Midway between Houston and Austin sits Brenham, Texas, home to Blue Bell ice cream and the world’s largest BBQ pit. Within this smallish town you’ll find a not-so-small contract manufacturer, MIC Group LLC.
Expect at least two recessions, or downturns in GDP growth, in the next few years. That is the prediction of Brian Beaulieu, CEO and chief economist for ITR Economics.
Software AG (Frankfurt, MDAX: SOW) announced an original survey of over 125 North American manufacturers in the heavy industry and automotive sectors that revealed they are unable to scale their Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) investments across their enterprises, and therefore are losing millions of dollars in potential profits while falling behind competitors that have invested in enabling technologies that support IIoT across the enterprise.
Methods Machine Tools Inc., a supplier of precision machine tools and automation, announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Mark Wright as its President and Chief Executive Officer effective September 13, 2019. Wright will assume all operating functions of Methods Machine Tools Inc., including the Sudbury headquarters and all seven direct offices throughout the United States as well as its national distribution network.
More and more manufacturers are seeing productivity as a crucial factor to their business success. In the meantime, business models are changing from the large quantities and few variants to small quantities with frequently changed variants. This change requires high flexibility during production.
Manufacturing got smart when companies figured out how to make products in one market and sell them in another. Today, we call this supply chain logistics. But somewhere along the way, the innovation chain connecting supply (manufacturing) and logistics (the supporting infrastructure) started to diverge.
Kent, Wash.-based Flow International Corp., a developer and manufacturer of ultrahigh-pressure waterjet solutions for cutting applications, announced a new partnership with Joe Gibbs Racing. A current competitor in the NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series and The NASCAR Xfinity Series, North Carolina-based Joe Gibbs Racing is looking to Flow’s elite waterjet technology to support the team’s endeavors in the upcoming 2019 season and beyond.
Blockchain technology is becoming a key player in modernizing supply chains to enable easy tracking, automate transactions and delivery, and build end-to-end trust, Chandra Narayanaswami, principal research staff member, Member IBM Academy of Technology at IBM Research, told people attending a smart manufacturing session at the MD&M West conference here last week.
St. Louis-based Hydromat Inc. is celebrating its 40th anniversary (1979 -2019). As part of this celebration, the company engaged Orange County Choppers (OCC) to build a custom motorcycle to commemorate this milestone.
Glenn Bridgman describes the difference between his shop’s manual grinders and its newest state-of-the-art CNC ID/OD grinder, a Studer CT960 OD/ID from United Grinding (Miamisburg, OH), as “feel vs. facts.” Bridgman, president of Bridge Tool & Die (Buckley, MI), believes that manual grinding is a somewhat personal operation.
