May 2014
After adding nearly 570,000 jobs over the past four years, more growth is expected as production facilities re-shore to the U.S. Guest columnist Scott Corriveau explains why corporate executives, safety officials and equipment manufacturers must work together to identify unmet safety needs and prepare a new labor force for the hazards they may face.
Sound the Alarm: More advanced CNC units provide full collision avoidance for both the machine builder and the end user alike, thereby protecting both the machine and the operator.
Beyond the field or jobsite, the benefits of remote control technologies in fabrication settings can be sizeable: more time spent welding and less time moving around; better welds resulting in less rework; and fewer cables to string and manage in the work area.
Precision Waterjet Concepts uses waterjet cutting systems from Jet Edge to cut virtually any material, especially AR Plating and titanium.
These new systems showcase how CAD/CAM software for sheet metal and structural steel fabrication is coming of age to meet the increasing needs for speed in job shops, contract manufacturers and metal service centers.
Chart Energy & Chemicals installed an Avenger 3 plasma precision shape cutting machine from ESAB that added new beveling and marking capabilities and enabled the shop to slash its processing times, increase its capacity, and eliminate a second shift.
How do you find out if a specialized tooling solution is right for you?
Samco roll former allows Premier Products to offer improved door framing system, maintaining the tolerances required for door framing headers and jambs in varying widths and heights.
FlatMaster provides contract fabricator a competitive advantage because the ability to produce flat parts, fully stress relieved, improves downstream processes and quality.
Here is a review of some of the latest multitasking machines that can mill, drill, turn, thread, bore, or groove complex, contoured parts during one setup and offer shops the competitive advantage they need in market applications ranging from aerospace, oil/energy and medical to construction and general purpose fabrication.
Sound the Alarm: More advanced CNC units provide full collision avoidance for both the machine builder and the end user alike, thereby protecting both the machine and the operator.
Beyond basic axis motion, table motion, spindle control and tool change, the method by which complex parts are fed to the machine has changed and cost containment and performance validation pressures are increasing, particularly on shops that make parts for automotive, aerospace, appliance, military or medical markets.
A new release of NUMROTO tool grinding software meets the growing challenges of grinding and servicing new generations of complex geometry drills and end mills.
A new era of highly efficient, flexible and customizable mass production requires software and analytical systems that turn the deluge of data produced by intelligent factories into useful and valuable information.
Haewa’s use of the Steinhauer eCAB WorkCenter has resulted in more than a 50 percent savings in that critical “time to first hole in the workpiece” scenario, allowing a substantial increase in the production at the company.
What used to take seven or eight operations can now be done in two, and one job, which took three standard weeks can now be completed in three days with 24 hour running, according to the company’s managing director.
A review of some of the advanced power sources, quality-tested consumables, integrated solutions and other welding tools that can help industrial and structural fabricators work more effectively, both in the shop and on the jobsite.
Beyond the field or jobsite, the benefits of remote control technologies in fabrication settings can be sizeable: more time spent welding and less time moving around; better welds resulting in less rework; and fewer cables to string and manage in the work area.
Though the potential health problems from welding fume exposure can be significant, there are many and varied ways to reduce that risk to almost zero.
SKF introduces repair and rebuild capabilities for ball screws with dedicated service channel and full technical support.
COE Press Equipment retrofit the equipment to three coil lines feeding 500 ton progressive die presses for ARJ Manufacturing.
An ongoing leak detection audit and repair program will quickly pay for itself through energy savings (and may even be subsidized by local utility incentive programs). Equally important, you will likely see benefits from reduced downtime and better running production equipment. All of these contribute to a stronger bottom line.
The innovative Series 30i/31i/32i-MODEL B CNCs from FANUC FA America offers predictive and preventative maintenance tools for motors and fans that allow shop maintenance personnel to pre-plan servicing of a machine during scheduled downtime rather than when a machine has failed.
After adding nearly 570,000 jobs over the past four years, more growth is expected as production facilities re-shore to the U.S. Guest columnist Scott Corriveau explains why corporate executives, safety officials and equipment manufacturers must work together to identify unmet safety needs and prepare a new labor force for the hazards they may face.
Millions of workers may be exposed to potentially harmful metals by using laundered shop towels that retain measurable levels of metals after commercial laundering.
When safety systems are designed and managed to look at multiple areas of risk and analyze them in a holistic context, they provide a more useful way to measure safety than simply counting bodies and broken bones.
A review of some of the latest advanced workholding solutions that meet tighter specs, tighter tolerances for location accuracy, and ease of loading as they help to speed up processes and improve throughput.
Special Machined Components took beam machining business away from a competitor by using a ProHold six-vise stacked hydraulic workholding system from Planet Products.
Specialized Chip-Surfer tips from Ingersoll Cutting Tools cover virtually all hole making and slot-milling applications and have dramatically reduced form slotting time in mold making, gear making, heat exchanger fabrication and medical device manufacturing.
Amid a challenging operating environment, the LENOX Institute of Technology conducted a survey of 100+ industrial metal cutting operations that identified three key areas where organizations can gain additional productivity and efficiency on the shop floor.
These time-saving surface finishing tools from Walter Surface Technologies are ideal for finishing ultra-clean stainless steel surfaces in industries such as food prep, nuclear, pharmaceutical, construction and others.
Norton Vortex Rapid Prep’s state-of-the-art design enables up to four times the performance of available surface finishing products on the market.
All Osborn abrasive products are designed for superior performance and long life, using durable materials.
All-new Norton Vitrium3 platform introduces patent-pending abrasives bond technology.
Weiler Corporation offers a full assortment of high performance, American-made wire brushes engineered specifically for use on 4.5 in right angle grinders.
Here are some of the latest advances in surface measurement work that show the newest capabilities and innovations in metrology for the shop floor.
The flawless surfaces required in mold making demand large cutting volumes during the roughing sequence, but a perfectly finished surface at the end. This analysis from Heidenhain examines how, along with high quality machine tool mechanics and control performance, the optimal milling result necessary to do this depends heavily on the measuring technology.
By retrofitting a manual CMM to run Verisurf software, a shop adds additional functionality and productivity features that are quickly becoming requirements of manufacturing and quality engineers.
Laser encoders from Renishaw deliver part-per-million accuracy during week-long machining cycles on 40 meter long composite wing skins being built by Flow Corporation.
Air gaging technology has its roots back over 70 years and is today a viable and highly reliable method for many applications in industries where a high volume of parts is produced or where the precision of hard-to-access dimensions makes other measuring techniques impossible.
Renishaw machine tool probes and calibration products check and verify the dimensional accuracy of the company’s CNC machine tools. The resulting data are stored for quick retrieval and easy access using Renishaw’s CNC Reporter software.
