Industry News

If you ever need a reason to be proud that you chose manufacturing as your career, just listen to Titan Gilroy, owner and CEO of Titans of CNC. “If you want to save this country, then you must fight for manufacturing,” Gilroy said in a keynote address on April 3 at Manufacturing & Technology, an IndustryWeek event. His topic: Key to the Training Transformation: Inspiration and Perspiration.

Industrial robotic applications have been growing exponentially across multiple industrial ecosystems, as value-addition to the existing operational paradigms become imperative. Rising eminence of collaborative robots (cobots) in the future is not surprising as automation continues to lie at the heart of industrial spaces for both regular and complex applications. Cost is also a key factor responsible for the rise of industrial robotics, owing to the fact that the average selling prices of robots have come down significantly over the past 20 to 30 years.

Greg Olson is the heavy machine shop supervisor at Washington Iron Works, Sherman, Texas. As a supervisor of a 12-person crew working on everything from crankshaft services to engine overhauls for oil and gas customers, he knows attention to detail is important. However, when Texas temps are pushing 90 degrees F in the shade and the sun is beating down on the metal shop, concentrating on details can be tough.

The fourth industrial revolution is upon us, and as you may know, this means change. As an industry, it is imperative that manufacturers adopt new technologies and increased connectivity that will enable more data-driven decisions. Thankfully, this also means increased efficiency, more parts produced, more accurate bidding, happier customers and increased revenue.

Carbide-tipped cutting tools, more popularly, carbide cutting tools, have been in use for a plethora of materials on engine lathes, CNC lathes, turret lathes, vertical turret lathes and chuckers. While excellent wear resistance of carbide tools manifests their enduring operational life, it also positions them superior to other counterparts when it comes to surviving longer production runs. Research has proven time and again that carbide tools are highly efficient in comparison with other solid cutting tools and high speed steel (HSS) tools.

The Innovation and Research Center (IFC) Tuttlingen of the Hochschule Furtwangen University of Applied Sciences (HFU) and FOBA Laser Marking + Engraving have officially launched their innovation cooperation for medical technology. At a ceremony on March 20 in the new rooms of the IFC on Katharinenstraße, a modern laser marking system was presented, which is now available to the university for its research as well as interested parties from the industry for demonstration purposes.

Process optimization is key to increase the productivity and quality of the machining processes and thus ensure the competitiveness of machining companies. Valid measurements of physical parameters are necessary for the ideal assessment of optimization and measures as well as the efficient use of production resources at their performance limits. MITIS, a leading manufacturer of systems for vibration-assisted drilling, relies on measuring systems from Kistler for cutting force measurement.

For the second time in its North American Headquarters, Zoller Inc. is hosting an Open House and Technology Days Event May 8-9.

A Ph.D. candidate from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, has been awarded a $15,000 prize for developing a 3D-printed steel tool capable of cutting titanium alloys as well as—if not better than—traditionally manufactured steel tools. The achievement marks a first and could pave the way for increased applications of 3D printing in tool production.

At many facilities, when there’s a problem on the factory floor, the high-value, highly salaried engineers spend their time collecting data from different machines and systems, exporting it to spreadsheets and wrangling with it to find a solution. This process of data collection and analysis can take from days to weeks—and sometimes longer. There are two ways to transform this process: the traditional way and the intelligent way.

North American sales of machine vision components and systems that provide vision intelligence to robots and other machines reached $2.874 billion in 2018, an increase of 9.2 percent over 2017 and a new record for the market. According to statistics from the AIA, the industry trade group and part of the Association for Advancing Automation (A3), application-specific machine vision (ASMV) systems led the growth with $1.998 billion in sales in 2018, an increase of 7.8 percent over 2017, followed by smart cameras with $466 million, an increase of 14.2 percent.

Join Haimer USA LLC at its North American headquarters for an exclusive first look at the latest Haimer technologies. The company will introduce new innovations surrounding industry 4.0 – with products that enable enhanced data communication and collection.

Wohlers Associates Inc. announced the publication of Wohlers Report 2019, the 24th annual installment of its industry-leading report on additive manufacturing (AM) and 3D printing. The worldwide study provides the “pulse” of the industry by reporting on growth, development and the future of AM materials, applications, systems, services, design, software, patents, startups, standards, investment and research.

Recently, even astrophysicists have started taking an interest in EMO Hannover. Garching, Germany-based Dr. Theo Steininger and Dr. Maksim Greiner, former PhD students at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, have developed artificial intelligence software that makes use of the latest statistical analysis methods developed for astrophysics. They have successfully deployed the software for door assembly by a German car manufacturer, but are now looking to conquer the metalworking market as well.

According to a new study, sales of high-speed steel (HSS) tools in 2019 are estimated at nearly 218,000 thousand units, projected to register a Y-o-Y growth at 4.8 percent over 2018. HSS tools sales have witnessed sheer proliferation, despite intense competition from solid-carbide tools, as these are best suited for shop production environments, wherein tool cost and versatility are of paramount importance.

Researchers at Linköping University have developed a theoretical model that enables simulations for showing what happens in hard cutting materials as they degrade. The model will enable manufacturing industry to save both time and money.

Building and maintaining a skilled workforce is one of the top challenges manufacturers face today, and the skills gap is only going to increase as older workers look to retire. Companies also might miss out on additional revenue streams because they can’t hire or retain employees fast enough to keep pace with increasing demands. The logical thing to do is to focus on operational improvements: Reduce waste, automate processes, and squeeze out even more efficiency. But this goes only so far. What many manufacturers are doing instead of hiring is repurposing existing employees to take on higher-value roles.

If you read the online forums, it is immediately clear that identifying the optimal technique for removing the inevitable burrs created during machining of threaded parts is the subject of much debate.

ANCA was struggling to recruit young engineers and trades people to join its team. With over 1,000 people around the world, a turnover of $250 million and being the dominant player in its sector, searching for skilled people was becoming a major business issue. In response, ANCA decided to train its own and in January 2011 established an apprenticeship program, which has been successfully training highly skilled technicians since.

Networked production, machine learning in the production process, intelligent workpieces: What do all these buzz words mean? And, more importantly: How suitable are they for everyday use and how is this topic related to precision and grinding technology? All of these and more fascinating questions will be discussed at the Grinding Symposium, May 8-10, 2019 in Thun, Switzerland.