Advanced Manufacturing Now

SME has an 85+ year history of supporting US manufacturing. In this podcast, Alan Rooks, Editor in Chief of Manufacturing Engineering magazine, talks with Jeff Krause, Chief Executive Officer of SME, about the role of SME, how that role is evolving, the growth of smart manufacturing, new education venues, and the importance of workforce development.

Cajo Technologies President Ismo Rantala talks with Candace Roulo, managing editor of Manufacturing Engineering magazine, about the company's patented technology, which is based on an innovative application of the traditional laser beam, allowing for precise and permanent marking or color patterning on almost any material without additives or pigments. The company is headquartered in Kempele, in N...

Verisurf Software CEO Ernie Husted explains why there are still many legacy fixed CMMs in the market that are perceived to be obsolete due to outdated software, difficult programming interfaces and lack of trained operators--and how his metrology software firm is working to address this market truth. For example, Verisurf 2018 allows users to program, operate and collect measurement data directly...

More manufacturers are using electronic work instructions, such as VKS, to improve productivity and streamline their operations. In this podcast, Alan Rooks, Editor in Chief of Manufacturing Engineering magazine, talks with Shannon Bennett, Implementation & Sales Engineer at Visual Knowledge Share Ltd., about the need for electronic work instructions in manufacturing, the development of VKS, the t...

So, you've inherited older and/or disjointed systems and processes (and perhaps an unhelpful company culture) but you want to gain a competitive edge. What to do? Look at how systems can be integrated with a centralized tooling database, not at each individual process as a separate entity, Dan Speidel of TDM Systems says. Make sure you digitally tie and integrate the tool crib with CAM systems and...

Drawing upon his firm's work with NEC, Schlindler Elevator, Exelon and Pitney Bowes, Sergey Patsko of GE Digital advises manufacturing execs looking for value to focus on compute power and ways to process and analyze data.  He also suggests a couple of ways manufacturers can begin trying out the "digital transformation" approach. One approach is theoretical. Another is to start with proofs of conc...

Sharing findings from a survey of 300 automotive industry manufacturers, Jeannine Kunz, VP of Tooling U-SME, says the introduction of new technology is seen as the main contributor to the skills gap in manufacturing. "Essentially, technology is outpacing our people." Yes, the pipeline is still an issue. Yes, baby boomers leaving the market is still an issue. But the swift current of new technology...

Pratt & Whitney's Kimberley Hagerty, whose "year of living digitally" was featured in the May issue of Smart Manufacturing magazine, quickly reviews lessons she and her team learned, outlines three main challenges they faced and how she solved them, and describes some of the organizational changes she sees Industry 4.0 demanding of manufacturers.

Rego-Fix Corp., a manufacturer of precision tooling, has been on a deliberate, long-term growth and expansion program. Starting a few years ago in the company's home base of Switzerland, this year the program came to fruition in the US Vice President Sales and Marketing Bill Obras sat down with Manufacturing Engineering's James D. Sawyer at Eastec to discuss the program and provide details on the...

Manufacturing Engineering's James D. Sawyer interviews Chris Pollack, East Coast regional business manager for motion control , Siemens Industry, about the growing skills gap in US manufacturing and the challenges and opportunities inherent in training new users to operate the controls of machine tools.

As the technology has matured, the manufacturing world has seen an explosion in the number of metal parts, components and products manufactured additively. Yet despite this improvement the cost of metal 3D printing has not really become more affordable. In this sponsored podcast, Markforged Applications Engineer Peter Kootstra explains to SME's Jim Sawyer how his company has developed a process th...

As water jet technology has improved so, too, has the precision of these abrasive cutting machines. Along the way the applications for water jet cutting has expanded as well. At Eastec, Michael Ruppenthal, Omax vice president for North American sales, sat down with Manufacturing Engineering's James D. Sawyer to detail how the MicroMax, an ultra-precise fully enclosed water jet, has carved out a pl...

Hermle Machine Co., a manufacturer of high-end machine tools, annually employs 100 to 120 apprentices in its German operations. The apprentices make up about 13% of that workforce. Manuel Merkt, executive vice president of operations at Hermle's US operations (Franklin, WI), is working with the German American Chamber of Commerce to establish a similar program in Wisconsin which would provide grad...

Charlie Slagle, president and CEO of Hoffmann Group USA, talks with Editor in Chief Alan Rooks about the history of The Hoffmann Group as a tooling manufacturer and distributor in Europe, and its 2016 entry into the US market. The company markets its Garant and Holex brand portfolios and distributes a wide variety of products from other tooling manufacturers.

In an interview with Jim Sawyer of  Manufacturing Engineering, Jan Andersson, global director of Greenleaf Corp.'s Tech Team and marketing explores the four pillars of metalcutting are and why it is crucial to pay attention to each of them to achieve the best results.

Additive manufacturing has come a long way from being a prototyping technology. In many instances, it is now a viable method of production. Not every manufacturer, however, has the expertise and resources to put 3D manufacturing into practice. In this sponsored podcast, Manufacturing Engineering's Jim Sawyer interviews Shane Fox, founder and CEO of Link3D, to learn how the company's proprietary te...

A manufacturing concern can get the greatest return on its investment by optimizing its overall equipment effectiveness, or OEE. In this sponsored podcast, Memex CEO David McPhail details the relationship between OEE and the Industrial Internet of Things. Data, he explains, is what drives this relationship. Data-driven manufacturing consists of keeping track of everything that happens on the shop...

Ken Baeszler, a market segment manager and product manager at GF Machining Solutions, sat down at SME's Eastec show with Manufacturing Engineering's Jim Sawyer to discuss GFMS's new offerings of machine tools. Baeszler begins by describing the new Mill P 900, a high-precision machine tool for the mold and die industry.

SME this year gave the Dick Aubin Distinguished Paper Award to the authors of "Liquid Metal 3D Printing: A Magnetohydrodynamic Approach." One of the authors, Swati Chandran Thirumangalath, explains what the paper says about the work she did as a design and simulation engineer at Vader Systems in Buffalo, NY.

SME's Additive Manufacturing Community this year gave Dieter Schwarze, PhD, of SLM Solutions GmbH the 2017 Industry Achievement Award. The award recognizes  of his significant and continued impact on additive manufacturing through development of processes and technology applied in industry. In 1989, Schwarze began his R&D work on additive manufacturing and its commercialization. He is one of the p...

Brian Bittner, national sales manager of Beamer Laser Systems, talks to Senior Editor Bill Koenig at the Eastec Show, held in May in West Springfield, MA. Bittner describes the company's operations.

Jill Young of Exsys  (San Antonio, FL) describes the company's products and markets in an interview with Bill Koenig, senior editor at Advanced Manufacturing Media. They spoke at SME's Eastec Show in May.

Rod Leek of Vektek LLC talks about his company's line of clamps and workholding products with Senior Editor Bill Koenig. They talked at the Eastec show in West Springfield, MA, held in May.

Dyan Finkhousen, director of open innovation & advanced manufacturing at GE Global Operations, discusses Fuse LLC, an 8-month-old service offering of GeniusLink that involves small batch mfg. Key takeaways: The benefits GE businesses, customers and sponsors find by using Fuse to solve tough technology challenges; the types of problems that are a good fit for Fuse; and how to learn about and partic...

Matt Sand, president of 3DEO, and Matt Petros, the company's CEO, discuss 3DEO's additive manufacturing technology and the markets it serves. 3DEO produces low-cost metal parts for customers. 3DEO says its process is "fundamentally different than anything else in additive manufacturing." "We started the company with the idea there has to be a better way to make metal parts with additive manufactur...