Production Machining Industry News, October 2019

Methods Machine Tools Partners with OKK Corp.

Methods Machine Tools Inc. has announced that, effective Oct. 1, 2019, it is representing OKK Corp. in North America.

"We are very pleased to announce our new partnership with OKK to import, distribute and provide service and support for its broad range of high-quality machine tools," says Mark Wright, president and CEO of Methods Machine Tools Inc. "The addition of the larger capacity line-up of OKK horizontal, vertical, and five-axis machines ideally complements our current machine solutions."

Takahiro Kawano, president, OKK USA Corp., says, "We are delighted to partner with Methods, whose reputation for service and machine integration is unsurpassed, and we look forward to a long, mutually rewarding partnership. Methods' established distribution organization, vast network of technology centers and dealers, and first-class applications expertise will help increase OKK presence in North America."

Methods is currently representing OKK in North America with the exception of: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Virginia.

Buffalo Machinery Hires New Manager for North America

Axile Machine’s Joe Poulin will serve as Buffalo Machinery’s sales and marketing manager in North America. He will be responsible for promoting Buffalo’s products and business, as well as introducing Axile vertical machining centers into the North America’s marketplace.

Mr. Poulin has accumulated expertise and competence in the tool, die mold and machining industry for more than a decade prior to move into machine tool sales as a product manager and regional manager in the North America market. With his insight and perspective into the market supply and demand of trends for the North America area, Mr. Poulin will help Buffalo with the market development, customer relationship establishment and creating sustainable competitive advantages.

Bunting Welcomes New Lean Manufacturing Coordinator

Robert Clausing is Bunting’s new lean manufacturing coordinator. Mr. Clausing will be responsible for focusing on utilizing a lean manufacturing mindset in order to reduce and eliminate waste.

“Waste is anything that adds to the process without adding value to the product,” Mr. Clausing says. “It can be as obvious as transportation expenses and as subtle as spending too much time searching for a misplaced item. Everyone can see waste and even conceive ways to reduce or eliminate it.”

Mr. Clausing joins the Bunting team from TECT Power Inc., where he served as general operations manager. Mr. Clausing has also worked for Carlson Products LLC as a supply chain manager and The Coleman Company Inc. as a global quality manager.

“I look forward to guiding teams that can transform ideas and suggestions to project Bunting as a world-class organization,” Mr. Clausing says. “I am eager to unleash a lean mindset that leads all Bunting facilities toward operations excellence.”

LNS Appoints Josh Hudson Southeast Regional Sales Manager

Josh Hudson has been appointed sales manager for LNS North America’s southeast region. Mr. Hudson, with 10 years of experience in manufacturing, will serve customers in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida and Puerto Rico.

Most recently a manufacturing engineering manager at the LNS Turbo facility in Kings Mountain, North Carolina, Mr. Hudson has been with LNS since 2014 and previously was a project engineer for the automotive and aerospace industries.

Mr. Hudson holds a bachelor’s degree in business management from Belmont Abbey College. He lives with his wife and son in North Carolina.

NIMS Launches CAM Credentials

The National Institute for Metalworking Skills (NIMS) is now offering standardized CAM credentials, CAM Milling and Turning. “The CAM field continues to grow and is expected to create almost 100,000 new programmer, designer and engineer jobs by 2024,” says NIMS Executive Director Montez King. “It is imperative that people entering the field are properly trained and capable, and these credentials show a potential employer that applicants are ready to program CNC machine tools. Further, employees already on the job may wish to secure an official, portable, industry-recognized certification.”

The new credentials are based on standards developed in partnership with and sponsored by Autodesk, a manufacturer of 3D design and engineering software. Over 125 representatives from organizations such as CNC Software, developer of Mastercam, Barefoot CNC, CamInstructor, and Rosenburger of North America, volunteered their insight during the rigorous development and piloting process of the standards.

“CAM is the first set of NIMS credentials to use our new Performance Measure (PM) Development Requirements for the hands-on component of the credential,” Mr. King says. “The new model will allow schools and employers to customize their credentialing experience by using their own projects to validate performance for NIMS credentials as long as they meet the minimum NIMS requirements.”

Manufacturing companies are expected to benefit greatly by having properly trained CAM programmers, designers and engineers. As cycle times decline, material waste and machining errors decrease, and the quality of parts increases with more capable personnel. It is predicted that individuals trained according to these standards will be in high demand in coming years.

Two Companies Merge to Create Expanded Hydromat Company

The owners of Hydromat-RE and Component Bar Products signed an agreement to combine their respective Hydromat machine rebuild businesses into one entity. This new venture will be known as Hydromat-RE.

The merger of these two companies results in an expanded base of knowledge, a larger stock of new and refurbished parts and machines, as well as multiple locations to better serve customers’ needs. Hydromat Inc. and Hydromat-RE are now uniquely positioned to support all aspects of the Hydromat machine life cycle. Hydromat-RE will add EPIC CNC controlled units to Legacy machines.

This new, larger company will specialize in the refurbishing, retooling, and selling of Legacy type Hydromat rotary transfer machines. “This merger will make Hydromat-RE stronger and more innovative than ever and better able to meet the requirements of our Legacy machine customers,” says Bruno Schmitter, CEO and COO of Hydromat Inc. “We are very excited about this partnership.”

Going forward, both Hydromat-RE and Component Bar Products will contribute intellectual property, research and development assets, engineering capabilities, machine and parts stock, and other resources to the merger, creating the potential for expanded growth.

Hydromat-RE will continue to provide everything from used or reconditioned parts, all equipment needed for a customer’s retool project, and full rebuild turnkey machines for specific projects. Brokering of used machine sales will also be a service Hydromat-RE staff members will offer. “With a huge amount of the on-hand parts stock combined with this talent pool at new Hydromat-RE, we will give our customers a shorter lead time on both machine rebuilds, service, and part deliveries,” said Darrel Keesling, Owner, Component Bar Products.

Mark Fordyce, vice president, Hydromat-RE, has 38 years of Hydromat engineering and remanufacturing experience, will lead the newly organized Hydromat-RE team from the O’Fallon, Missouri, facility.

NIMS Partners with OMIC to Develop Metrology Standards and Certification

The National Institute for Metalworking Skills (NIMS) and the Oregon Manufacturing Innovation Center – Research & Development (OMIC R&D) have united to define a set of metrology standards and to develop a metrology certification process.

Montez King, executive director of NIMS, says, “NIMS is proud to work with OMIC R&D to provide a benchmark for competency within the metrology field. These standards and the certification process will allow students, employees and trainers to identify the skills required in high-demand quality control occupations.”

The skills and certification metrics will be defined by compiling and comparing available metrology reference material, such as job descriptions, occupational duties and performance requirements. Once this is completed, companies and educational organizations will be recruited to pilot the credentials. NIMS will collect feedback and work with OMIC to finalize all certification questions and standards.

Additive Manufacturing Media Announces New Web Series

Additive Manufacturing Media has announced the launch of its new web series, “The Cool Parts Show.” The series is hosted by Senior Editor Stephanie Hendrixson and Editor-in-Chief Pete Zelinski. Each episode will feature one 3D printed part and follow it from design to manufacture. The focus is on the unique opportunities that 3D printing offers and how that technology is changing the face of manufacturing.

“So much of additive technology is visual, from the freedom of design to the movement of a build plate,” Ms. Hendrixson says. “We wanted a forum where we could really engage with a part and show the audience all the ins and outs in a way that static cad models and pictures can’t.”

Season 1 began on Oct. 8 and episodes will post weekly to the Additive Manufacturing Media YouTube channel. The premiere season includes parts from Fabrisonic, Tangible Solutions, NTopology, DustRam, HP, Aetrex, and EOS.

Complete show information is available at gbm.media/coolparts.

Emuge Corp. Hosts Grand Opening of Newly Expanded Manufacturing Facility

Emuge Corp. held a grand opening ceremony of its expanded, custom-designed manufacturing facility in West Boylston, Massachusetts, on Oct. 15. Marking a 35-year presence in the U.S., the expansion includes more manufacturing and tool reconditioning space, the addition of a new PVD coating center as well as an expanded Technology and Training Center. The expanded facility doubles the size of the original building to more than 50,000 square feet total.

Over 150 attendees joined Emuge to celebrate the occasion. The grand opening featured a formal ribbon cutting, a special unveiling of a statue of Emuge Founder Richard Glimpel, a facility tour and live machining technology demonstrations.

"The expansion will allow us to better serve

our customer base in the U.S. and Canada," says Bob Hellinger, president of Emuge Corp. "The growth we have experienced in our aerospace and power generation customer base has been significant in the past few years. The expanded facility will provide additional capacity to domestically manufacture special solid carbide tooling and other standard solutions within our milling tools portfolio."

Emuge executives were joined by officials including John Killam, president/CEO for the Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MassMEP). Thomas Zeus, technical director, EMUGE-Franken, was also present, as well as Gerhard Knienieder, managing director, EMUGE-Franken.