Additive Manufacturing

The Look Ahead column in the April 2017 issue of Cutting Tool Engineering magazine features a project to improve robot mobility as much as humanly possible.

Commit to a German-style, dual-training apprenticeship program so your shop can produce its own skilled workers, suggests the director of the German American Chamber of Commerce of the Midwest Inc.

When was the last time someone sat your team down and talked about safety? Where I work, we sit down once or twice a year for safety sessions, according to Michael Deren, who writes the Machinist's Corner column for Cutting Tool Engineering magazine.

OSHA officials have extended an olive branch to small businesses with its Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program (SHARP), a partnership with those businesses that take safety seriously and respect the health and well-being of their employees. The program is administered through OSHA Consultation.

One of the activities I enjoy most in connection with my job is visiting production facilities, because I get a chance to see how parts and products are made and have face-to-face interactions with talented metalworking professionals—not to mention that it gets me out of the office now and then.

Renishaw Inc. announced a new 133,000 sq. ft. office and warehouse facility in West Dundee, Ill., about 40 miles from Chicago. The two-story facility will be the company's new North American headquarters, but also includes space for product development, testing, warehousing and distribution.

Forward-looking, funny, Cornell University mathematics major Carl Bass resigned his Autodesk post as CEO on Feb. 7, but he remains on the company's board.

The Metalworking Product Review in the February 2017 issue of Cutting Tool Engineering features: Heller Machine Tools, FP 4000 5-axis HMC with twin drives in the Z-axis; Seco Tools LLC, 150.10-JETI parting-off system with HSS blades, Jetstream Tooling technology and tool blocks with coolant inlets; Wayne Products, the Mini-Skimmer R.S. belt-type oil skimmer; Fagor Automation USA, the CNC 8060 T.

It's been a long crusade for many manufacturers: the battle against an out-of-date public perception of manufacturing as dirty, repetitive work that's possibly unsafe and probably a dead-end career path. Two recent surveys show that there's still a lot of work to do in dispelling that myth, while a third survey is more upbeat.

Metal additive manufacturing has yet to fully break into mainstream manufacturing operations. While the market is growing significantly, it's still rare to find metal 3D-printing capabilities outside large corporations or advanced research institutions. It's particularly rare to find the capability married with advanced multiple-axis CNC machining capabilities.

Industry experts predict better, if not yet spectacular, times for manufacturers in the coming year.

Methods 3D, Inc., a newly formed subsidiary of Methods Machine Tools, Inc., continues to broaden its presence in 3D printing through the completion of seven additive manufacturing laboratories strategically located across the U.S. The labs are outfitted with printers capable of Direct Metal Printing (DMP), Select Laser Sintering (SLS), Stereolithography (SLA) and Multi-Jet, running 14 different materials.