Software & Digital Solutions

In support of its continued growth throughout the United States, Edgecam has hired a new regional sales manager to focus on the expansion of both sales and services in the state of Michigan. Based in Southfield, Mich., new Regional Sales Manager Mike Ambro brings more than 20 years of manufacturing industry experience to Edgecam.

CNC Software Inc., which provides software applications for CAD/CAM manufacturing markets, recently posted a video to its Mastercam Blog that stresses the importance of manufacturing. In the brief report, Scott Brotherton, a CNC Software applications engineer, "describes what everyone should know about manufacturing and why it is so important to everyday life," according to the company post.

CHALLENGE: Reduce setup and cycle times while meeting customers' demands for high-quality parts. SOLUTION: Two horizontal machining centers. END USER: Reinhold Industries Ltd., (780) 434-8552, www.rilflo.com. SOLUTION PROVIDER: Methods Machine Tools Inc., (877) MMT-4CNC, www.methodsmachine.com.

CAD/CAM software developers are no longer competing only with each other. They are also competing with their customers' expectations of what a satisfying user experience (UX) should be.

Are visitors to a bearing manufacturing facility in Hoechstadt, Germany, getting an early glimpse of what Industry 4.0 looks like? That's the hope of Schaeffler Group, which owns the facility. The plant houses a machine tool meant to show how digitalization works—not in a laboratory, but in an actual manufacturing environment.

MachiningCloud, a product content provider for cutting tools, CNC machines and workholding, today announced a partnership with IMCO Carbide Tool Inc., enabling the precision cutting tool maker's product data to be published online. MachiningCloud represents a new channel through which IMCO will provide its customers with digital product data they need to run today's data-hungry shop software, according to a joint news release issued by the two companies Jan. 6.

Fives Machining Systems is set to open a service center in Seattle today as the company expands to meet the needs of its customers nationwide, according to a news release issued by the Fives Group. The Seattle center will stock spare parts, repair unit assemblies and dispatch service engineers to customers in the Northwest.

With an amplitude of 16mm, the 3D stylus tip extends and retracts automatically as it follows the shape of various parts in this video from Gravotech Marking SAS. The 3D stylus is a very high amplitude stylus capable of following the relief of every part to be marked.

While many call hand scraping a lost art, Okuma begs to differ, the company report in a July 2013 video. "While it might be rare to find a craftsman skilled enough to hand scrape effectively, we never lost the art simply because we've always understood how critical hand scraping is to maintaining machining accuracy," according to the company's YouTube channel.

GTI Spindle Technology, Manchester, N.H., recently announced plans to open a new state-of-the-art spindle repair facility in Raleigh, N.C., this month. The new 5,000-square-foot facility will provide full-service spindle rebuild and repair services. The new facility also will provide on-site predictive maintenance services, including vibration analysis routes for customers who want to ensure maximum uptime and reliability for their shops.