AGMA Gear Industry News

The US vehicle technologies supplier Dana Incorporated is acquiring the power transmission and fluid power businesses of the Italian Brevini Group in a deal that values the group at €325m, including the assumption of about €100m of debt. Dana plans initially to buy an 80 percent share in the Brevini businesses, with an option to acquire the remaining 20 percent by 2020.

Reserve your space in the first AGMA advanced engineering course of 2017. Gear Materials will take place February 22-24 at the Sheraton Sand Key Resort in Clearwater Beach, FL. The hotel deadline is this Thursday. Learn what is required for the design of an optimum gear set and the importance of the coordinated effort of the gear design engineer, the gear metallurgist, and the bearing system engineer. Investigate gear‐related problems, failures and improved processing procedures.

Okuma showcases IIoT-enabled technologies, a large welding machine is getting developed for lightweighting R&D, and other industry news.

Big companies such as Rexnord and Carrier are closing down plants in this Rust Belt state and moving their factories to Mexico. But in some corners, including this rural patch of the state’s northeast, manufacturing is growing. In a nondescript building set among the icy cornfields of Columbia City, Brian Emerick, the CEO and owner of Micropulse, employs 306 people who make millions of dollars worth of specialized medical equipment such as orthopedic implants and the surgical tools used to install them. That’s up from the 190 he employed five years ago.

Iver Anderson and Emma White, metallurgists at Ames Laboratory, like to show off samples of metal powders encapsulated in custom-made hourglasses to visitors. Dull gray, the powders are barely remarkable in and of themselves, let alone in comparison to each other. Until the hourglasses are flipped, and observers can compare how the powders flow through the narrow necks of glass. The powder created by traditional manufacturing methods doesn’t, exactly. It starts and trickles and stops. It needs shaking and manipulating to get through. The other powder, produced at the laboratory’s high-pressure gas atomization facility, pulses smoothly through the hourglass of its own accord.

As mounting political opposition whittled back Trump’s tariff to 10 percent, attention also turned to a comprehensive economic plan crafted by Republican members of the U.S. House. The GOP package includes a "border adjustability" provision under which companies that import foreign-produced goods—whether they have an overseas factory or not – would no longer be able to deduct the cost of those goods. And in a bid to spur more U.S. exports, a tandem provision would eliminate the current tax on companies that sell their goods to foreign customers.

Defence IQ recently conducted a wide spanning survey on the Additive Manufacturing Defence, Aerospace and Space Industry to explore what has changed in the last 12 months and what the future holds. They have presented their findings in an infographic.

Fundamentals of Gear Design and Analysis is one of the two new AGMA face-to-face courses. This course will be held April 19-21 at the Omni Severin Hotel in Indianapolis, IN. Seats are filling fast. Gain an understanding of the information contained within a typical gear inspection report and the contents and meaning of the information contained within the gear charts, as well as the techniques used by the gear measurement system to assess gear quality.  Exploration of basic gear measurement techniques, how measurement equipment and test machines implement these techniques, and how to interpret the results from these basic measurements what corrective actions may be considered if the quality of a particular gear is unsatisfactory.

When an engineering student couldn't find the 3D parts he needed for a project, he turned to making them himself, building the foundations of a metal printer that could revolutionize the manufacturing process. Metal printing isn't actually new but machines in existence use powdered metal that is melted with an electron or laser beam. 

From retail goods to medical implants and even food, 3D printing technology promises to change the way we think about everyday things. It’s difficult to predict what impact it will have on manufacturing but, whatever the precise effects, they are likely to be deep and permanent.

There has been a lot of discussion recently on what the worker of tomorrow will be all about. What will be the most marketable skill sets? What will define their worldview and influence their motivations? What traits will a working person need to possess to thrive in the next iteration of the working world?  

The world’s largest e-commerce retailer said it employed 45,000 robots in some 20 fulfillment centers. Than’s a cool 50 percent increase from last year’s holiday season, when the company had some 30,000 robots working alongside 230,000 humans.

Manufacturing Business Technology

The U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) has announced this week  a new advisory committee that will focus on automation across a number of transportation modes including everything from autonomous drones, self-driving cars, trucks and buses. The committee includes members of government and professional experts from private industry. The committee will meet for the first time this week to begin work on crucial issues around the development and deployment of autonomous vehicles.

As we say goodbye to 2016, it’s almost required, as analysts, that we put together an outlook for the year to come. For the internet of things (IoT), 2017 will be another year of growth—and potentially some contraction. IoT is still in its infancy in terms of dollars and deployments, and that can’t last much longer, before market frustration sets in. 2016 was a foundational year for IoT, and 2017 must become the year where we focus on real deployment and monetization of IoT systems, including both software and hardware. 

Honeywell and Aereon announced that they will collaborate on solutions to help industrial customers boost the safety, efficiency and reliability of their operations by leveraging Honeywell's Industrial Internet of Things ecosystem.

With a successful start in California training veterans for skilled manufacturing jobs, Workshops for Warriors sets its sights on expansion across the nation.

The aerospace sector has always been at the forefront of technological change, and now it is spearheading a change that worries many: a shift towards automated manufacturing. But will this, as many fear, signal a reduction in jobs, or is it an opportunity to redefine manufacturing skills for the new century.

GKN Aerospace  has gained a 3-year contract extension worth more than $175 million, covering the technical product support, maintenance and parts supply for the Gripen RM12 engines used in Sweden, Hungary, Czech Republic and Thailand. The performance based logistics (PBL) agreement with the Swedish Defense Materiel Administration (FMV) extends the company’s existing work on this program until 2020.