December 2010 Industry News
Expanded Line Will Serve Energy, Heavy Equipment, Mining,
Aerospace, Defense and Other Industries
MAG IAS, LLC, one of the world’s largest machine tool and
factory automation companies, is investing to develop a
range of larger and more versatile machine tools, which will
be added to the product lines already produced at its
facility in Fond du Lac, WI.
MAG has secured contracts and is in production of a new
family of vertical turning centers (VTCs) with table sizes
from 5 to 8 meters and facing capacity up to 9 meters in
diameter. These dual column machines can handle workpiece
loads up to 250,000 kg and feature fixed or adjustable rail
styles. In addition, a new model of the large, ram-type
horizontal boring machine (HBM) family is under construction
in Fond du Lac. The company also recently introduced a
new-concept machining system for high-volume production of
wind turbine hubs.
“These machines will bring new dimensions in large part
production to MAG customers around the world and will be
joined by many additional variations in the coming months,"
said Bill Horwarth, President MAG Americas. "I’m very
pleased that we are able to continue aggressive investments
in expanding our product portfolio and range of
manufacturing solutions for these important industries. We
are confident that our business will continue to improve and
delighted that customers have put their trust in us with
significant new orders from all global regions, including
the U.S., Europe, Middle East, India and China.”
MAG's new machines are incorporating unprecedented levels
of flexibility with new multi-functional features and green
design elements focused on the lowest total cost of
ownership. The company recently demonstrated at the
International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) in
Chicago and AMB show in Stuttgart turning machines with
grinding and gear hobbing capability, along with mill-turn
and turn-mill machines, honing capability and Cryogenic
machining. MAG designs also make extensive use of
environmentally friendly features, including minimal
hydraulics and oil systems, reduced need for chillers and
ancillary equipment, as well as energy monitoring and
conservation capabilities.
Ground up, modular designs allow for economical
customization of these machines along with the industry’s
fastest build and delivery, a hallmark of the Fond du Lac
plant's operation, according to Horwarth. This allows
manufacturers of extremely large work pieces to have a
machine configured to match their exact needs using families
of pre-engineered and optimized components such as columns,
tables, heads, tool changers, controls, etc. MAG Fond du Lac
is currently ramping up production and will begin shipping
these new machine tools during the first half of 2011.
Want more information? Click below.
MAG
Jet Edge, Inc. has announced that National Metals is now
offering precision water jet cutting services at its metal
processing and fabrication plant in DeForest, Wis. National
Metals is capable of processing complex parts from virtually
any material with its new 60,000 psi Jet Edge Mid Rail
Gantry water jet cutting system, which features a 5’x13’
work envelope and is capable of maintaining +/- 0.001"
linear positional accuracy (over 12") and +/- 0.001"
repeatability (bi-directional).
The Wisconsin metal fabricator uses its Jet Edge water
jet to cut a variety of materials, including aluminum,
carbon steel, and stainless steel. The company offers water
jet job shop services, and also cuts parts for its own
specialty aluminum and stainless steel products, which
include stainless steel tabletops and sinks, as well as
custom brackets.
National Metals added its water jet to custom cut
stainless steel sheets for its own products and to expand
its business by offering water jet cutting services to other
firms, explained Douglas Kuiper, National Metals senior
partner.
“We have already been able to take in new types of work
thanks to our water jet,” Kuiper said. “As an example, we
were able to fabricate specialty egg-crate grating products
that are impossible to make without equipment similar to a
water jet. We hope to expand into other markets, such as
glasswork, stonework, woodwork, and more.”
Want more information? Click below.
Jet Edge
National Metals
Elysium Inc. has announced the release of CADfeature
10.0, their feature-based design data translator tool. The
software works with computer-aided design (CAD) systems to
preserve design intent, control re-mastering, heal
workflows, and protect intellectual property (IP)—all of
which improves data quality, reduces migration costs and
increases security throughout the supply chain. The latest
release includes enriched drawing support and associativity
for an expanded roster of widely used commercial CAD
systems, as well as new 64-bit processor support.
“CADfeature is a software quality tool that is of
particular value to manufacturers, large or small, who are
part of extended supply chains that involve different CAD
systems,” says Abdul Shamma, chief technology officer for
Elysium. “Vendor-neutral interoperability tools save a great
deal of time by correcting models preemptively, thereby
heading off a host of downstream problems.”
Parker Hannifin’s Aerospace Group, which has been using a
number of Elysium interoperability products for over seven
years, recently added CADfeature 10.0 to their portfolio of
data quality tools. “We use CADfeature when transferring
design data to customers and suppliers so they can receive
models in the type, version, and release of CAD system that
their own engineers or manufacturing team prefer,” said Bob
Deragisch, the Group’s engineering services manager. “This
allows our engineers to design the original model as
required with all the rich functionality our own CAD system
provides. Then, before we send our geometry to customers or
suppliers, we employ CADfeature 10.0 to get the data to the
point where they can best utilize it. The Elysium tool
invariably comes out with the precision that we need.”
With the increased digitization of the manufacturing
environment, automation—as a highly integrated part of data
storage, archiving and translation of models to and from the
supply chain—can greatly boost productivity and reduce costs
for OEMs and suppliers of every size. Elysium has continued
to enhance the scope of its CADfeature software so that
Version 10.0 can now be used with all the leading CAD
systems.
Highlights of the new CADfeature 10.0 release include:
- Greatly enhanced drawing support that goes far beyond
layout translation to include detailed view definitions,
section view, annotations, fonts, and symbols (user defined
and standard)
- More robust associativity when translating dimensions
- Up to 64-bit support for all CAD systems and versions
(previous maximum was 32-bit)
Core CADfeature capabilities continue to include: a
unique part-mapping function that automatically consolidates
all numbers associated with an identical part within an
enterprise; a remastering tool that updates all revisions to
feature-based parts and assemblies; an incremental
translation checker that identifies and automatically
includes previously translated parts into subsequent
translations; a scalable metadata attribute mapping tool
that provides tracking information for all newly translated
and standardized data; and an automated geometry
verification process that compares 3D mass properties and
point cloud data between source and destination CAD systems.
The huge volume and depth of data that CAD files now
contain is a topic of concern for product designers and
manufacturers alike, notes Ken Tashiro, vice president and
COO of Elysium. “As the marketplace becomes increasingly
global, the protection of IP remains a top priority.”
CADfeature can be applied to de-feature full parametric
models, leaving a reliable design reference in the form of a
complete feature tree of B-Reps alone. “The tool allows us
to control the IP in our models before we export them,” says
Deragisch. “In this way a supplier who is just providing us
with resurfacing work, for example, doesn’t have access to a
complete reconstruction of our model.”
Want more information? Click below.
Elysium
Please rate these articles:
Very interesting, with information I can use
Interesting, with information I may use
Interesting, but not applicable to my operation
Not interesting or inaccurate
Comments: