Design & Engineering

Since 2006, sales of vinyl records have been increasing steadily. No one is happier than Pheenix Alpha. Working from its original 20th century blueprints for a vinyl record press, the company is starting to manufacture an updated version of the press with 21st century bells and whistles.

Depending on whom you ask, you'll receive wildly different unravelings of the acronym DFAM. To music aficionados, DFAM might mean "drummer from another mother," clever branding from Moog Music Inc. to describe its newest line of percussion synthesizers. I wish I'd thought of that phrase.

Are you guilty of believing the aluminum extrusion myth? Many design engineers looking for cost savings often overlook extruded aluminum manufacturing for stamped or machined parts, believing it to be an expensive and/or challenging process. This can be a costly mistake.

By 2020, 5G is expected to be the standard for mobile communications.

Combining software, sensors and robotics enables companies to provide both speed and volumetric accuracy in QC

While everyone hopes for the best, it's smart to plan for the worst. There are five areas of a manufacturing business that should be evaluated to stay prepared for whatever may come your way.

Whether a fixture is hydraulic, pneumatic or mechanical, or whether it's built internally or subcontracted to others, it's important to understand your true costs and to consider workholding early in the part-design process.

What about the less obvious threats to worker safety? How do you take those elements into account? To address this concern, the shop where CTE's Machinist's Corner columnist works uses a system of unsafe acts or conditions tickets (UACTs).

With the August 1985 issue, Cutting Tool Engineering launched a decade-long series of articles titled, "History of Tools." The first installment, which you can download and read by clicking here, began as the ultimate Throwback Thursday endeavor: urging readers with their eyes on the future to recall the machine tool industry's humble beginnings. So, yeah, The Stone Age.

Machine monitoring lets manufacturers gather, analyze and share data to improve future processes.n

A report from global cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab, Woburn, Mass., found that in the first half of 2017, manufacturing was the industry most susceptible to cyberthreats, with the industrial control system computers of manufacturers accounting for almost a third of all attacks.

The mood of MFG Day, the annual celebration of U.S. manufacturing that took place Oct. 6, doesn't cease after the plant tours and information sessions end and the participating students, parents and educators head home.