AGMA Gear Industry News

AGMA is excited to join the world of blogging to provide readers with an insight into the Gear Industry! We understand the manufacturing world is changing rapidly and there is information that will help members and nonmembers prepare for emerging technologies, innovation and automation that may or may not compete with business. Contact us should you have any questions regarding the blog or are interested in becoming a Guest Blogger!

The agricultural equipment maker earned $641.8 million, or $1.97 per share, for the period ended July 30. A year ago the Moline, Illinois-based company earned $488.8 million, or $1.55 per share.

AGMA will offer eight courses at Gear Expo that provide needed training for our industry. On Wednesday, October 25th from 8-10 am you can learn more about High Profile Contact Ration Gearing. This course, taught by Raymond J. Drago, allows you to get great information in the morning and free access to the show floor in the afternoon. This course is $295 for AGMA members before September 22. Register through the Gear Expo website.

Industrial robots may deal with a lot of ones and zeroes, but their programming may soon include Midwestern values as well, based on new mapping data from the Brookings Institute. The report, "Where the robots are,"shows that 29% of the 233, 305 industrial robots in America are being put to work in three states: Indiana (8.3%), Ohio (8.7%) and Michigan (12%).

The industrial robotics market is forecast to reach beyond $70 billion by 2023, according to a new report. The main drivers for the industrial robotics market are increasing investments for automation in various industries and the growing demand from small and medium-scale enterprises in developing countries. 

The manufacturing indicators that were released last week included industrial production for July and the New York and Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank manufacturing surveys for August. According to the Federal Reserve, total industrial production rose 0.2 percent from June to July. Compared to the previous year, the index rose 2.2 percent. Manufacturing production (about three-fourths of the total index) fell 0.1 percent from June and rose 1.2 percent from the previous year. Taking a deeper dive into the decline from June, while durable manufacturing fell 0.5 percent, nondurable manufacturing actually climbed 0.4 percent. Within durables, softness in motor vehicles and parts drove the decline. As shown in the graph above, total manufacturing excluding motor vehicles and parts rose 0.2 percent on the month, while durable manufacturing excluding motor vehicles and parts was about flat. Compared to July 2016, total manufacturing rose 1.2 percent; excluding motor vehicles and parts, the increase was 1.7 percent.

Learn to make use of steel properties in a system solution and understand the potential that different steel options can offer for their various applications. Explore how performance of the material and thus the component and system depends on how the steel is produced. 

Metal printing is getting cheaper and more efficient as time goes on. While most news stories talk about technologies or materials, Optomec’s newest revelation goes in a different direction. The company that developed the famous LENS production technique has just unveiled what it calls ‘recipes’. Recipes are time-saving tools that aid customers in faster application of additive manufacturing. They have provided recipes for their LENS method and the Aerosol Jet Printing of electronics.

The Association for Advancing Automation (A3) has revealed the results of its latest research on robotics and automation trends, sales, and growth. As expected, many records were set in the areas of robotics, machine vision, motion control and motor technology for the first half of 2017, says A3. 

Quality drives productivity and is now, more than ever, seen as an enabler for advanced manufacturing, rather than a cost that has to be endured," stated Ken Woodbine, president of the Metrology Software Division at Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence (North Kingstown, RI). He also stressed that a metrology process that simply reports measurements accurately may not be enough. Quality engineers must create measurement programs that give confidence that the part is meeting the measurement intent of the design and designer as well as the needs of the assembly the part is going into. The art of creating measurement programs is still commonly done as in the past, through highlighted mark-ups of 2D paper drawings or even informal discussions with on-site designers. But these are proving insufficient and even archaic in an increasingly global and complex supply chain.

In just 70 years, material handling in the automotive industry has gone through numerous transformations, going from assembly lines manned by individual workers, to assembly lines of modern material handling machines, robots, and knowledge workers. Thanks to that transformation in production, the total output of automotive manufacturers increased nearly 10 times over in the 35 years after World War II.

Markforged, a 3D printer manufacturer based in Boston, has just announced two new models — the X3 and the X5. Both of these printers are designed to create carbon fiber-infused objects using a standard filament printing system and both can produce items that can replace or are stronger than steel objects.

A team of researchers at Penn State led by Randall developed a new method for sintering that requires much less time and energy than the traditional method. Randall’s new approach is called cold sintering, and incorporates liquids into the process, which takes place at temperatures ranging from room temperature to 200 degrees Celsius.

The manufacturing sector has shown some growth over the past few years.  Since 2011, the sector has created jobs every year, a 6-year expansion that exceeds the 5-year expansion experienced 1994-1998, according to a new report from consulting firm Headlight Data. The report showed that the industry has created nearly 500,000 new jobs in the last 6 years.

(video) One of the more reassuring things about industrial robotic arms is that they tend to stay put. Well, not this one. Clearpath Robotics, a company that specializes in building mobile automatons, has strapped a Kuka robot arm to its omndirectional Ridgeback platform. The company hasn't said what sort of tasks the hybrid bot is meant for, but one could imagine it making itself useful in lots of different ways—even if the vision of a disembodied arm rolling its way toward you is a little bit disconcerting.

Things are looking up for wind power — way up. Wind is now competitive with fossil fuels in many areas of the world, while the rise of turbines to new heights figures to bring down costs even more.

Summer is the season for drilling, and with the uptick in the precious metals market since 2016, companies are finally able to have the budgets to properly explore their prospects, says Brien Lundin, editor of Gold Newsletter and organizer of the annual New Orleans Investment Conference. Positive results can mean a bump up in share prices, and Lundin discusses six companies that have been releasing good news this summer.

Intel might be sticking to the familiar Kaby Lake architecture for the eight generation of its Core chips, but the its internal testing looks pretty promising as far as performance goes. The company says the chips are capable of a 40-percent increase over their predecessors — and even more notable for those finally ready to upgrade an old system: about double the performance of a five year old device.

Four new onshore-projects with a combined rating of more than 84 megawatts (MW) will extend Siemens Gamesa’s fleet of direct-drive wind turbines with a further 27 units. Customer GETEC green energy AG has ordered nine SWT-3.2-113 wind turbines for the Energiepark Profen project located in Saxony-Anhalt. An additional five units of the same model will be installed at PNE WIND’s Bederkesa-Alfstedt wind power plant near Bremerhaven. 11 SWT-3.0-113 wind turbines will be installed at the Straubenhardt project in Baden-Württemberg developed by WIRSOL. Finally, two Siemens Gamesa direct drive wind turbines, one SWT-3.15-142 and one SWT-3.2-113 will be installed near the town of Vetschau in Brandenburg. The installation at the VentusVentures project marks the German debut of the company’s low-wind turbine with 142-meter rotor.