AGMA Gear Industry News

Greater demand for commercial aircraft helped U.S. businesses increase their orders for long-lasting manufactured goods in February, but a key category that tracks business investment plans slipped slightly.

Halliburton on Friday said it’s adding 2,000 U.S. jobs in the first quarter and ramping up activity faster than anticipated to try to match the surging oilfield activity, especially in West Texas.

Drillers added 21 oil rigs in the week to March 24, the biggest weekly increase since the week to Jan. 20, bringing the total count up to 652, up from a six-year low of 316 in May, energy services firm Baker Hughes Inc said last week.

Drilling applications and investments by oil and gas companies are surging in Colorado after crude prices partially rebounded from their collapse in recent years, pushing the industry deeper into residential communities largely unaccustomed to drilling.

Facing a widening skills gap, two years ago we made a Call for Action. A call for the robotics and automation community, the greater manufacturing sector, educators and policymakers, to step up their game in the quest to prepare our next generation of workers with the skills needed for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Last Thursday, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe announced $600,000 in competitive grants to 16 high schools and technical centers to upgrade equipment for their career and technical education (CTE) programs.

The global aerospace industry enjoyed a surge in aircraft orders in February, putting it on track for another record year of deliveries and boosting the UK economy. The number of commercial aircraft ordered by airlines jumped to 43 last month from just four in February 2016, according to ADS, the industry trade association.

Last week’s economic reports continued to reflect a global manufacturing sector that has trended in the right direction in recent months. This included a number of sentiment surveys, including one from the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank, which found that manufacturing activity expanded in March at its fastest rate since May 2011. The district saw robust gains in demand and output, and more importantly, business leaders were very upbeat in their outlook, with 63 percent of respondents expecting more production over the course of the next six months. Nonetheless, the Markit Flash U.S. Manufacturing PMI eased to its slowest growth rate since October. Despite the reduced headline number in March, the data continue to represent improvements since the autumn months, with firms optimistic about future output over the next 12 months. 

Gain a solid and fundamental understanding of gear geometry, types and arrangements, and design principles. Starting with the basic definitions of gears, conjugate motion, and the Laws of Gearing, learn the tools needed to understand the inter‐relation and coordinated motion operating within gear pairs and multi‐gear trains. Basic gear system design process and gear measurement and inspection techniques will also be explained. In addition, the fundamentals of understanding the step‐wise process of working through the iterative design process required to generate a gear pair will be reviewed. Learn the steps and issues involved in design refinement and some manufacturing considerations. An explanation of basic gear measurement techniques, how measurement equipment and test machines implement these techniques, and how to interpret the results from these basic measurements will also be covered.

Feast your eyes on the CH-53K King Stallion, the Marines new helicopter that'll cost as much as an F-35. This $122 million behemoth is capable of lifting 13.5 tons, carry a couple of dozen combat troops and can transport a Humvee. Expect to see them in the air as early as 2019.

There is movement afoot in the internet of things (IoT) space, and it’s going to change everything. This year, CES was laser focused on applications, highlighting intelligent voice interfaces in the vein of Amazon’s Echo/Alexa. We heard less about IoT and more about intelligent and connected products. This doesn’t mean that the IoT is done, it simply indicates that a broad category is getting even broader. More interestingly, the devices in the internet of things are getting smarter.

This course focuses the supporting elements of a gearbox that allow gears and bearings to do their jobs most efficiently. Learn about seals, lubrication, lubricants, housings, breathers and other details that go into designing gearbox systems. 

With the convergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) and comprehensive Predictive Maintenance (PdM) technologies, industrial plants and facilities can gain unprecedented insight into the health of critical machines — if the system is set up with the right data and metrics. With so many moving parts, that doesn’t necessarily come easily however.

Even before the official start to the Trump administration, A&D manufacturers began to see signs of a sea change in military spending. Both Trump and John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, announced plans to drastically increase the defense budget over the next several years. In November, Forbes claimed that the newly elected President was likely to increase overall military spending by as much as $1 trillion over ten years.

Toyota Motor Corp. is bringing its premium Lexus brand to India more than two decades after introducing the marque in China, an acknowledgment of the second-most populous country’s growing potential as a source of luxury demand.

A new Financial Times article reveals that the core technologies that China wants to lead the world in as part of its overarching Manufacturing 2025 initiative are coming under fire from other nations.

Emerson launched its additive manufacturing program three years ago, which allows engineers to make 3D objects from a digital model. The new Singapore center is Emerson's second location to have the capabilities, joining its additive technology center in Marshalltown, Iowa. The two additive centers will work on research and development for all of Emerson's businesses worldwide.

This publication has put together a series of "thought leadership articles" written by additive manufacturing experts and 3D printing industry insiders.

A new study from PwC estimates that 38 percent of U.S. jobs could be lost to automation in the next 15 years.

AGMA has a number of programs designed for management personnel to keep abreast of market conditions, learn corporate practices and most importantly to network with other gear industry professionals. In May, AGMA will host its Strategic Resources Network annual event in Tulsa, OK. This  group brings together new and upcoming gear industry professionals from within AGMA membership. The presentations for this event will be on workforce development, steel market report, a highlight of the energy industry in the area, and a focused discussion on 3D printed metals.