Cutting Tool Manufacturer Fills Machinist Skills Gap in its Community January 4, 2018 Rapid growth has spurred a cutting tool manufacturer to reach out to its community to grow the pool of young people available to join its workforce. You don’t have to look farther than the lobby of Midwest Industrial Grinding Inc. (MITGI) to find evidence of its commitment to workforce development for its own benefit as well as that of its Hutchinson, MN, manufacturing community.
Medical Parts Maker Ups Efficiency, Capacity of EDM Machining January 4, 2018 With each new contract and change order to increase part volume and improve delivery, Johnson Matthey Medical Components expanded capacity and capabilities in the same way—by purchasing more equipment. The San Diego, CA-based company would invest in another EDM to meet growing demand for orthopedic, endoscopic, cardiology and neurological medical devices, which is at an all-time high. The tactic was effective, but costly.
Removing mental roadblocks to improving operations January 30, 2018 It’s a familiar scenario at the factory. Quality issues have reared their ugly heads, requiring rework, causing backorders, delaying shipments, and driving tense daily customer calls. Meanwhile, the team works to address production issues using a mix of day-old post-mortem reports, shop-floor observations captured on notepads, and other operational data summarized on spreadsheets and sticky notes.
Agile hardware development can quicken product lifecycle January 16, 2018 In today’s booming software landscape, you see highly dynamic teams quickly iterating to develop and improve their products. Yet while the world’s software creators have learned to “move fast and break things,” hardware developers are still (slowly) moving to adopt a more agile product development methodology.
General Carbide Acquires Automotive Tooling Supplier, Only Tool January 23, 2018 General Carbide Corp. (Greensburg, PA) has purchased automotive tooling supplier Only Tool (Ypsilanti, MI). Only Tool has developed its expertise in cold-form tool manufacturing under the leadership of co-owners Ray Fender and Mick Ruffolo, who, under terms of the agreement, will continue to operate the business.
Machine Tool Orders Post Mixed Results in November January 15, 2018 Machine tool orders posted mixed results in November, slipping a bit on a monthly basis while recording a solid gain compared with a year earlier, according to a monthly report by the Association for Manufacturing Technology (McLean, VA).
SPECIAL REPORT: Sensors’ Meteoric Rise February 20, 2018 The devices quickly become less costly, sophisticated and independent, gaining wider influence.
What defense firms can do to ensure industrial security December 19, 2017 Defense systems are, by design, built to defend against threats. Today, however, manufacturers of these systems are focusing on an entirely new kind of threat: security breaches targeting their automation systems.
US Cutting Tool 2017 YTD Consumption up 8.0 % in October December 13, 2017 October US cutting tool consumption totaled $198.00 million according to the U.S. Cutting Tool Institute (USCTI) and AMT – The Association For Manufacturing Technology. This total, as reported by companies participating in the Cutting Tool Market Report (CTMR) collaboration, was up 13.2 percent from September’s $174.92 million and up 17.2% when compared with the $169.00 million reported for October 2016. With a year-to-date total of $1.835 billion, 2017 is up 8.0% when compared with 2016.
Berkeley lab hopes to birth teachable robotic systems February 27, 2018 A team of researchers from UC Berkeley, led by Pieter Abbeel, is working on the creation of smart robots that are teachable and can learn new skills without pre-programming. Abbeel and his team also formed a startup called Embodied Intelligence with the aim of developing artificial intelligence (AI) software to enable robots to learn from humans to perform complex tasks.
