Additive Manufacturing

Cutting Tool Engineering's Machinist's Corner columnist shares his experience with various continuous-improvement processes, such as 5S, kaizen events and gemba walks, and a recent rapid-improvement event. The target was the company's daily operations management.

A Look Ahead piece in the September 2016 issue of Cutting Tool Engineering magazine looks at a topography-based, design-optimization tool kit aimed at simplifying design for manufacturing.

The trade show of trade shows—IMTS—is coming to Chicago's McCormick Place.

This issue of CTE includes our IMTS 2016 Show Preview, featuring show highlights, information about the various pavilions, a guide to Chicago attractions and an extensive array of announcements about what exhibitors plan to showcase. The latter includes machine tools, software, workholders, automation equipment and cutting tools.

If you're considering implementing a real-time machine monitoring system and looking for solid reasons to make the investment, you're in for a pleasant surprise. Real-time machine monitoring and overall equipment effectiveness software can help address many issues, whether they're obvious or not. There are a number of warning signs indicating that it might be time to investigate acquiring OEE software.

A team of engineers from several California colleges has developed and tested a type of steel with a record-breaking ability to withstand impacts without permanent deformation. The new alloy, named SAM2X5-630, could be used in applications from drills to body armor to meteor-resistant casings for satellites. The material is an amorphous steel alloy, a subclass of steel alloys made of arrangements of atoms that deviate from steel's classical crystal-like structure, where iron atoms occupy specific locations.

The results from a recent SME survey of parents about their views relating to careers in manufacturing showed there is not enough accurate information about the opportunities a manufacturing career offers.

It's fitting that "Technology" is part of Indiana Technology and Manufacturing Cos.'s name. In addition to providing a full slate of machining and assembly services, ITAMCO created what it says is the first industrial Bluetooth transmitter (called iBlue) and continues to develop a broad range of manufacturing apps for mobile devices and Google Glass. What's more, ITAMCO has produced a virtual manufacturing showroom and developed a manufacturing forklift simulator that allows users to interact with factory equipment using the MTConnect protocol, Autodesk Factory Suite, Unity 3D game development platform, Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset and Leap motion controller.

Lasers are good for far more than slicing sheet metal and defending against alien space invaders. Without them, many of today's high-tech products would be impossible to manufacture. Microfluidic devices, integrated circuits, medical stents and catheters, automotive fuel injector nozzles are all drilled, milled, surface-textured and ablated via laser micromachining.

Arevo Labs hopes its new RAMP leads to better 3D-printed componets for the defense and aerospace industries. Arevo touts RAMP (Robot-based Additive Manufacturing Platform) as the first system of its kind optimized for 3D printing of composite thermoplastic parts. The system includes a 6-axis robot arm and end-effector hardware for deposition. RAMP can accommodate build envelopes from 1,000 cu. mm to 8 cu. m, depending on the size of the robot used. The end effector consists of a deposition head with special thermal management technology for processing carbon-fiber-reinforced thermoplastics.

To bring all kinds of useful information right to a machine and facilitate a company's implementation of Industry 4.0 processing tools, INDEX Corp. has begun supplying its machine tools with a new operating system. Called Xpanel, the OS integrates a machine into a corporate network, allowing machine operators to receive information from other parts of an enterprise. Operators can access drawings, setup sheets, user manuals, quality requirements, and circuit and hydraulic diagrams on a machine's control panel.