PM Blog

A rigid connection between a cutting tool and its carrier is fundamental to successful, accurate turning operations. Historically, this connection consisted of clamping stick tools into a holder using set screws. This is fine if the tool life justifies relatively long runs with a lower need to change out the cutter.

However, today’s toolholding options consist of many more choices than only stick tools. Now we have polygonal, HSK and BIG Plus holders as examples of toolholding connections that deliver a needed benefit to turning operations; that is the need for quick change-out of the cutting tool. Driving this trend is small lot size runs that require more frequent machine setups. Low volume/high mix is the “order” of the day.

The Munich-based company Herrmann CNC-Drehtechnik has machining expertise in aerospace components, having attained preferred supplier status with many large companies. Increasingly, however, there is demand for extremely small, complex, tightly toleranced, thin-walled precision components made of difficult-to-machine materials. In response, the company is having to cooperate with suppliers to reinvent and improve its machining processes.  

Siemens is partnering with Festo Didactic to offer the Siemens Mechatronic Systems Certification Program (SMSCP), designed to help students, instructors and learning institutions combat the skills gap in the rapidly changing manufacturing industry.

The July issue of Production Machining features 19 young professionals, under the age of 40, working in the precision machined parts industry who were nominated by their peers as people who are making strides toward becoming part of the next generation of leaders and innovators. Starting with this post, each week I will highlight one of the Emerging Leaders on our blog.

With a title like CEO of her family-owned business, one might assume that Jami Massey reached her lifelong goal of becoming the head of the company by always being focused on the business she was born into. But that is not exactly the case for Jami. In fact, for a long time she wasn’t convinced that working for her parents’ company, C&H Enterprises, a Silicon Valley precision machine shop with customers in the semiconductor and aerospace industries, was what she wanted to do. But like many kids whose parents own a business, she dutifully worked at the company while in school. Jami started out in the administration department while she attended junior college, and she moved her way up to a position in the quality department, eventually becoming quality manager.

Faced with a challenging customer order, Walt Machine Inc. looked, quite literally, to a camera-equipped robot for its part handling needs. It wasn’t a matter of replacing a person with automation, but rather reallocating resources to be better deployed elsewhere in the process.

Customer orders are a wonderful thing, and even when they come with seemingly impossible delivery requirements, few shops want to pass on the work. This article, “Robot Wrist Camera Helps Double Production,” highlights such a situation that faced this Mississippi-based shop and drove them to find a way to meet the deliveries.