While EDMs offer the benefits of holding tight tolerances, working on nearly any metal, and being well suited for delicate or fragile parts, knowledgeable operators for the machines are increasingly hard to find and robots can’t always fill the gap. Automated processes in the machines, newer designs and features of Industry 4.0 are helping to solve the problem.
PITTSBURGH—Doctors and scientists at Northwestern University have been working diligently for about seven years to bring new materials to clinics that handle plastic and reconstructive surgery, as well as transplants, Sue Jordan, chief resident in plastic and reconstructive surgery at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, told a crowd gathered to hear her speak today at the RAPID + TCT show.
Meeting the needs of the evolving digital manufacturing initiative, Open Mind Technologies (Needham, MA) has recently partnered with Heidenhain TNC controls (Schaumburg, IL) to provide exclusive first use of their new NC code-based machining simulation solution hyperMILL Virtual Machining.
Technological gains, young ambassadors, apprenticeships help. But manufacturers’ training investment remains a problem.
US manufacturers are discovering the policies of the Trump administration aren’t like a cafeteria. You don’t get choose which policies you want.
A strong manufacturing ecosystem that includes manufacturing engineering education is critical to ensuring the future vitality and innovation of manufacturing initiatives in the US. So it was welcome news to learn that the DOD is developing a new manufacturing engineering education (MEE) grant program, authorized by Congress with initial funding of $10 million for fiscal 2017.
A huge confidence gap exists between the number of companies that try digital manufacturing strategies and those that successfully apply them, a new McKinsey & Co. survey found.
The institutes that make up Manufacturing USA need to move at the speed of business, considering that the endeavor represents the U.S. government’s biggest investment in the digitization of manufacturing to date.
These days the most important theme in superabrasive grinding wheel development isn’t the abrasive, it’s the bond. The diamond or CBN grains do the cutting, but the bond plays a decisive role in exposing the grains to the workpiece and enabling coolant to remove heat.
The nexus of cyber and physical security threats is the stuff of nightmares, and while manufacturers are waking up to it as a reality, experts worry that the awakening is happening too slowly.