Medical

Implementing automated pallet systems in small and medium-size shops can reduce labor costs and increase profitability.

Shop Operations columnist Tom Lipton offers tips for operating a CNC mill.

Improve cross-hole deburring and training with real-time video. A super-resolution digital microscope.

The future of machining is bright, but perhaps with a different generation of employees and a leaner business model than before.

Anybody with half a brain can immediately see the usefulness of computer-controlled equipment. The ability of a machine to telescope the work processes so they run in parallel instead of series can turn a single machinist into a one-person army.

How moldmakers select the right cutting tools, toolholders and machine tools.

A unique manual milling method is available for generating geometrically true spherical surfaces. This technique can be used to machine convex and concave spherical surfaces. Other than the milling machine, the only tools needed are a boring head and a rotary table.

My recent past has, unfortunately, included the passing away of several acquaintances, one only 38 years old. I also read an obituary in the local paper about a machinist we formerly employed, a man only in his 50s.\r\nIn addition, an employee's wife was diagnosed with cancer, completely changing his priorities. Around this same time, my youngest brother had a medical scare, and my mother fell in her backyard and broke a shoulder, requiring a 4-week recovery and making it almost impossible for her to take care of her 90-year-old mother.\r\nThese events have brought a sobering degree of reality into my life. That is, the realization that time marches on for everyone and, eventually, something unexpected will impact our lives and our businesses.

The process of displacing metal instead of cutting it is called many things. But whether they call it form tapping, cold form tapping, thread forming, cold roll forming, roll forming, thread rolling, roll tapping or cold roll tapping, many metalworking professionals are unfamiliar with it, according to Peter Gennuso, applications engineering supervisor for OSG Tap & Die Inc., Glendale Heights, Ill.

The U.S. economy appears to be on the mend. In January, the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation gave a tentative thumbs up to sustained business expansion through the first half of 2013. And the Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing index rose again in January, painting an optimistic picture. Maybe it's time to buy that machining center you've been thinking about.\r\nBefore you whip out your checkbook, though, some homework is in order. There's a lot more to machining centers than spindle speeds and rapid traverse rates. Sure, you've had good results over the years buying machines based on that, but that might be the wrong criteria in this brave new manufacturing world. You're facing growing competition from overseas and down the street, so you owe it to yourself to take a look at what's changed in the years since you bought your tried and true 20"×40" vertical machining center.