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Florida's advanced manufacturing industries are diverse and include sectors producing intermediate and finished products ranging from plastics and micro-electronics to tortillas and motor vehicles.

Today’s job shops can distinguish themselves from competitors by adding deep hole drilling/gundrilling to their offerings. But complex, custom-built machines require more floor space and a bigger investment.

Five-axis machining, once a novel and somewhat forbidding technology, has become routine in many shops. Meanwhile, some organizations are still hesitant to use it, largely due to programming concerns.

In Donald, Ore., 24 miles south of Portland, GK Machine Company Inc., is manufacturing parts for heavy agricultural equipment such as harvesters, sprayers, tree diggers, and hose reels.

In competitiveness studies for economic development projects, a strong workforce is always one of the leading factors for a project win. A talented workforce is also necessary when a company is evaluating expansion opportunities.

Methods Machine Tools Inc. (Sudbury, MA), a leading supplier of precision machine tools, 3D printing technology and automation, recently introduced an automation cell designed to greatly boost 3D manufacturing throughput.

It is reported that, not too long ago, before the current precipitous decline in machine-tool shipments, the number of 30-taper machines that were being manufactured and sold in Japan had surpassed the numbers of 40-taper and 50-taper machining centers.

“Metrology and its relationship to manufacturing is rapidly evolving,” Ken Woodbine, president, Wilcox Associates, a brand of Hexagon Metrology (North Kingstown, RI), recently observed. “We are seeing larger quantities and faster speeds of measurement data collection. The next challenge is what to do with all that data.”

Today’s products require high finishes, burr-free edges, freedom from contamination, and often close tolerances. Electropolishing provides all of those conditions and more in a matter of seconds for many metal parts. It is a process that has been used for more than a hundred years. It is widely known and the science is widely discussed, but its ability to run job shop lots and high-precision high-volume parts in the same equipment makes it a bit unique.

The challenges to manufacturing as it evolves into the 21st century are now familiar, and impact how metrology must contribute. Manufacturers face uncertain production volumes with roller-coaster demand, shorter production runs and faster product development cycles. Automation, while alluring as a way to reduce cost, needs to adjust.