Industry News

When seeking straightness, as well as parallelism, perpendicular end cuts and other important geometric dimensioning and tolerancing features, the goals at Metal Cutting Corp. are cost-effectiveness and high-quality, tight-tolerance parts. To that end, the company finds that using qualitative test methods for straightness and other features consistently helps keep production costs under control while delivering the results that customers need.

Myriad ways to boost productivity, enhance shop-floor flexibility and preserve data security are all on the market today for machine shops of many sizes. With the machine tool industry in flux currently, as it seeks to find its way into the digital world, the entire process chain necessitates the integration of suppliers who can respond to the needs of the industry. The situation has very little “history” and so large end-customers and machine shops of all sizes are seeking assistance from their suppliers, while the machine tool builders are likewise seeking to partner with hardware, software, communications and controls suppliers to bring the most needed machine types to market.

Adopting a modern fluid reclamation system can provide quick ROI while improving profits, equipment lifespan and employee safety.

With the August 1985 issue, Cutting Tool Engineering launched a decade-long series of articles titled, "History of Tools." The first installment, which you can download and read by clicking here, began as the ultimate Throwback Thursday endeavor: urging readers with their eyes on the future to recall the machine tool industry's humble beginnings. So, yeah, The Stone Age.

Economic activity in the manufacturing sector expanded in January, and the overall economy grew for the 105th consecutive month, say the nation's supply executives in the latest Manufacturing ISM Report On Business. The January Purchasing Managers' Index registered 59.1 percent, a decrease of 0.2 percentage point from the seasonally adjusted December reading of 59.3 percent. This indicates growth in manufacturing at strong levels for the 17th consecutive month, led by continued expansion in new orders and production activity, with employment growing at a slower rate and supplier deliveries continuing to struggle.

The Eriez Metalworking Demo Truck, a 32-ft. Peterbilt diesel rig with a 24-ft. equipment showroom belonging to Eriez Manufacturing Co., Erie, Pa., is once again traveling across North America to deliver hands-on training and education to customers and distributors. The 2018 tour has started with West Coast stops.

Without a fully optimized manufacturing process, individual machines and entire manufacturing operations fall short of their full productivity and cost-effectiveness potentials. To avoid this fate, shops should take advantage of engineering and process optimization support services typically offered by those well-equipped and truly capable manufacturing equipment suppliers. Such services can encompass just a few lines of code for a cutting program or a comprehensive, turnkey solution for the development and maintenance of an entire production line.

While spectators filled the Berry Bowl for Logansport (Ind.) High School’s Friday night basketball game, job seekers and employers gathered in the gymnasium next door. Nearly 20 manufacturing companies, schools and other workforce organizations partnered for the high school’s first advanced manufacturing night to promote skilled trades positions available in the area. Gov. Eric Holcomb attended the event. His “Next Level Agenda” emphasizes Indiana’s need to strengthen its workforce with high-wage, high-demand jobs.

Plenty of companies need specific machining done. For some, the best bet is to buy machines and work in-house. But that actually can cause turnaround to slow down. When you have to maintain machines that are expensive, large and difficult to manage, production can hit a snag out of the blue. When production stalls, consumers and clients can grow impatient. That’s why you may want to take a different path. Companies that don’t want to deal with the hassles that come with machining in-house can benefit by sending jobs to a CNC machine shop.

A bachelor's or graduate degree is not the only route to a financially rewarding career. There are good-paying technical jobs in fields like health care and other skilled trades that require some postsecondary training, experience or education but not a college degree. Policy leaders, including the National Academy of Sciences, have made it a priority to better understand how to prepare more adults for work in these fields. Data from Gallup Inc. and Strada Education Network's Education Consumer Pulse shed light on who advises students in vocational programs about fields of study and how helpful that advice is to students.

"Politics weighs more heavily on foreign companies in China than it has in nearly three decades," writes Joe McDonald, an Associated Press business writer. "The latest flashpoint was Beijing's fury last week at hotel keeper Marriott and other companies that labeled self-ruled Taiwan a country on websites or customer materials. But companies face pressure on many sides from President Xi Jinping's more nationalistic stance and twin campaigns to tighten the ruling Communist Party's political control and have it play a direct role in business."

Why shop locally for CNC machined parts? Cam Machine says they are better, from delivery/pickup speed and part quality to the support of local businesses and the ability to have firsthand knowledge of work.

Implementing a safety management system is no small task. Because safety is highly cross-functional, you will need buy-in and support from the full business, as well as dedicated time and resources to develop a plan.

The Rhode Island Manufacturers Association has chosen Henry D. Sharpe Jr. to receive the inaugural Samuel Slater Lifetime Achievement Award, writes Kate Bramson in The Providence Journal. He was a longtime president of Brown & Sharpe and the third generation of the Sharpe family to run the machine tool powerhouse.

Grayson College has unveiled its $1.4 million Advanced Manufacturing Lab for the school’s Career and Technology Center, writes Rhea Bermel in the Herald Democrat. The lab will provide space for large industrial machinery, classrooms and storage and will be used largely to educate students participating in the Advanced Manufacturing Program.

Baker Industries Inc. has installed a 5-axis Mecof PowerMill to begin large-scale machining operations. The 11-month construction and build project garnered a financial investment of $3.4 million and has positioned Baker Industries to take on some of the largest machining programs in the industry.

Like most businesses, manufacturing is subject to cycles of stagnation and acceleration. Historically, improved manufacturing has led to the growth of the service sector, which in turn has led to a diminished manufacturing base. Manufacturers will no longer be able to produce a “one size fits all” product and hope the buying public will respond. Consumer input will be required, and processes will have to be adaptable to quickly respond to changes in demand.

Brynäs IF are one of Sweden’s best ice hockey teams. We discover how combining the latest knife blade steel and the best boot innovations keep them ahead of the competition.

Since 2013, members of the MIT Media Lab community have set out from their research groups every summer to observe work in about 10 factories in China. Last summer, they went with a different approach—not just to visit but to collaborate on experimenting and cooperative design with two facilities in or near the city of Shenzhen. The hacking manufacturing summer course in August focused on the theme of soft robotic materials, and three instructors and seven lab students worked with a digital knitting factory called K-Tech and a flexible printed circuit board manufacturer called King.

If you want to produce high-precision profile inserts, your tapered diamond grinding wheels need to be dressed on a regular basis. Haas opts for the profile accuracy of the XING dressing technique inside the machine.