General Machining & Manufacturing Processes

With digitalization and rapid changes in technology, training is more important than ever to keep employees' skills up to date with the newest industrial technologies.

Kosmo Machine Inc., a full service precision machine shop, will invest $1 million in new equipment to increase production capacity at its manufacturing operation in Henrico County, Virginia. The expansion is expected to create 36 new jobs. The ISO 9001:2015-certified company specializes in CNC milling and turning, EDM, and custom welding processes. The expansion is expected to create 36 new jobs.

The malware entered the North Carolina transmission plant's computer network via email last August, just as the criminals wanted, spreading like a virus and threatening to lock up the production line until the company paid a ransom.

In the Lima, Ohio, area, local educators and businesses are trying to bridge the gap between education and the business world. For example, the Ottawa Area Chamber of Commerce and an Ottawa-Glandorf High School business teacher created an experimental program last year called Emerging Business Leaders. The intention was to connect junior and senior high school students who had taken at least 3 years of elective business classes with CEOs or owners of local businesses. Also, Apollo Career Center, a trade school in Lima with a licensed practical nurse training facility in Ottawa, works with local businesses to learn what jobs need to be filled and then trains people to fill those jobs.

Schunk GmbH & Co. KG, Lauffen/Neckar, Germany, appointed Bo Shomaker vice president of sales, tooling and workholding.

The Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence Composite Inspection System comprises HP-C-V3D Apodius Vision Sensor hardware – designed to fit to a ROMER Absolute Arm with Integrated Scanner – together with a custom-built Apodius Explorer 3D software package.

JVL presents a new innovative closed-loop stepper motor technology for its NEMA 23 & 34 integrated stepper motor range from 0.1 to 12 Nm. JVL says its closed-loop integrated stepper motors, QuickStep, provide higher torque, faster acceleration, torque control, stall free operation and quieter movements than traditional step motor systems.

Lucifer Furnaces Inc. received an order for an electric ceramic fiber-lined box furnace from a leading U.S. stamping manufacturer of automotive products. Model LI7-M18, with a chamber size of 12" W x 18" L x 18" H, quickly heats to a uniform 2,200° F.

The manufacturing industry has created nearly 500,000 new jobs in the last 6 years, but some places have experienced better job growth than others. Headlight Data has just released its annual rankings of the fastest-growing US counties in manufacturing. Recently released data show that manufacturing job creation in 2016 across counties in the US varied from a high of 3,600 in Jefferson County, KY to a loss of 19,000 jobs in Harris County, TX.

BENZ has announced that it has introduced a new digital application named i.com, an Industry 4.0-ready application for monitoring the condition of its products. The BENZ i.com Smart-Factory smartphone and tablet application scans, saves and processes tool data and uses it to provide important information about the product's current condition.

Controx-Neuhauser solid-carbide blades are available in widths from 0.005" and width tolerances of 0.0002", are suitable for precision cutting applications like dicing semiconductors, such as surface mounted-devices (SMD) resistor chips. They feature tight diameter tolerance within one set of blades, which allows them to cut through the chips and into but not through foil of the wafer.

The new WM 250 – 8000 whirling machine from Burgsmüller GmbH gives users substantially enhanced precision during hard whirling of ballscrew spindles over the entire machining length with a maximum ±7µm pitch diameter tolerance. A third prism-jaw self-centring steady rest with user-selectable position fixes and centers the free end of the bar stock, while the spindle axis is kept free so that the bars can be pushed through it.