Structured light systems measure surfaces by projecting a pattern of fringes, then using cameras and sophisticated software to convert them into point clouds of metrology data. Accuracy can reach the single-digit microns over millions of points.
Most anyone who’s worked in a machine shop for any length of time has at some point attended a trade show or machine tool distributor’s open house. There they see canned demonstrations of CNC machines busily carving up chunks of brass, mild steel, or aluminum into business card holders and tic-tac-toe games.
The growing skills gap is causing trepidation among manufacturers and the lack of millennials building careers within the industry is part of the concern.
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.
Rod Zimmerman of cutting tool manufacturer Iscar Metals lives in a pleasant green zone in a Fort Worth suburb. Yet within a half mile of his home, an oil company has sunk a vertical hole 7,500′ (2,286 m) deep, from which it has splayed nine lateral lines, each going about half a mile.
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Manufacturing should expand in the first half of 2020, including increased revenue for companies, the Institute for Supply Management said this week in a semi-annual forecast.
Modern machining is all about speeds and feeds. The old school slow, heavy cuts that were very popular back in the day have been replaced with a new way of machining parts characterized by fast, lighter cuts.
Machine tool orders fell slightly in September on a monthly basis, the Association for Manufacturing Technology said in a monthly report.