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Transforming manufacturing with advanced digital tools is well underway, but manufacturers who haven’t adopted Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) or Industrial 4.0 strategies are best advised to take a long look at the digital future of manufacturing.

The EMO Hannover 2017 theme of “Connecting Systems for Intelligent Production” meant that many exhibitors were demonstrating connectivity solutions, data analysis applications and innovative services.

Turned parts cover such a broad range, from slender shafts and tiny precision connectors to large-bore oil-patch tubing and huge turbine shafts, that it’s hard to imagine how they fall under the same category of single-point metal removal.

At EMO Hannover 2017 there were many new cutting tool products showcased, plus there were new cutting tool developments for approximately 130,000 attendees to learn about.

A Lockheed Martin Corp. executive said today the company’s “war on defects” has improved quality of its F-35 fighter jet.

In conventional metal (material) removal processes like milling, turning, drilling, boring, and grinding, the challenge is always to hold the tool securely and rigidly against a fixtured workpiece without interfering with the process.

There’s still plenty of good old fashioned metal (and material) removal going on in tens of thousands of US metalcutting shops and plants around the country. A visit to the huge South Hall at McCormick Place during IMTS 2016 is where you will find booths overflowing with advanced conventional turning and milling machines, multitasking CNC lathes, towering boring mills, and precision Swiss automatic lathes under power along with the automation needed to carve more-efficient production out of industries as diverse as aerospace, automotive, medical, job shop and contract manufacturing, and general engineering.

With all of its accomplishments – including world’s largest defense contractor, and a presence in all 50 states and 70 countries – you might think Lockheed Martin (Bethesda, MD) would already have mastered additive manufacturing.