Industry News

The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported that hiring in December 2016 was at a four-month high, while the number of manufacturing hires tied that of November for its best monthly performance since 2010. Separately, the BLS said that manufacturing companies created 5,000 new jobs in January for a second straight month of growth. That’s good news for those who remember the dark days of the Great Recession—but for employers who have more work to be done than workers to do it, it’s a headache. One solution has been to reach that next generation early—while they’re finishing high shool.

Researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology are helping manufacturers eliminate flaws introduced during the machining of large, costly components. In the February 2017 issue of the Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, the Missouri S&T researchers describe their approach and explain how it can improve the accuracy of the 5-axis machine tools used to make large parts.

A $650,000 grant awarded last year to TCAT Elizabethton has enabled the school to begin a new program, machine tool technology. The first class will begin Jan. 4.

To spur significant innovation and growth in advanced manufacturing, as well as save over $100 billion annually, U.S. industry must rectify currently unmet needs for measurement science and "proof-of-concept" demonstrations of emerging technologies. This is the overall conclusion reached by economic studies funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) of four advanced manufacturing areas used to create everything from automobile composites to zero-noise headsets.

The Skills Gap dilemma in manufacturing shows little sign of abating amidst Baby-Boomer retirements. One possible solution: Bringing back the once-popular high-school shop class--but with a high-tech slant to interest and prepare a new generation for modern manufacturing. The Tampa Bay Times reports on a Florida high school that is doing just that.

"Global capital investment, a main engine of economic growth, remains stagnant amid concerns over a slowdown in emerging markets and the U.K.'s vote to leave the European Union, writes Mikio Sugeno in Nikkei Asian Review. "Masahiko Mori, president of major Japanese machine-tool manufacturer DMG Mori, painted a downbeat picture of global business investment in an interview with The Nikkei, saying that a full-scale recovery is still two to three years away." Mori explains his reasoning in this Q&A with Sugeno.

“The 30-foot-by-35-foot pit in a concrete floor is empty, shiny and immaculate as it awaits the arrival of a massive machine for use by Connecticut manufacturers to cut, shape and do a range of other tasks with composite materials,” writes Stephen Singer in the Hartford Courant. “At the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology in East Hartford, the large rectangular hole resembling a swimming pool and reaching a depth of 4 ft. in parts will be filled later this year by the 130,000-lb, high-speed industrial machine [that] will be used to shape, cut, grind and otherwise fashion aerospace and other industry components made of composites.”

Klarm specializes in creating precision machining parts, prototypes and components.

Multiple-axis machining offers many benefits to parts manufacturers that can correctly harness and implement the capabilities of this technology. Ultimately, it is an effective step towards factory automation, offering the opportunity to condense multiple machine operations into one, saving takt time, total production time, production cost and improving tolerances.

GTI Spindle Technology Inc., Manchester, N.H., recently opened a state-of-the-art facility in North Carolina that the company said is capable of repairing and rebuilding high-precision spindles, including those made by Makino, Mazak, Kessler, Gamfior, Enshu and OKK.

GF Machining Solutions, , will purchase micromanufacturing machine builder Microlution Inc., Chicago, according to a comany news release issued May 11. Described as a specialist of micro-machining based on milling and laser technologies, Microlution was founded in 2005 and reportedly generated $10 million in 2015 with a workforce of 30 employees.

IBAG, which offers a broad line of machine tool spindles, has launched a new website at www.ibagnorthamerica.com featuring content-rich product coverage about high-speed spindles.

The Berghoff Group, a German manufacturer, recently announced plans to open its first U.S. plant, which will be located in Auburn, Ala. The company reportedly will invest $30 million to open the manufacturing facility, which is expected to create 100 precision-machining jobs over the next 5 years, according to a news release from the Alabama Department of Commerce.

Once word got out that PTooling, a self-described small, family-owned machine shop in Amherstburg, Canada, had added a Lasertec 65 3D laser deposition welding and milling machine to its arsenal, major aerospace manufacturers began knocking on its door. 

Additive manufacturing (AM) will neither displace existing machining processes nor revolutionize industrial production operations—at least not for the next 5 to 7 years, according to Myron Graw, an AM authority who spoke at METAV 2016, the 19th International Exhibition for Metalworking (Metallverarbeitung) Technologies. Graw, who heads up AM operations at KEX Knowledge Exchange AG, in Aachen, Germany, wasn't just sharing his personal opinion. He was delivering the results of a five-stage AM study conducted by KEX, the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology and the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology, according to  a news release posted to the METAV 2016 website Feb. 23.

SmartCAMcnc, Springfield, Ore., recently announced the opening of a new instruction center for training CNC programmers to use the SmartCAM Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM) software family. The new facility is located at the company's corporate headquarters in Springfield.

Imagine a machining process that removes material five times faster than milling and 10 times faster than sinker EDMing, machines Inconel and hardened steel with ease, holds tolerances to ±0.0006" and utilizes the same tool to process thousands of parts with virtually no tool wear. Machine builder EMAG LLC USA, Farmington Hills, Mich., calls this process pulsed electrochemical machining (PECM). A subset of electrochemical machining, PECM is far more accurate than the decades-old ECM and has matured into a viable alternative to more-traditional machining processes over the past few years, according to the company. 

GF Machining Solutions, Meyrin, Switzerland, announced in January that Antonio Faccio replaced Bernhard Kasper as head of the European market region, according to a Feb. 1 company news release. Kasper, who held the position for more than 15 years, will retire this summer. Faccio, the former head of GF Machining Solutions Italy, holds a degree in mechanical engineering and has an excellent expertise in computer numerical control.

Precision Machined Products Association (PMPA) this month named Bernie Nagle as its new executive director. "I'm honored and very excited to assume the role of executive director for PMPA," said Nagle, who will provide purpose, focus and constructive guidance to the association in his new role. "I have been a passionate advocate for manufacturing throughout my career, and I am eager to help PMPA provide the information, resources, advocacy and networking opportunities to help the manufacturing companies in PMPA to become more productive and profitable."

A partnership between GF Machining Solutions, Lincolnshire, Ill., and a Colorado community college that brought 5-axis training to the school's machine technologies program recently earned recognition from the Obama administration for its efforts to confront an estimated 2 million manufacturing jobs expected to go unfilled over the next decade, according to a GF Machining Solutions news release issed Jan. 21.