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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?

For CMMs, the good times continue to roll. “One of the surprising things that has happened in just the last three to four years is the sheer volume of CMMs that we are shipping,” said Angus Taylor, president of Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence, North America (North Kingstown, RI). “The market seems to be really exploding.”

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.

The Fabricating & Lasers pavilion of IMTS shows how makers of machine tools have to keep improving their product lineup. For one thing, customer expectations continue to rise.

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.

Cheaper robots with more functions, along with more flexible work cells and installations that facilitate robotics, are accelerating the growth of automated manufacturing facilities in the non-automotive sector. Ideas on whether robotics and automation lead to lights-out manufacturing on the shop floor, though, are mixed.

It’s not too difficult to understand the importance of machining aluminum for aerospace applications. High volumes of aluminum are used, principally for structural components.

Drilling advancements have spurred the evolution of oil and gas operations from simplistic single-well pad fields to more complex multi-well pads. Today, many producers are using fracking and lateral drilling techniques to place 10 or more wells on one pad.

With larger turbine components, compared to automotive and aerospace, plus assembly challenges, new machining technologies are gaining popularity. The conventional milling and broaching techniques in turbine blade machining, with the high tooling costs and abrasive flow issues, are fast fading, as modern assembly methods continue to drive machining tolerances to new heights