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To stay current with technology and peer into the future of manufacturing, take a look at our preview of IMTS—The International Manufacturing Technology Show, to be held at McCormick Place in Chicago from Sept. 10 through Sept. 15. In the following pages, ME provides in-depth examinations of each pavilion at IMTS, as well as previews of the products you will be able to see displayed at exhibitors’ booths.

In a perfect CNC world, the first part is always a good one. There’s no need for extra blanks or barstock. Setup times are only as long as is needed to swap out a few tools and load a new program. There’s never a crash, never the need to reprogram an inefficient bit of code. The operator just pushes the green button and out pops a finished workpiece minutes or hours later.

From cutting various thicknesses of sheet metal and metal plate or different widths of tubing to navigating intricate materials or process issues, some of the laser industry’s leading suppliers have weighed in with tips and insights into their novel solutions.

For the most part, EDMing is an unattended, or at least lightly-attended process. Unlike CNC lathes and machining centers, where a broken cutter during the night can make for a truly bad morning, sinking a mold cavity or cutting a trim die requires little in the way of babysitting—why wouldn’t you let the machine run on its own after everyone’s gone home for the day?

In our May webinar titled “Lasers in Manufacturing: State of the Art in 2018,” we noted the emergence of some novel technologies to produce the “holy grail” of laser welding: spatter-free joins with no porosity and, when required, highly aesthetic outcomes.

Although drivers may not know it, cable connections for the airbags and seatbelt buckle systems in their vehicle simply would not work without components manufactured by ODW-Elektrik. A development partner and supplier for high-quality cabling, solenoids and mechatronic systems used in vehicles around the world, ODW-Elektrik supplies most of its products to Bosch, Autoliv, Brose, VW, and ZF.

Step inside Pride Solutions LLC’s bustling shop floor in Hutchinson, MN, and you’ll see a shiny new CNC lathe turning out tube after tube of aluminum. While Pride’s machinists do more important things, a Universal Robot model UR10 collaborative robot (cobot) does the grunt work, loading and unloading the machine to keep up with high-volume orders.

When I graduated with an engineering degree some decades ago, I learned that the organizations I was going to work for had internal communication problems. This was especially true for those that designed and manufactured complex machinery such as engines, aircraft, or automobiles.

SME is publishing a series of Smart Manufacturing Industry Reports, with the third being released at IMTS this month. The reports, available at sme.org/reports, detail the advantages of smart manufacturing, the challenges to implementing digital solutions, and, finally, keys to implementing the technologies and tools.

Just getting familiar with the digital thread? You’ve come to the right place to learn what it is and why you need it for your products.