When a long-time customer came to Northwood Industries, Perrysburg, Ohio, with a challenge to redesign and make a part for one of its commercial paint spray guns, the company was pretty sure they had it covered.

The name A to Z Machine says it all, according to Jerry Van Handel, one of the shop’s four co-owners. The Appleton, Wis.-based job shop can handle jobs “from A to Z” successfully and profitably due to its solid, all-encompassing business strategy, said Van Handel.

Aerospace is an incredibly exacting industry. Everything from design to manufacturing to maintenance must go exactly as planned to keep planes flying safely, and even when they do, mistakes can happen, leading to tragedy.

Providing for your employees is paramount in the current marketplace. If you aren’t offering a comfortable environment for your workers, they’ll seek other options. Thermal comfort is an individual’s subjective assessment of personal satisfaction in an environment and is defined by international comfort standards.

Automated manufacturing operations are finely tuned ecosystems in which all components must function in complete harmony. Grippers used to pick and place, orient and hold components or end products at various points along the production chain are key to this process.

A Michigan company that displays instructions for manual manufacturing processes on work stations via augmented reality (AR) is adding wearables to provide similar guidance.

After decades of hype and predictions surrounding additive manufacturing (AM), AM is poised to be on the brink of becoming the disruptive technology that many have long expected. Disruptive technologies are often deemed too costly, less capable or too niche to replace incumbent technology. But over time, many of these technologies reach a tipping point and rapidly replace these incumbents.

My involvement in SME and its AeroDef event began in 2014, when I first presented an Adaptive Machining Overview at AeroDef 2014 in Long Beach, Calif. At the time, the conference was relatively small in terms of attendees and exhibitors in comparison to the explosion of other engineering conferences that began around that time.

As a U.S.-based company that designs, engineers and manufactures advanced industrial cutting systems and software, Hypertherm understands that a highly trained workforce is vital.

In the aerospace industry it’s common for OEM contracts and programs with their component suppliers to extend from 10 years to as many as 40 years. Many, if not most, aerospace parts demand efficient and productive metal removal rates—in tough materials, with tight tolerances, and with a reliable, robust, automated process.

With great power comes great responsibility, the saying goes. And with greater laser power being used to weld sheet metal, tubes, copper and aluminum, operators have a greater responsibility to deliver that power with a precision that avoids defects.

Implementing a comprehensive laser cutting system is not a task for the faint of heart. In addition to the financial outlay, requirements include planning for a complete system, not just the laser, according to Dustin Diehl, laser division product manager, Amada America Inc., Buena Park, Calif.

The well-established field of laser marking continues to break new ground with expanding business opportunities in automotive, oil and gas, medical and other industries.

Metalworking machines are fast, powerful, and accurate, but they weren’t always as capable as they are today. Modern equipment is more nimble, flexible and adaptable. The machines collectively exceed the sum of their parts.