IMTS organizers point to North American manufacturing growth

North American manufacturing industry is showing growth. John B. Byrd III, president of AMT-The Association For Manufacturing Technology, says, "June’s machine tool orders put purchases of manufacturing technology equipment up nearly 32% from 2003.

By Control Engineering Staff August 26, 2004

North American manufacturing industry is showing growth. John B. Byrd III, president of AMT-The Association For Manufacturing Technology , says, “June’s machine tool orders put purchases of manufacturing technology equipment up nearly 32% from 2003. This, coupled with the addition of 91,000 manufacturing jobs in the first six months of this year, shows that U.S. manufacturing is coming back to life.” Machine tool orders are expected to continue to climb as manufacturers work hard to take advantage of the 50% Expensing Allowance that will expire on Dec. 31, IMTS noted; to be eligible to use the allowances, new equipment purchases must be in place before the end of 2004.

“Substantial numbers of preregistrations for the International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS)…, one of the industry’s biggest buying events, leads me to conclude that there will be even better news by year-end,” Byrd said. IMTS is held every even-numbered year in Chicago. IMTS 2004, to be held at McCormick Place, Sept. 8-15, 2004, will be among the largest industrial expositions inthe world and the largest of its type in the Americas, organizers say, including 100,000 attendees from more than 40 countries, and 1,200 exhibiting companies.

IMTS also includes a “Student Summit” to get young people interested in careers in manufacturing and engineering. For more information on that from IMTS, click here .

Products at IMTS are expected to include:

Modular rack system from Andantex USA promises to make zero-backlash rack & pinion linear axes more affordable, with a building-block system of racks, pinions, reducers and lubrication systems, enabling OEMs to inexpensively build an axis of any length, capable of carrying 100-100,000 lb of load. Also on exhibit are two-speed machine tool spindle drive gearboxes to extend the constant power speed range of spindle drive motors. IMTS Booth D4788.

ITW Workholding will feature Forkardt and Buck products . Acquisition of Forkardt added manual chucks, greater engineering and manufacturing capabilities in Europe, and special application workholding. ITW and Forkardt also make arbor, collet, and diaphragm chucks to complete the product lineup for many different grinding operations.IMTS Booth E2710

Kennametal will feature new coated inserts for turning high-temperature alloys , coated inserts for turning gray cast and ductile iron, octagonal insert face mills, indexable insert end mills, and carbide-tipped drills. Kennametal KSOM octagonal insert face mills double or triple productivity. IMTS Booth E2105.

Mapal ’s Head Fitting System (HFS) toolholders and polycrystalline diamond (PCD) tooling will be shown at IMTS. Mapal’s new HFS toolholders add face contact to a taper connection to reduce runout, improving tool life up to three times. The design improves concentricity and changeover accuracy to less than 3 microns. Mapal also recently announced an expansion of its Port Huron, MI, plant, to include adding 35 jobs and increasing capabilities in producing carbide round tools, PCD cutting tools, and various new reaming products. The new plant will employ 120 people after the expansion is completed. Plans include investing about $1.5 million in new equipment. IMTS Booth E2367.

Mazak Laser Corp . will show the new HyperGear laser cutting system with more than 20 patented intelligent features. Mazak will also demonstrate FG CAD/CAM software, used to program the FabriGear. The advanced, user-friendly software incorporates illustrated fill-in-the-blank screens to quickly generate NC code, performs dynamic nesting, and has over 70 preprogrammed cut conditions. Click here to read more on the HyperGear from Control Engineering . IMTS Booth N6230.

Rimtec Corp . introduces the ADS Servo-Insert coupling for CNC machines, said to replace standard bellows coupling at half the cost, for high torsional stiffness and vibration dampening. IMTS Booth D4587

For more on IMTS from Control Engineering , see:

Expectations high for IMTS 2004

IMTS 2004: Manufacturing technology innovations, Sept. 8-15

IMTS 2004 products: Baldor, GE Fanuc, Rexroth…

—Mark T. Hoske, editor-in-chief, Control Engineering, MHoske@cfemedia.com