Rich, General Motors recently invested in 17 production-grade FDM printers, intending to use them for 3D-printed tooling. The term “tooling” is quite broad, however. Can you share details about what types of tooling GM and others are 3D printing, and why?
In March 2020, the World Health Organization officially declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. Manufacturers are dealing with the fact that the virus has exposed the fact that many domestic brands rely significantly upon China for fulfilling some, part, or nearly all, of their supply chain.
GWS Tool Group acquiring STF Precision marks GWS’ third add-on acquisition in 2020.
In manufacturing, potentially flammable and hazardous chemicals such as acetone and isopropyl alcohol are often stored in 55-gallon or larger drums for dispensing into smaller containers or at the point of use.
In this podcast, Bruce Morey, Senior Technical Editor for Manufacturing Engineering Magazine discusses with Carl Dekker President of Met-L-Flo, Inc. on how to embrace Additive Manufacturing. This will cover the costs of equipment, personnel, and incidentals. Also discussed will be the design considerations that make AM excel.
When it’s time to put threads in parts, particularly those made of difficult-to-machine materials, thread mills are often the right choice. Thread mills cut threads with a cutting head typically smaller than the hole, unlike taps that are sized to match the hole diameter.
Vibratory feeding and conveying equipment has been used in the manufacturing industry for several decades to move fine and coarse materials into mixers, furnaces, production processes or final containers.
Power management company Eaton said its Vehicle Group is implementing a new 3D metal printing program as a part of its Industry 4.0 strategy to reduce development time and improve efficiency.
Difficult materials and high-speed machining don’t just present problems for cutting tools. They can also push toolholders to their limits—and beyond. So manufacturers offer a variety of products designed to get the toolholding job done under extreme machining conditions.
Whether driven by the reduction of in-shop personnel due to layoffs or to maintain social distancing guidelines into the future, many machine shops will likely be re-evaluating ways to eliminate labor-intensive manual operations if they can be automated instead.