Industry News

Walter has reached an agreement to acquire the Melin Tool Co., a privately owned, Cleveland-based company and manufacturer of solid-carbide and HSS end mills, drills and countersinks. Melin is a growing company, supported by innovations in the solid-carbide endmill product family making the acquisition a strategic fit to increase Walter’s milling business in North America.

Solar Atmospheres announces the addition of Tom Gundic to its Greenville, South Carolina, facility. Gundic has accepted the position of plant manager, bringing with him over 14 years of vacuum heat treating and brazing experience, with significant time spent leading teams in the highly demanding environment of Nadcap and AS9100 quality systems.

Worthington, Ohio-based Hyperion Materials & Technologies, a global leader in developing hard and superhard materials for a wide range of demanding applications, on Jan. 1 completed the acquisition of AFC Hartmetall, a premium cemented carbide tool blank manufacturer, marking the close of the complementary agreement announced in September.

North American Tool Corp., South Beloit, Illinois, has announced the appointment of Steve Mayse as director of manufacturing.

Manufacturers are looking to lower costs and increase speed without sacrificing quality. This means getting more done in less time with less manpower, less scrap and fewer mistakes. To do this, the manufacturing industry is investing more in automation.

The manufacturing industry got a huge boost from President Donald Trump's election, seeing a groundswell of job gains during his first year in office. But the trade war with China has undone that progress. Jobs in the sector have stalled out and turned negative in 2019.

U.S. companies aren’t likely to pack up manufacturing operations in China and move back home amid the trade war. That’s because supply chains are “very difficult to put together and equally difficult to disentangle,” said Stephen Roach, senior fellow at Yale University.

Smart manufacturing, or Industry 4.0, is transforming manufacturing back into an economic powerhouse. Industry 4.0 helps companies digitally transform manufacturing operations to provide new capabilities, reduce costs, empower teams, improve decision-making and create better ways of doing business. An integral part of smart manufacturing is the concept of the digital thread, which is key to capturing and managing the information associated with manufacturing operations.

Factory work used to be dirty, dangerous and bleak. Technology has changed that, creating a manufacturing sector that looks radically different.

New robots will be able to generate savings in manufacturing and plug short-term gaps while helping create future jobs.

Private equity firms are snapping up manufacturing companies at a quick pace, setting off a merger and acquisition gold rush while leaving multicloud manufacturing systems unprotected in a zero-trust world.

It’s hard to believe that the phrase “war for talent” was coined more than 20 years ago. Today, the fight to attract and retain talented employees rages on in virtually every industry — and manufacturing is no exception.

The Oregon Manufacturing Innovation Center Research and Development (OMICR&D) has welcomed Sumitomo Electric Carbide Inc. as its 30th member. Sumitomo, whose U.S. subsidiary is headquartered in near Chicago, also has other several other U.S. based cutting tool manufacturing facilities, and its main headquarters is in Hyogo, Japan.

Continental needed a high capacity system capable of rapid inspection cycles combined with fast surface scanning and accurate feature measurements, the aim being to gain more comprehensive insight into the company’s products. The range includes electronic and hydraulic brake and chassis control systems, wheel and engine speed sensors, airbag electronics and electronic air suspension systems.

ATV and InnovationQuarter’s investment in IMSystems will help further accelerate the development of their technology in robotics. IMSystems’ Archimedes Drive takes a leap forward in transmission systems. In contrast to conventional gears, which rely on cogs with fragile teeth to produce torque, IMSystems came up with a design that harnesses traction.

MachineMetrics, a leading data analytics platform for manufacturers, has announced the release of its much anticipated 2019 State of the Industry (SOTI) for CNC Machining. Driven exclusively by real manufacturing data collected from hundreds of companies and thousands of machines globally, MachineMetrics’ report is a first of its kind to deliver confirmation for many gut feelings about the industry as well as to uncover unexpected manufacturing behaviors and trends never made visible before.
“Our unique ability to easily connect to any machine has allowed the MachineMetrics platform to quickly gain tremendous traction and aggregate what we believe is the most powerful global dataset of machine performance in the world. We can now use this data to provide the highest level of insight back to our customers, partners, and the manufacturing community.” says Bill Bither, CEO of MachineMetrics, “We are excited to continue to break new ground for the industry as a whole.”

As part of an ongoing effort to make processes and products more environmentally friendly, BIG KAISER Precision Tooling Inc., Hoffman Estates, Illinois, is making modifications to production materials and packaging. Specifically, the company switched to unleaded steel and recyclable packaging.

Clippard, Cincinnati, produces fluid control products and other high-precision components, and prides itself on having been vertically integrated for decades, since its founding in 1941. The company operates two ISO-certified manufacturing locations in Ohio and does advanced machining of all types to produce its extensive catalog of standard and custom product for a myriad of markets worldwide. At the heart of its machining capabilities are 12-axis CNC Swiss machines, CNC milling centers and CNC wire EDMs, plus numerous post-finishing operations, including anodizing, EN plating and thermal deburring.

Tooling Tech Group (TTG), a Macomb, Michigan-based provider of engineered tools and automated assembly equipment to a wide range of industries, has hired Craig Fullenkamp as its Segen Quick-Change and standard products sales engineer.

To support rapid growth within its mechanical testing department, Hermitage, Pennsylvania-based Solar Atmospheres of Western Pennsylvania has invested in a new Haas ST-10 CNC lathe.