Industry News

Pittsburgh-based Kennametal Inc. says it's cutting 1,000 jobs over the next 15 months, citing weak demand for the coal-mining and gas-drilling cutting tools it makes.

Applications are now being accepted for a machine tool training program at the Tennessee College of Applied Technology Elizabethton this fall.

Holmes County, Fla., home to a cluster of metal machining and fabrication outfits that employ skilled machinists and welders, has seen the manufacturing industry provide a solid foundation for economic opportunity and demand for a skilled workforce.

Heller Machine Tools, Troy, Mich., is the first manufacturer to finance energy upgrades through a 2010 program authorized by the state of Michigan that allows municipalities to fund energy-efficiency improvements through a special assessment on a property. 

Titanium is the leading material for artificial knee and hip joints, but a discovery by Rice University physicists shows that the gold standard for artificial joints can be improved with the addition of some actual gold.

Penn State Behrend’s new Advanced Manufacturing and Innovation Center, a $16.5 million, 60,000-sq.-ft. building, will house Penn State Behrend’s mechanical engineering program, the college’s largest major, in terms of enrollment, and the industrial engineering program.

Scientific Cutting Tools (SCT), Simi Valley, Calif., has added the capability of coating its own cutting tools on premises in the form of a new coating machine from Platit which enables the coating of up to 500 tools in 4 hours.

Riten Industries offers a free 30-day, risk-free trial program to metal workers who are undecided about committing to this different type of workholding tool. Face driving can completely turn or grind a workpiece in a single cycle, without stopping to flip and rechuck the part, reducing cycle time and increasing productivity.

It is a matter of course for manufacturers of rail and train components to ensure that quality products and services continue to be delivered to the industry every day. Increasing reliability through new tools, materials and machining techniques, as well as supporting productive and cost effective maintenance of existing infrastructure, is crucial.

A new report produced by Research and Markets, a market research company based in Dublin, forecasts a compound annual growth rate of 7.6 percent for the global digital manufacturing market through the year 2020.

Jarvis Cutting Tools is constructing a 500W AC solar panel array in front of its property in Rochester, N.H. Jarvis President Costikyan Jarvis said the solar project will help the company cut production costs and capitalize on incentives for producing solar energy, according to a report on fosters.com.

IKONICS Corp., a Duluth-based imaging technology company, announced today that IKONICS Precision Abrasive Machining capabilities align with NASA test results to reduce aerodynamic drag on acoustic jet engine liners.

Economic activity in the manufacturing sector expanded in June for the fourth consecutive month, while the overall economy grew for the 85th consecutive month, say the nation’s supply executives in the latest Manufacturing ISM Report On Business.

Most manufacturers offer at least occasional in-house instruction as factory work has become more about brains than brawn. But Tooling U-SME, an organization focused on manufacturing education that's part of an industrial nonprofit in Dearborn, Mich., found in a recent survey that just 25 percent have a structured training program.

Michigan Manufacturing International (MMI) was founded in 1991 in Michigan by Jacob Prak. A number of moves were necessary as the operation outgrew each location, but the name remained the same. In November 2013, MMI built a 40,000 square foot building in Stevensville, Md., and currently occupies 12,000 square feet of that space.

Economists have been debating the performance of business investment during the current recovery. Much of the debate has centered around the relative importance of policy (such as regulation) and demand. Meanwhile, from a company’s perspective, it probably doesn’t make sense to invest when its existing plant and equipment are already underutilized.

Sound website design and integration attracts new business and simplifies operations for manufacturers, internet marketing professional Gary Sargent said.

The National Institute for Metalworking Skills (NIMS) released the first-ever industry Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) standards. Developed over the course of a yearlong intensive nationwide validation process with more than 125 subject matter experts from companies who use a variety of CAM software, the standards define the competencies and skills expected by industry for entry-level CAM positions. 

Manufacturing technology orders for April 2016 were down 27.5 percent from the same month a year ago, according to the latest U.S. Manufacturing Technology Orders report compiled by AMT – The Association For Manufacturing Technology. Year to date, orders are down 16.6 percent compared to the same point in 2015. 

Indiana job shop cuts insert costs in half and triples tool life with Beyond Evolution grooving and cut-off tools, according to a case study submitted by Kennametal Inc.