Industry News

A good friend and I have had a running argument lately about 3D printing. He says the fervor over additive manufacturing is, for the most part, hype, something he likes to call the boondoggle of the manufacturing century. He could be right.

There are many advantages to financing your equipment purchases instead of paying cash. Stearns Bank vice president of business development, Michelle Fuchs, has helped many businesses reap the benefits of commercial equipment financing. They’ve learned that financing, rather than cash, is the best approach for the long-term health of their business.

United Grinding Group AG held an event in its Kuřim, Czech Republic-based Walter Maschinenbau GmbH production facility to announce its new flow assembly line. Speakers included Walter CEO Jürgen Schock and flow assembly line project manager Markus Schulze, both of whom welcomed guests and introduced the new innovation prior to pressing a symbolic start button with the entire project team to launch the new line.

Manufacturers are continually looking to improve workflows. To assist them in reducing the time to assemble products and worker errors, Cemtrex, Inc. offers Workbench XR, an augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) software application developed for the manufacturing industry. The Farmingdale, N.Y., company plans to release a beta version this summer.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that manufacturers added 22,000 workers in March, extending the 32,000 gain in employment in February. It was the sixth consecutive month with robust hiring growth in the sector, averaging 27,167 per month over that time frame.

LMT Onsrud LP, Waukegan, Ill., hired Roger Piekarski as sales and applications specialist for North and South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota and Manitoba in Canada.

John and Miles O’Brien are two of a few South Bend, Ind., business founders whose product is still being manufactured in the United States. John and Miles, born in Ireland in 1868, were identical twins whose family immigrated to the U.S., settling in Connecticut in the 1870s. At the age of 35, they went into business for themselves in a one-room building at the corner of West Washington and Johnson streets in South Bend. They began manufacturing lathes, at the time the most vital machine for any industry using metal or steel parts.

Fredon Corp. of Mentor, Ohio, received the 2018 Technology Best Practices Award from the National Tooling and Machining Association. Fredon’s use of a machine utilization tracker is an example of how manufacturers are using the internet of things and cloud technologies to improve performance on the factory floor, a company news release stated.

EMAG LLC announces its plans to hold its annual Technology Days at the North American headquarters in Farmington Hills, Mich., June 6-7. On June 6, the event will run from noon til 9 p.m. On June 7, from 8 a.m. til 2:30 p.m. The event will include a variety of machine tools under power for live demonstrations, plus a series of technical and market presentations by industry experts from the company.

There’s a very old parable, thought to have originated in the Indian subcontinent, of six blind (or blind-folded) men asked to describe an elephant. They reach different conclusions depending upon which part of the elephant they touch: side – it’s like a wall; leg – it’s like a tree; trunk – it’s like a snake; tusk – it’s like a spear; ear – it’s like a fan; and tail – it’s like a rope.

The accurate diagnosis of a bearing failure is imperative to prevent repeated failures and their additional expenses. While performing failure analysis is commonly left to outside vendors, the actual collecting of information can make a great difference in correctly diagnosing a bearing failure.

U.S. manufacturers face an aging workforce, concerns regarding safety best practices, ongoing movement toward lean manufacturing and the rapid emergence of new technologies. At the same time, people are struggling to pay bills, find work that provides a living wage, and support themselves and their families.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of Haas Automation Inc.’s first vertical machining center, the VF-1.

The surface treatment global business unit of Ludwigshafen, Germany-based BASF SE’s coatings division, operating under the Chemetall brand, opened a laboratory at its 38,700-sq.-ft. manufacturing and office facility in Querétaro, Mexico.

Liftomatic Material Handling Inc., Buffalo Grove, Ill., a material-handling equipment manufacturer, announced the opening of Asian headquarters in the near future.

A sensei is a teacher or instructor, usually of Japanese martial arts. Sensai the company offers an augmented productivity platform for manufacturing operations, but transferring knowledge to help people make better decisions is at the heart of the company’s concept, according to CEO Porfirio Lima. “We believe that the most valuable asset an organization has is the knowledge that comes from its people.”

A rotary tooling development manager started March 19 and operates out of the office in Pittsburgh.

Tap Associates Inc. is now available on MachiningCloud Inc.

OSG USA Inc. now distributes Somta Tools (Pty) Ltd. tools in the United States.

Röhm Products of America, Suwanee, Ga., a provider of clamping and gripping technology for the metalworking industry, expanded its sales team with the addition of Steven Onik as national sales manager and Yusuf Ali as regional sales manager for Canada.