General Shop Equipment & Supplies

You can't say yes to every request but volunteering your time can be good for business.

Columnist Michael Deren compares company benefits. How does yours stack up?

Gleason has released a new edition of Practical Gear Engineering, a technical publication designed to benefit both gear engineering experts and engineers new to the field with comprehensive solutions for many of today's most common gear design and manufacturing issues.

MxD and AT&T announced they are working together to help accelerate the deployment of 5G to the U.S. manufacturing industry. AT&T is collaborating with MxD (Manufacturing times Digital) to install 5G technology and Multi-access Edge Compute (MEC) within MxD's Chicago-based innovation center dedicated to advancing manufacturing innovation.

For years, collet-type toolholder assembly and setup have relied on cumbersome, error-prone manual methods that waste time and money. From a wall filled with adjustment charts, operators reference torque values based on specific collet series holders and tool diameters. Then they must locate the appropriate torque wrench, unlock it, set its torque level and re-lock it before tightening a toolholder's collet retention nut. This complex procedure leaves many shops scrambling to regain precious lost production time – and often leads to inaccurate torque settings that can damage toolholders and, in some instances, impact workpiece precision negatively.

Volume Graphics has announced the latest generation of its software solutions for nondestructive quality assurance with industrial computed tomography (CT): Version 3.3 of VGSTUDIO MAX, VGSTUDIO, VGMETROLOGY and VGinLINE.

Two statistics seem unrelated but, taken together, say something significant about New York City's future as an engine of opportunity, innovation and equity. The first is that manufacturing lost more jobs than initially estimated and now accounts for only 69,000 jobs in the city, or 1.5% of the total. The second is that information jobs grew by 6% to about 200,000.

Sandvik Coromant is strengthening its capabilities in digital manufacturing by signing a strategic research agreement with PARC, a Xerox company, world-renowned innovation center. PARC will provide Sandvik Coromant with a footprint in Silicon Valley and expert resources for R&D in the field of digital manufacturing.

ARCH, a Jordan Company platform company that is focused on manufacturing precision cutting tools, precision machined components and medical implants and instruments, has acquired Siem Tool Co., Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Siem Tool is a manufacturer of customized solid-carbide drills, endmills, reamers, thread mills and form tools. Siem Tool will join ARCH's Cutting Tools division.

Although Microlution Inc. has been based in multiple locations since the builder of micromachining centers was founded in 2005, the company held its first grand opening event June 28 as part of GF Solutions Days USA 2019. The first location for Chicago-based Microlution, which has operated as a subsidiary of GF Machining Solutions since 2016, was in Andy Phillip's apartment in Champaign, Phillip said. He is one of the company's founders and now head of laser micromachining.

An extensive background of experience with operations on transfer machines allows Suhner to optimize a manufacturing process with standard or custom solutions for each machining application. One specific application is for large and long OD threads. These operations are extremely difficult and challenging for manufacturers, when trying to obtain shorter cycle times, simply because an OD threading operation by itself will dictate the overall machine cycle time.

The DeHoff 1536T is a gundrilling machine used to manufacture high-performance military helicopters. Several of the helicopter's drivetrain components are gundrilled to produce hollow centers, which reduces mass while maintaining high rotational rigidity.