AGMA Gear Industry News

Forbes
Two years ago, Ethan Escowitz was tinkering with new technology in his Berkley, Calif., garage that might enable carbon fiber composites to replace metals more easily in mass manufacturing.

America Makes
America Makes has announced five awardees of its Directed Project Opportunity for Advanced Tools for Rapid Qualification (ATRQ) funded by the Department of Defense (DoD), Office of the Secretary of Defense, Manufacturing and Industrial Base Policy Office (OSD/MIBP) through the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). The ATRQ Directed Project Opportunity seeks to promote and accelerate the development and deployment of innovative, cost effective and energy-efficient AM technologies with the objective of meeting defense and/or commercial needs.

Machine Metrics will be in the AGMA Emerging Technology Pavilion at our trade show this October, this June 13th webinar may be of interest to AGMA members: Fastenal Manufacturing has grown from a small job shop to an 8 plant operation. This growth has made it increasingly necessary to embrace data-driven strategy. To accomplish this, they partnered with an AWS Partner MachineMetrics, an IIoT machine monitoring and predictive analytics platform, to gain greater visibility into its own production and embark on their digital manufacturing transformation.

Engineer LIVE
Commonly recognized for its bulging eyes and triangular head, the praying mantis is often portrayed as a motionless predatory insect. Here, Graham Mackrell, managing director of gear manufactuer Harmonic Drive UK, explains how the insect is inspiring design engineers when creating the next generation of robots.

AGMA
Explore gear failure analysis in this hands‐on seminar where students not only see slides of failed gears but can hold and examine those same field samples close up. Experience the use of microscope and take your own contact pattern from field samples.  

Railway Gazette
Wabtec has purchased an H2 binder jet printer from GE Additive that is to be used to 3D print components for the group’s locomotive, transit, engine and mining products.

Forbes
This week, Xometry, an intermediary for quick turnaround parts, raised $50M from Dell, BMW and GE, among others. It’s a leader in the emerging field of Manufacturing-as-a-Service (MaaS). Other providers also raised capital in the last two months include 3D Hubs (18M) and Fictiv ($33M). It’s clear; the sector is hotter than ever.

WRAL Tech Wire
E-N-G Mobile Systems, a California-based company, will build a manufacturing facility and create 60 jobs at a new facility in Fayetteville, N.C.. E-N-G builds specialized vehicles, including ones designed for electronic news gathering as well as mobile labs, incident command and control, and utility services. The company will invest $2.3 million in the facility, which will be its first on the East Coast.

3D Printing Industry
Siemens, Europe’s largest industrial manufacturing company, has introduced Sinumerik ONE, a digital native CNC controller with software to create a digital twin. This enables machine manufacturers to create complete virtualization of their development and machine processes.

Industry Week
In about a year, Volkswagen AG may catch up to Tesla Inc.’s capacity to make electric cars. The world’s biggest automaker said it is building two plants in China to produce a total of 600,000 vehicles on a dedicated battery-car platform, dubbed MEB. 

Automation World
Even more than the technology itself, a teir-one automotive supplier found how important it was to have a responsive automation supplier when trying to build a new plant in Indiana — and reduce machine control costs by 25%.

AJC
Hitachi Automotive Systems America, a major supplier of powertrain and steering components for global automakers, plans a $100 million expansion of its factory in Walton County, Ga.