MTI Systems, Inc. (West Springfield, MA) announced earlier this year that McNally Industries, LLC (Greenwood Village, CO) has selected the company’s Costimator cost-estimating software in order to better streamline their cost-estimating process, increase estimating speed, and enhance the accuracy of their quotations.

McNally Industries is a full-service manufacturer that provides product design, testing and build-to-print manufacturing services. The company serves a wide variety of organizations and industries, but is perhaps best known for its work with the U.S. Department of Defense. McNally Industries is also the world’s largest prime contractor for hydro-mechanical and electro-mechanical systems – producing complex, precision-machined components for critical defense and aerospace applications.

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“Prior to implementing Costimator, most of our estimates were based on experience and excel spreadsheets,” says Nick Phernetton, the business development and estimating manager at McNally Industries. “That led to inconsistencies with the estimates, themselves, resulting in bogging down the whole quoting process. When you’re in an industry like ours where opportunities come and go very quickly and you’re constantly rushing to meet deadlines, it just isn’t efficient. We missed out on a lot of RFQs that could have been great fits for our company. Now with Costimator, we can produce our quotes with far greater speed, accuracy and consistency than we did before. It’s a total process improvement.”

Costimator estimating software was originally was designed to serve as a platform to make cost-estimating more effective for part suppliers, including those who do machining, fabricating and assembly. The program helps manufacturers, quickly and accurately, estimate cycle times and determines the manufacturing cost for parts and assemblies – based on the capabilities of their equipment and their shop rates. Today, the software is also being used by many of the world’s largest OEMs in a wide variety of industries including defense, aerospace, medical, heavy equipment, automotive and consumer product.

The Costimator database provides real-world manufacturing information that users can reference and work from. This makes estimating, quoting, and creating cost models faster while also ensuring that cost estimates are more consistent and accurate. The tool also enables companies to add, modify and update their own data, resulting in a faster, more streamlined process helping to meet their future growth needs.

MTI Systems offers cost-estimating, quoting and process planning software and services for the manufacturing industry – providing solutions for suppliers and OEM’s. Costimator has been implemented at over 1,300 companies worldwide resulting with over 10,000 trained users since its inception in 1982.

MTI Systems, Inc., 59 Interstate Drive, West Springfield, Massachusetts, 01089, 800-644-4318, Fax: 413-739-9250, info@mtisystems.com, www.mtisystems.com.

Custom engineered, high-throughput wet processing systems that can be tailored to customer requirements for electropolishing, sharpening, and deburring are manufactured by Technic Inc. (Pawtucket,RI).

Technic Electropolishing Systems feature single point graphical machine operation and monitoring of process parameters from a touch screen and provide precise and repeatable electropolishing, sharpening, and deburring. Custom engineered with robotic parts feeding technologies, fixtures, tanks, tooling, and controls to meet specific user requirements, these modular systems are ideal for work cells and lean manufacturing environments. These systems are priced from $95,000 up, depending upon configuration.

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Suitable for stainless steels, Monel^®, Hastelloy^®, titanium and related metals, Technic Electropolishing Systems are capable of processing parts from millimeters up to 20 in square and provide superior part-to-part uniformity over batch methods with better throughput. Typical applications include medical devices such as catheters, scalpels, saws, and screens.

Technic Inc., 55 Maryland Avenue, Pawtucket,RI 02860, 401-728-7081, Fax: 401-722-1720, sraifman@technic.com, www.technic.com.

Automobile industry supplier Georg Fischer Automotive (Altenmarkt, Austria) has deployed an innovative version of a highly productive resistance spot welding process to weld joins on the door frames of the Porsche Panamera. Delta Spot has allowed the car-making specialists at GFA’s Austrian plant to overcome the cost/efficiency barriers and technical quality limitations that had always held back the use of conventional spot-welding for joining aluminium.

The history of Georg Fischer goes all the way back to 1802. Right from the firm’s earliest days, metal castings were one of its core competences. This global-playing enterprise has long been known as a pioneering user of innovative technologies. With 12 production locations and a worldwide workforce of 5,500 employees, GF Automotive posted 2010 revenues of 1.12 billion euros. The Altenmarkt plant has been part of the company since 1999 and specializes in structural components such as strut brackets and doors for the ‘body-in-white’ stage.

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Around 600 people are employed in Altenmarkt, benefiting the company with their R&D expertise and widely acclaimed know-how in pressure die-casting, especially of aluminium and magnesium. At the heart of the process is a solution from Fronius International (Pettenbach, Austria) that is based on spooling process tapes. The users at GFA report here on the objectives, the history, the special features and the benefits of their project, and on the prospects it holds out.

BACKGROUND TO THE DECISION
A 2 mm thick aluminium stiffening plate must be joined onto the approximately 3 mm thick frames of the four die-cast aluminium doors of the Porsche Panamera. This stiffening plate is made of an aluminium alloy. Alois Edtbauer, a toolmaker and foundryman who now works as a specialist buyer for foundry equipment and materials that GFA uses in Altenmarkt, explains the main outlines of the project.

“In order to explore our production engineering options, we looked at a number of joining processes to determine their suitability and cost efficiency,” reports Edtbauer. Wolfgang Hintsteiner, the engineer in charge of coatings who is also responsible for the Porsche Panamera doors, adds, “The choice boiled down to conventional resistance spot welding, friction-stir welding, clinching, punch riveting with solid rivets and an adhesive bonding technique combined with a spot-welding process. Then we heard about DeltaSpot, a special resistance spot-welding process that was said to be particularly good at joining aluminium. We got more information about it from the developers at Fronius, and included DeltaSpot in our selection process as well.”

After the first test results, conventional resistance spot welding, riveting, bonding and clinching were all ruled out for production-economic or process-engineering reasons, leaving only two remaining alternatives: friction-stir welding or resistance spot welding with DeltaSpot. The defining feature of this process is a spooling ‘process tape’ that prevents direct contact between the electrode and the workpiece, but mediates this contact indirectly instead.

DELTASPOT: FUNCTIONAL PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICAL UTILITY
A process tape is spooled between the electrode and the workpiece, in the same rhythm as the spot-welding operations. Instead of alloying onto a fixed electrode, the aluminium now alloys onto this tape, which is spooled forward after every spot-weld so that the ‘used’ length of process tape is moved out of the contact zone each time. This means that for every single weld-spot, exactly the same defined conditions apply.

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The process tapes prevent any direct contact between the electrode and the workpiece, protecting both of them from soiling, alloying or other workpiece-induced influences. This stabilises the weld process and greatly prolongs the electrode service life. They also improve the contact situation and avoid damaging the surface of the workpiece. The process tape helps to prevent surface spatter, and widens the process window.

Growing from a one room machining shop to an 180,000 sq ft facility that provides full-service fabrication, machining and welding capabilities doesn’t happen overnight. But in the case of Square Deal Machining, it happened faster than one would expect. According to general manager Carl Baatz, the company was poised for growth at the time of being purchased by the current owner, Joe Morgan, in 1998.

Since then, it has expanded year over year, primarily in response to the company’s keen ability to anticipate the needs of the marketplace and its responsiveness to the demands of its heavy equipment customers. And it’s grown its customer base strictly by word of mouth. Located in upstate New York, the company is committed to sustaining its growth and better serving its customers by regularly investing in both its employees and its equipment.

From training welding operators in-house and seeking out grants for education courses, to researching and purchasing the latest technologies, the shop continually finds ways to make its operations run more efficiently. The company focuses on carbon steel work, citing it as the best niche for its capabilities, and engages its employees in initiatives designed to make its operations more flexible and more capable of producing quality products. “We’ve gotten to the point of such versatility here that there really isn’t anything we can’t do with a piece of metal,” smiles Baatz. “Apart from the finishing, we do it all.”

In order to support the company’s continuous improvement goals, Baatz and the employees have become actively involved in implementing quick response manufacturing (QRM) initiatives in recent years. The manual and robotic welding cells it maintains have especially benefited from the strategy. In addition to reorganizing welding cells and employing ongoing maintenance routines for equipment, the company has also replaced its solid welding wire with metal-cored wire as part of its QRM initiatives.

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First alerted to the benefits of metal-cored wire technology by a customer, Baatz contacted his distributor, Tom Caminiti, owner of Endweld Supply Corp. in Johnson City, NY, to trial Hobart Brothers Metalloy^® 76 metal-cored wire on the company’s manual cells. According to Baatz, the results were significant enough to implement the wire in the majority of the company’s manual cells and also its six robotic cells; a decision that has resulted in measurable productivity increases, quality improvements and cost reductions.

REFINING OPERATIONS FOR CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
Adhering to QRM principles, Square Deal Machining carefully forecasts every aspect of its business — from material purchasing to manpower — according to its customers’ estimated demands, typically forecasting three weeks in advance. Baatz says it also involves its employees with brainstorming new ideas to improve operations. “We work one department at a time and have stand-up meetings to talk about changes that need to be made throughout our facility,” notes Baatz. “The results have been tremendous. I think our busyness has come from what we’ve been able to do as a team to make this company leaner.”

Metal punching may seem like a straightforward process with limited uses. In reality, however, it’s a sophisticated process suitable for a wide variety of applications.

To explore whether and how to incorporate metal punching into your next project, this primer will outline the various functions of perforated metals, the impact of punching on a metal’s properties and the difficulties of punching for a non-expert.

FUNCTIONS OF PERFORATED METALS
Among many versatile benefits, metal perforation as created by punching helps contain radiation, perform acoustic functions such as filtering or absorbing specific frequencies and separate an area for privacy and security. While a variety of options are available for applications involving filtration, ventilation, diffusion, sorting and containment, perforated metals offer much more in terms of design options. Additionally, perforated metals, compared to expanded metals or wire cloth, can be produced with fewer secondary operations and at lower costs.

Punching different hole designs in sheets of metal shifts the form and function of the metal and can allow it to perform several important functions simultaneously. For example, a microwave oven door has a perforated metal sheet that protects the user from harmful microwaves while allowing you to look inside.

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Industrial perforators continue to advance the applications of these materials. Newer applications include the filtration and purification of air, water and gases; separation of solids; lighting effects; weight reduction; and architectural and product elements. The continuing growth of perforated metals would suggest that these applications are only the beginning.

HOW DIFFERENT HOLE SHAPES AND PATTERNS AFFECT STRENGTH AND STIFFNESS
Once the desired function of perforated metal is determined, it’s time to look at your best hole punching option.

First, you’ll need to determine the hole type. The three most common are round, square and slot. Round holes, which are the most versatile and can be produced the most efficiently and at the lowest cost of the three options, account for over 80 percent of production in the perforation industry, with sizes ranging from .02 in to over 6 in.

Square holes are often used in grills or guard applications on appliances. These holes offer a lot of open area, or the total hole area of the sheet, which allows for higher visibility while still providing protection and aesthetics. However, square holes are weaker than round ones, as their sharp corners are easily broken and worn.

Slot holes, which are best suited for sorting and grading solid objects, are also commonly used in ventilation systems or in decorative functions.

Next, you must determine the optimal size and pattern for your application. Hole diameter should never be less than the thickness of the material. If this happens, this can lead to tool failure, part unreliability and increases in production costs.

The strongest perforation patterns are the 60-degree staggered and the 45-degree staggered. The strongest pattern all around is round holes arranged in a standard 60-degree  triangular pattern ranging from .02 inch to 6 inches. The 60-degree staggered pattern accounts for over 50 percent of the perforating industry’s production.

An ironworker can be an important and versatile machine in a metal fabrication shop. Ironworking is quite often the first step in the manufacturing process, and one ironworker can typically provide enough fabricated material to keep up to seven welders or assemblers busy.

Since its invention in the late 1800s, the ironworker’s main strength has been its ability to perform a variety of operations. For example, it can punch a range of materials with punches of various sizes and shapes; it can shear rod, flat bar, angle and channel; it can notch angle iron, pipe, channel and flat bar. That’s not all. Many ironworkers are available with special tooling to bend, stamp and form, too. But as versatile as the ironworker is, however, it is possible to purchase the wrong machine – or at least not the best machine – for your specific application. When investing in an ironworker, you must examine several important factors to insure that you purchase the correct equipment: its capacity, versatility, safety features, and quality.

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DETERMINING CAPACITY
The material thickness you process will indicate what size of ironworker you require. An ironworker punches material ranging from light gauge sheet metal to plate as thick as 1¼ in. Ironworkers are typically rated by tonnage at the punch station. A 50 ton ironworker should punch a 1¼ in hole in ½ in material; a 60 ton machine should punch a one inch hole in ¾ in material; an 80 ton machine should punch a one inch hole in one inch material; and a 150 ton machine should punch a one inch hole in one inch material (see Figure 1).

The first step, then, is to determine the maximum material thickness so you can establish the tonnage range needed for your punching application. Examine the steel rack and the products that you are fabricating. Determine the maximum hole diameter to be punched, the maximum thickness of the material to be punched, and the maximum thickness and width of the channel, angle, and rod to be sheared or bent.

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The material or part width plays a part in your equipment selection. The throat depth of an ironworker punch station should be greater than half of the part or material width. Material length, however, really is not an issue since an ironworker can process almost any material or part length. Because many different types of steel and ranges of hardness in mild steel exist, it is advisable to get a machine that is at least 20 percent larger than you think your everyday use requires. This cushion will help you avoid getting a machine that is too small. Most machines are rated for material with tensile strengths between 60,000 lb and 65,000 lb.

Many mild steels have tensile strengths between 50,000 lb and 70,000 lb or higher, and your machine may not have the power to punch the material at the higher end of the hardness values. When punching hard steel (such as stainless steel) it is better to increase the estimated tonnage by 50 percent, depending on the grade of steel.

At a time when manufacturers are looking for new ways to diversify and compete against global competition, K-zell Metals, Inc. (Phoenix, AZ) has been proactive in anticipating changes in the market through process improvement. This specialty fabrication and contract manufacturing business was started in 1986 by Don Kammerzell, a metallurgical engineer with more than 40 years of experience in steel fabrication.

“About ten years ago we started getting involved in military work and rapidly noticed that our business model was changing from being the traditional job shop into a contract manufacturing facility,” recalls Kammerzel. “As we looked at the work that was out there, we saw that there was a need for more precise assemblies in the work that we were doing. We found that if we combined a laser, CNC press brakes and a robotic welding cell, we could be much more competitive in the marketplace. The combined precision of the laser and CNC press brakes allowed us to fixture our parts properly, so robotic welding made a lot of sense.”

Through the addition of two PerformArc™ pre-engineered robotic weld cells from Miller Electric (Appleton, WI), K-zell was able to substantially increase productivity by more than 20 percent, reduce set-up time and find new efficiencies in its welding processes — even on relatively short production runs. A modular design allowed each system to be quickly dropped into the flow of the shop floor, and features such as offline programming have helped the company quickly take on new work with minimal start-up time.

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IMPLEMENTING A ROBOTIC WELDING CELL
As Kammerzell puts it, “I’m really not afraid of too many metals.” K-zell’s global customer base requires the shop floor to be well versed in everything from mild steels and HSLAs to stainless and aluminum – the company also does a sizable amount of fabrication with silicon bronze. Much of the work put through its robotic cells involves components for military and commercial products, ranging from basic mild carbon steel to 4130 chrome-moly.

Run sizes range as high as 4,000 to 5,000 parts. Precision is critical, as many of the parts being fabricated are sub-assemblies that must fit perfectly into larger structures. In selecting a robotic welding solution, the shop needed a system suitable for varying run sizes that could be programmed quickly and efficiently, and could also handle varying thicknesses and types of alloys.

The two PerformArc cells currently at work in the plant are the PA 1100 FW cell and the PA 550 HW cell using advanced 350-amp TAWERS™ robotic welding systems from Panasonic. (Note: Miller and Panasonic Welding Systems Co., Ltd. entered into a strategic partnership in 2010 to form a new business unit within Miller – Miller Welding Automation – designed to deliver complete automated welding systems to market).

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“What we really discovered was that there was a cost advantage to selecting a pre-engineered system because it was already done,” explains Kammerzell. “We didn’t need someone to go out and find all of the components and put the cell together. And no matter what we looked at, this was the fastest way to get us in the business.”

Kawasaki (Maryville, MO) encourages motorcycle enthusiasts to “let the good times roll,” but good times of another sort are rolling at the company’s Maryville small engine plant, where two 5-axis scanning probe systems are slashing CMM inspection and probe calibration times, and speeding up quality control feedback for machining of small engine components.

The 5-axis REVO systems from Renishaw Inc. (Hoffman Estates, IL) are installed on Crysta-Apex 121210 coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) from Mitutoyo (Aurora, IL) that replaced two PH10 articulating heads using SP25 scanning probes on traditional 3-axis CMMs. The REVO-equipped CMMs have cut inspection times by half or more on scanning intensive applications. They have also eliminated the need for custom probe configurations, cut probe calibration times from six-seven hours down to about 45 minutes, and improved part quality by adding new capabilities to collect large amounts of form measurement data.

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Of primary importance is how the REVO systems have greatly increased inspection throughput, data quality and flexibility of the QC department, enhancing its value as a strategic support asset to both manufacturing and R&D.

THE KAWASAKI PRODUCTION SYSTEM
Opened in 1989, the 800,000 sq ft Maryville plant produces single and twin-cylinder air-cooled or water-cooled engines that are 1000 cc or smaller for commercial and consumer lawnmower OEMs, as well as for a sister plant that manufactures ATVs and Mule™ utility vehicles. Operations at Maryville include aluminum die-casting, plastic injection molding and extensive amounts of machining, painting and assembly. All of the approximately 500,000 engines produced per year are run-off before shipping.

“We use the Kawasaki Production System (KPS),” says J.C. Watts, the quality control technical group supervisor at the Maryville plant. “Our quality and engineering requirements are comparable to the best in the automotive industry, though our manufacturing is focused on lower volumes of many different kinds of products.”

The plant has 50 machining lines that are typically arranged in a U-cell pattern, with start and end machines across from each other. “Primarily this is one-piece production, with machining lines running a part through multiple processes at a high rate,” explains Watts. Kawasaki utilizes automation in many die cast and some machining operations, accomplished through the integration of Kawasaki robots. On one of the crankcase lines, robots load raw materials and unload finished parts that are placed into inventory for assembly to draw upon. Machined parts include aluminum, cast iron and steel.

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“We’re running similar tolerances that an automotive powertrain uses for high-end products. There are probably four or five critical processes for our aluminum parts and 15 for the steel parts,” adds Watts. It is not uncommon to find tolerances “in single digits in microns” for form, and 0.05 mm true position.

The QC lab is responsible for inspecting 125 different mass-produced parts, as well as vendor parts and those produced for engineering development. The environmentally-controlled lab is located adjacent to the machining lines and parts intended for routine inspection are delivered on carts or via train (an electric vehicle towing several trolley carts). Critical components may be hand delivered for priority inspection during a line changeover or if an operator suspects a problem.

5-AXIS SCANNING ADVANTAGE
“When I started here we had a couple of 3-axis CMMs with PH10 articulating heads and SP25 probes, and another CMM with a fixed probe head,” recalls Watts. “We were frustrated with having to make probe configurations and being limited to what we could do even with the articulated heads. We had so many different probe configurations that calibration times of six to seven hours took a bite out of our inspection throughput, too. We wanted to do better than what the industry considered the norm, so we looked at several options and this 5-axis REVO system appeared to be the fastest and most flexible available. It was the best fit for our requirements.”

Kawasaki bought a new Crysta-Apex 121210 in 2009 with the REVO system installed from the factory, then retrofitted an identical machine in 2010 after the first machine was up and running with all the part programs. The REVO 5-axis scanning probe head can collect up to 6000 data points/sec. It is engineered for high-speed precision measurement of contoured surfaces and complex geometries requiring high-volume data collection to validate fit and form with high accuracy.

The system uses two rotary axes, one in the vertical plane and one in the horizontal, for infinite rotation and positioning. Five-axis software drives the measuring head and synchronizes its motion with the linear axes of the CMM. Look-ahead algorithms drive the probe path and CMM in coordinated continuous motion. The head adapts position while measuring on the move, maintaining stylus tip contact with changing contours at scanning speeds of up to 500 mm/sec.

Most U.S. shops take the quality and reliability of their electric power for granted, though some regions have inescapable power fluctuations and outages. Operating CNC machine tools in such an area spotlights how well a machine control handles a power hiccup: Can the CNC recover quickly or does it forget what planet it’s on?

Jerry Gilara, the director of continuous improvement, and his maintenance team at Helac Corporation (Enumclaw, WA) knew the answer for an older workhorse vertical turning center the company relied on. Built in 1998, the VTC from MAG (Erlanger, KY) was critical to shop production, but experienced significant downtime with every power hiccup. “This is a rock-solid, very capable machine, but its older CNC and DC drives/motors were an Achilles heel,” notes Gilara. “We’ve always been pleased with the machine, so we had MAG retrofit a new Fanuc CNC and AC digital axis drives/motors and spindle. The retrofit transformed the machine, making it utterly reliable and giving us other advantages because of the widespread use of Fanuc controls in our shop.”

Helac’s main product line is helical hydraulic rotary actuators, a clever device that translates linear piston movement into rotary motion. Extremely compact, the Helac actuator produces high torque with high load bearing capacity, making it ideal as a positioner or steering component for mobile construction equipment, forklifts, aerial platforms, utility vehicles, agricultural equipment, marine applications, etc. The actuators provide swing, steering, head rotation, articulation and similar capabilities, with drift-free, brakeless positioning, and protection from overload conditions. The device is covered by many patents and has been adapted and sized for numerous applications.

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Gilara says a significant percentage of the shop’s parts pass across that 36 in, fixed height, 2-axis VTC. The machine tool does heavy metal removal on the tube-shaped housings used for many actuator models, utilizing a 3-pallet pool of queued work to stay in production during much of the plant’s 80+ hour workweek. Several hundred different part numbers are involved, made of DOM tubing and alloy steel weighing 60 lb to 500 lb. The tube style parts have welded steel flanges on each end and some have off-center plates on the sides.

“We mount these on an angle plate that has half-rounds to locate off the OD of the tube,” explains Gilara. “We bore the part completely in one shot from the top, with tolerances of 0.001 in. Then we face two parallel surfaces so that everything is concentric. We do all the machining from one end, using a 250 lb boring bar with a CAT 60 taper, which is a primary reason we purchased this machine. We have a backup machine for this work, but that machine tool is what caused us to purchase this MAG unit in the first place. When our primary machine is down, we’re quite unhappy, because parts aren’t moving through production.”

With power quality often in question due to wind conditions in this region of the state, the machine control often lost its memory during brief power outages. “Every time the power hiccupped the control would lose memory, even with an outage of just a minute, and it could take a day or two to reload all of the programs,” recalls Gilara. “If it happened on second shift when no maintenance people were available, the machine might sit idle until morning before someone could work on it. The CNC hardware and DC drives had become liabilities, too.”

The shop discussed a retrofit of the CNC and the drives/motors with MAG in 2009 and the new hardware – a Fanuc 0iTD CNC, AC spindle, servo drives and motors – was installed in 2010. MAG uses pre-engineered, modular retrofit packages with pre-built panels. This modular approach allows economical retrofit of just the CNC, or the CNC with servos, spindle drive and motors – at different times, if needed, to spread out the budgeting.

“Our power quality issues have become non-issues since the retrofit,” smiles Gilara. “We went through an entire winter without a problem. And the similarity of the Fanuc control to others in our shop has given us advantages in programming and training. We can now post process to a Fanuc file like the rest of the machines in our plant. And operators that are familiar with other machines in our plant can migrate to this machine with less training. The faster data handling of the new control also yields improvements in finish. Given this machine’s workhorse capability, accuracy and repeatability, the retrofit has definitely proved to be a cost effective investment.”

During his research for the retrofit, Gilara noted that MAG provides pre-engineered retrofit kits for many models of its legacy brand VTLs, HBMs, lathes, HMCs, VTCs and 5-axis machines, utilizing Fanuc, Fagor and Siemens control solutions.

MAG IAS, LLC, 3940 Olympic Boulevard, Erlanger, KY 41018, (859) 534-4526, www.mag-ias.com.

As diode technology has improved in recent years, light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have been getting increasing attention as a source of residential and commercial lighting. Small wonder, since compared to traditional incandescent lighting, these new lighting sources can provide the same amount of illumination using as little as 10 percent to 15 percent of the power. This huge reduction in energy consumption means big savings for consumers and, perhaps more importantly, big reductions in the amount of fossil fuel used to generate that power.

None of this is news to one lighting manufacturer who has pioneered many residential and commercial LED lighting applications and has set itself the task of leading what it calls “the LED lighting revolution” that is aimed at making traditional energy-intensive lighting technologies obsolete.

One of its more significant initiatives in this area has been a line of LED architectural lighting products that incorporate breakthroughs in optical, electronic and mechanical design, as well as thermal management, allowing optimal distribution of light with minimal power consumption. The goal, ultimately, is to replace the miles and miles of overhead lighting in office buildings, schools, hospitals and retail structures with energy efficient LEDs.

It’s a bold move, but as the potential impact of products like this become increasingly clear, a growing number of suppliers are seeking to establish themselves as players in this arena. One other manufacturer realized that in order to maintain its leadership position in this young market, it had to get its new lighting product to market quickly. Essential to that aim was getting the required prototype parts, and that help came from the 3-Dimensional Services Group (Rochester Hills, MI).

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The 3-Dimensional Services Group consists of 3-Dimensional Services, Urgent Plastic Services and Urgent Design & Manufacturing (UDM) that specialize in design, engineering and analysis, in-house tool construction and complete build of prototype first-off parts and low-to-medium volume production runs 50 percent to 70 percent faster than conventional prototype shops by making large process capacities available in injection molding and casting, stamping, machining, robotic and manual welding, laser cutting and welding, waterjet, hydroforming, tube bending, vibration welding, casting and pattern fabrication, RIM tooling, rapid prototyping and assembly operations.