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.
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.
When you walk into the Redeye On Demand facility in Eden Prairie, MN, you enter into one version of the factory of the future. There you will see a bank of 100 high-end Fortus fused-deposition modeling (FDM) machines from Stratasys that provide the capacity to build real, functional parts with production-grade thermoplastics directly from CAD data.
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.
Tool presetting machines are a wise investment for machine shops that want to increase their machine utilization. Idle machine tools are often indicators of inefficient machining operations, and stopping a machine tool for any reason is synonymous to losing profits.
Manufacturing faces an even larger shortage of skilled workers as older employees retire over the next few years, the head of SME said in a speech today.
HP Inc. and Deloitte Consulting LLP have created an alliance to help accelerate the digital transformation of the global manufacturing industry.
In the years leading up to World War II, the US military had the opinion that it was technologically equal to any adversary in the world. On December 7, 1941, and for years afterward, US military discovered it was not.
You don’t have to look too far to find tooling presetters that fit the machining requirements of just about any size shop. The value of off-line tool presetting—rather than stopping machine spindles to touch off tools as machines sit idle—continues to prove itself invaluable, especially to the smallest first-time user shops.
PITTSBURGH — Stratasys Ltd. introduced a prototype of a 3D printing system that maintains low-volume output continuously as the company moves to expand its presence in industrial production.