the bending formulas that I vaguely remembered and the standard method of measurement for the pitch diameter of the V-Groove of a "B" size pulley groove." Read his entire post on the satisfaction of kickin' it old-school at the link below.

My October 20 post on adding capabilities to your current CNC brought a response from a reader who who shares a problem. "We have a few Kitamura MyCenter 4XiF VMCs with FANUC 16iMB controls running daily on our shop floor," he writes, "The control hasn't given us a single problem since they powered on for the first time. However, we haven't been able to get the machines onto our network and we have given up trying."

Walter Dunkmann, head of the vacuum automation business area for J. Schmalz GmbH, Glatten, Germany, answers queries about digitization.

Sandvik Coromant hosted a "Digitalization on Machining" panel of leading digital manufacturing industry experts on Nov. 1, 2017, at the Center for Manufacturing Innovation in Greenville, S.C. Participants included William Sobel of VIMANA and representatives from GE Power, Cisco, Sandvik, Okuma, Microsoft, Mastercam, Rockwell Automation, MakeTime, Praemo and the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing.

Walter teamed up with machine builder Starrag AG, Rorschacherberg, Switzerland, to take a step into the future. The venue was the fifth annual "Turbine Technology Days." Held at Starrag headquarters in Rorschacherberg, the event attracted over 200 visitors from 19 countries. It focused specifically on ways to make turbine production even more productive and reliable, and beyond that on developments in machining and control technology that are changing both turbine production and manufacturing in general.

Similar to the parts manufacturers and equipment suppliers we reach, Cutting Tool Engineering strives for continuous improvement. This endeavor includes the feature article, columns and departments, as well as our website, with our most recent efforts focused on the news section.

Briggs & Stratton Corp. announced this week that it will move production of its V-Twin Vanguard engines from a joint venture partnership in Japan to its existing manufacturing facilities in Statesboro, Georgia and Auburn, Alabama. The increased production in North America will create approximately 50 new jobs at each of the facilities.

Motion Industries Inc., Birmingham, Ala., a wholly owned subsidiary of Genuine Parts Co., agreed to acquire Apache Inc., Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder toured FANUC America Corp.'s North American headquarters and technical center in Auburn Hills, Mich., accompanied by Dr. Kiyonori Inaba, executive vice president and general manager of FANUC Corp.'s robot division, and Michael J. Cicco, president and CEO of FANUC America.