General Shop Equipment & Supplies

As an independent grinding consultant to companies around the globe, Dr. Jeffrey Badger occasionally is asked if he sees differences in grinding from one country to another.

MTU America, Graniteville, S.C., which machines parts for large diesel engines, shares a glimpse into the shop's machining operations and lean manufacturing initiatives in this brief shop profile video report filmed by Cutting Tool Engineering Editor Alan Richter.

Mitutoyo America Corporation (MAC), Aurora, Ill., on March 10 named Matt Dye as president and Doug Adkins as executive vice president, according to a company news release. Dye's predecessor, 40-year company veteran Shigeyuki Sasaki, has moved to Germany to support Mitutoyo European operations in an advisory role.

To help its customers unlock the power of digital technology and the Smart Factory, Walter USA recently opened a new Technology Center at its worldwide headquarters in Tübingen, Germany. The 16,400 sq. ft. center combines the functions of an interactive experience center and a research facility, according to a Walter press release.

The redesigned DeHoff 2072TC is a gundrilling machine with 5-axis capability. The gundrilling spindle is mounted on a traveling column to provide the X-axis and Y-axis movement.

EMCO Maier Corp. says its Concept TURN 60 is a high-performance PC-controlled 2-axis CNC turning machine that fully meets industrial standards in terms of construction and is a powerful machine for industrial training. With the intensifying competition and ever increasing requirements for quality, productivity and flexibility, demands for well-qualified employees also continue to grow. This is where training plays its part: EMCO Industrial Training is a modular training concept to prepare employees for the specific production requirements and provide them with targeted training.

During the 2017 #GraingerShow, Grainger announced the addition of a cutting tool reconditioning service to its metalworking solutions and its strategic relationship with US Tool to provide that service. The new offering helps manufacturing customers reduce the waste of discarding worn endmills and drills bits by repairing the tools' cutting edges back to original specifications for a fraction of the cost of buying new tools.

Although toolholders are known to be critical components in the precision machining process, the unique details that differentiate a "standard" toolholder from one that is designed for more precise, high speed work can be subtle. Like the parts they are used to create, precision toolholders are machined to exacting tolerances to create the optimum fit within the spindle, concentricity and balance. The more precise the work, the more these factors come into play.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly employment report, 28,000 new manufacturing jobs were added in the U.S. in February—more than double the January number. Over the past 3 months, manufacturing has added 57,000 jobs. The rate of increase in February marked the fastest pace of manufacturing job creation since late 2014.

Economic pundits anticipate global machine tool consumption will increase 2.1 percent in 2017, reaching a market value of $73.6 billion, according to the German Machine Tool Builders' Association, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The group released the machine tool business data at a March 9 press conference in Chicago for the EMO trade show, which takes place Sept. 18 through Sept. 23 in Hanover, Germany.

Worldwide manufacturing business conditions showed the largest improvement for more than five-and-a-half years in February, with global trade expanding at the fastest rate for just under six years and optimism about the future continuing to improve. Manufacturing input prices meanwhile continued to rise markedly, albeit with the rate of increase easing slightly during the month. The JPMorgan Global Manufacturing PMI, compiled by Markit, rose from 52.7 in January to 52.9 in February; its highest since May 2011.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel and mHUB's board of directors announced the official grand opening of mHUB, a physical product innovation center and microfactory designed to galvanize the manufacturing ecosystem by generating innovative ideas, attracting world-class talent and fostering collaboration. Born through the combined efforts of Chicago's leaders in business, innovation and research, mHUB offers Chicago's burgeoning product manufacturers access to state-of-the-art facilities, along with resources to develop and bring new products to market.