For the fourth consecutive year, Manufacturing Engineering recognizes 30 individuals under the age of 30 who are making a difference in manufacturing and STEM fields. These young people deserve recognition for their accomplishments in a field that gets unfairly branded as dark, dirty and dangerous—or even worse, as a career of the past.
Challenged by an increasingly niche-oriented automotive market, The Chrysler Group (Auburn Hills, MI) must increase the number of models it offers while decreasing its capital investment. The company plans to offer 50% more models in 2009 compared to 2004, according to John Felice, VP of manufacturing, technology and global enterprise for Chrysler.
As a student in East Leyden’s Project Lead the Way (PLTW) Introduction to Engineering course, Fabian Bartos wasn’t satisfied with just completing his schoolwork. On top of the PLTW course curriculum, he designed and printed a model of his previous school.
Automation in manufacturing is more important than ever, reducing costs and improving quality. While it is important in assembling cars, machining engines, or drilling holes in airframes, is it important to metrology operations as well? “Absolutely,” explained Michael Kleemann, engineering manager VRSI (Plymouth, MI).
Shops today must track or measure their manufacturing operations to improve them. This need drives the growing use of MTConnect—an open, royalty-free protocol for extracting data from practically any piece of equipment, including machine tools and other manufacturing systems. The integration of MTConnect is a major undertaking, and can be a bit challenging unless certain preparations are made ahead of time.
A 1965 Shelby Cobra 427 shown at the Detroit Auto Show was additively manufactured on a Cincinnati BAAMCI machine by DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), one of seven founding members of the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation. The Detroit IACMI branch will get $70 million to develop a robust supply chain to improve materials, handling, and machining properties for automotive composites.
Don’t overlook advanced technology available for removing the gnarliest burrs from parts large or small
It is common sense—a vehicle that weighs less requires less fuel to move it. A number of studies show that reducing the mass of a vehicle by 10% results in anywhere from 4.5 to 6% better fuel economy—well worth the effort.
Swiss-style CNC automatic lathes have long been synonymous with high-volume production of complex precision engineered parts, especially for the medical industry. Medical parts, both instruments and implants, that are machined on Swiss-style machines are long up 12–20″ (305–508 mm) and slender with a 12–15× length to diameter ratio (L:D) from bar 10 to 32-mm diameter. Parts of this type require support with a guide bushing along their entire machining length to allow removing a large amount of material in a single pass.
The latest developments in short-pulse and fiber lasers offer new ways to create today’s innovative medical devices
