Industry News for 03/2019

There’s a common misconception that the manufacturing industry is almost universally male-dominated. In many people’s minds, the industry is old fashioned, hanging on to dated gender biases and excluding women from managerial roles that are key to climbing the industry ladder, such as production supervisors and operations managers. But the fact is, manufacturers are more forward-thinking than ever before, and women now make up nearly one-third of the manufacturing industry workforce in the United States.

The mobility concept for individual transportation will in the relatively near future be a combination of progressively downsized internal combustion engines and electric drives, say some, while others predict that electro-mobility will secure jobs or even create new ones. This, at least, is certain: traditional metalcutting machines are a long way from being ripe for the scrap heap – equipped with smart technologies, they will also play a prominent role at the EMO Hannover 2019.

Of all businesses, contract machining companies know what they want: Cincinnati-based firm Metalex Manufacturing Inc. already owns three Starrag machine tools, but after extensive benchmarking, the key customer has chosen to invest in a Droop+Rein T portal machining center from Starrag—its largest investment to date in every respect.

Industrial Innovations has expanded its machine shop and fabricating capability and is offering CNC machining of prototype, custom and replacement parts, as well as short production runs and 4-axis machining for a variety of applications and industries such as automotive, medical and furniture.

Manufacturers’ most valuable data is generated daily on shop floors, bringing with it the challenge of analyzing it to find prescriptive insights fast. This is an ideal problem for machine learning to solve.

In 2019, we expect a continued strong, robust manufacturing sector. Even if there is some slowdown, the challenge for many companies this year remains, “How do we generate more with less?” as they face labor and talent shortages and increasing prices for labor, energy and cost of materials.

The fact that polycrystalline diamonds (PCD) could “show profile” in October 1978 could be attributed to random chance, but could it have something to do with “luck”? But how did golf professional Tiger Woods answer when a journalist pointed out that he often had a lot of luck during his games? “The more I train, the more luck I have.”

The Manufacturing Institute announced they will award Danielle Allen with the Women in Manufacturing STEP (Science, Technology, Engineering and Production) Ahead Award. The STEP Ahead Awards honor women who have demonstrated excellence and leadership in their careers and represent all levels of the manufacturing industry, from the factory-floor to the C suite.