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First Plastics, Then Metals and Now Composites

Impossible Objects LLC, a Chicago-based company, has brought to market a new composites material manufacturing technology known as Composite-Based Additive Manufacturing (CBAM) 3D technology which produces Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) or Polymer Matrix Composite (PMC) parts.

New Graphene Synthesized for Industrial Uses

Materials researcher Metalysis Ltd. (South Yorkshire, UK) recently announced that it has developed a new synthesized graphene material that holds potential for future industrial production. Metalysis, which is focused on commercializing its proprietary electrochemical metal-powder manufacturing technology, said its R&D successfully produced graphene using the company’s own process.

Auto Industry Faces Short- and Long-Term Challenges

Sales of cars and light trucks plummeted during the Great Recession and General Motors Co. and Chrysler emerged from government-back bankruptcies in 2009. Since then, total industry deliveries have surged, hitting a record 17.47 million in 2015, according to Autodata Corp.

Time for Monumental Thinking in Additive

As additive manufacturing emerges from a long infancy, the industry is grappling with a key challenge: A file format and design tools from the 20th century are being asked to do 21st century jobs.

Change-up Pitch: From Metal to Plastic

Even though it’s been around since the 1950s, when engineering-grade resins were first introduced, many manufacturers still are not familiar with the many benefits that metal-to-plastic conversion provides.

Micro Manufacturing Keeps Shrinking the Envelope

Micro components continue to shrink in size, demanding ever-greater precision and improved handling of parts with sub-micron-sized features. New approaches in micro machining technology include higher-precision systems from traditional micro machining developers, as well as techniques using additive manufacturing processes and semiconductor wafer-scale technology on the smallest of micro parts.

Metal Parts Follow Tough Plastics Act

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.

Bridge Tool & Die: CNC Turns ‘Feel’ Into High-Precision Carbide Grinding

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.

Three Ways Industry 4.0 Is Forcing Manufacturers to Rethink Lead Times

Named the next phase in the digitization of the manufacturing sector by McKinsey & Company, Industry 4.0 is sweeping through manufacturing—combining connectivity with computational power and data for unparalleled capabilities. Here are three ways Industry 4.0 is forcing manufacturers to rethink one key metric: their lead times.