JG Group from Poland were second time winners of the virtual category for their beautiful and highly creative model of a Hummingbird that attracted significant industry votes.

The first ever Mexican winner, SJ Tools wowed the market with a cutting tool that combined multiple features into a single tool where all features were finished with a very accurate surface finish. The complexity of the design was possible through ANCA’s flexible iGrind software that offers its users a myriad of advanced features. SJ Tools drill point was special with a roughing tip just below the drill point to carry out high speed drilling and chip management.

Into its fifth year, ANCA's industry first competition announced winners live at the international trade show IMTS in Chicago, IL earlier this month. The ‘Oscars’ of the Cutting Tool industry, participants and winners achieve important brand recognition with a reach of over two million across extensive media and social media coverage as well as money and other prizes.

Patrick Boland, co-founder at ANCA comments: “Every year I am delighted by the skill and creativity of our customers and how they apply the ANCA technology to design and manufacture market leading cutting tools. I think it is very important to recognize the amazing results we see across our industry and ANCA’s Tool of the Year is a chance to get together and celebrate our vibrant and innovative industry.”

JG Group won the virtual category with an excellent display of creativity and third runners up for the main ANCA Tool of the Year. The effort and creative thinking process coupled with intimate knowledge of the iGrind and the CIM3D software enabled them to design a life size model of the Hummingbird which was both beautiful and an impressive application of design.

Aleksandra Semeniuk, design manager at JG GROUP has been producing cutting tools as well as machine parts and tooling for industry since 2005. “The ANCA Tool of the Year competition inspires tool companies all around the world and brings a breath of fresh air to our daily work, stimulates creativity and allows us to break down barriers.”

No simple tool - SJ Tools takes the ANCA Tool of the Year major award Edwin Juarez, CEO of SJ Tools says: “In this very competitive world with the technology that exists in cutting tools, it’s a great achievement for me as well as the whole team that works at SJ Tools (designing, sharpening, grinding, machining area, polishing, honing, quality, purchases, sales and administration).”

“Our tool was designed for a customer which machines aluminium. With this tool we could eliminate five tools and machine it with one. The first and second operation performed was roughing and a chip breaker on the tip to break the chip, giving better output and avoiding obstructions. The third operation interpolates to create a pocket. In the fourth and fifth we made two internal slots in which we did roughing and finishing, also super polishing, and honing. At the same time, we managed to reduce cycle times, production cost and inventory cost.”

“There is no simple tool. That is why I want to highlight the engineering, design, and manufacturing team since they worked hard analyzing each of our client’s operations to be able to create this tool. The experience and dedication of each team member that works at SJ Tools leads us to these achievements. It was created by observing, analyzing and detecting the needs of our client, and thus be able to create this solution.”

Independent judge, John Saunders who is the president of Saunders Machine Works (SMW) and founder of YouTube channel NYC CNC says, “Congratulations to the winners! The application of both software and the ANCA grinding technology was truly remarkable. The complexity, detail, and quality of the tools was outstanding. Thank you to ANCA for inviting me to be part of the tool of the year competition and helping to share our passion for educating the manufacturing community about the precision and capabilities of CNC tool grinding.” 

The winner of #MadeonANCA receives $10,000 AUD worth of ANCA innovations for parts, accessories or software that fit your grinding needs and the winner of the most innovative virtual tool will receive the full CIM software package.

The competition was based on the passion and the craft of tool making and celebrated our highly skilled tool grinding community.

The top five finalist tools were judged on the following criteria:

The faster companies can implement such systems, the quicker they can add value to production processes.

Critical Manufacturing, a pioneer in future-ready, multi-site manufacturing execution systems (MES), announced its strategic partnership with Dataworks, a leading provider of innovative software solutions and validation services to the life sciences sector. The agreement will help ensure easier compliance and reduce the time and cost associated with validation within regulated industries, such as medical devices and life sciences.

Francisco Almada Lobo, chief executive officer and co-founder at Critical Manufacturing, says, “Dataworks’ focuses on the provision of transformational software solutions and validation services within the life science sector, and this partnership enables us to provide these services to our customer base. One of our aims will be to streamline and automate elements of the validation process, which will significantly reduce the challenges in terms of effort, time, and the risk of errors. Many medical device and life sciences companies are still carrying out manual validation processes, using paper-based scripts, screen shots and pdfs. However, regulatory bodies, such as the FDA, are encouraging companies to take a more automated approach using computer system assurance (CSA). We are in a strong position to support companies in achieving the huge benefits this has to offer.”

CSA is a risk-based approach that allows manufacturers to concentrate testing on areas that have the greatest impact on product quality and, ultimately, patient safety. The approach recognizes that commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) manufacturing software, such as MES, product lifecycle management (PLM), or quality control systems have a positive impact on health care cost outcomes and add benefits to users, vendors, and patients.

Almada Lobo continues, “The faster companies can implement such systems, the quicker they can add value to production processes. Our partnership with Dataworks will help facilitate this and, through the combined knowledge and expertise of our companies, will ensure customers are getting a solution that will deliver benefits today and into the future.”

Computer Software Assurance (CSA), as defined by regulatory authorities such as the FDA in the USA and EMA in Europe, requires end-to-end traceability between requirements and end-testing along with thorough execution of the tests themselves. Critical Manufacturing CSV ensures a smooth and automated validation process, which can be run automatically at any time and reduce the timeline of the validation phase from months to just a few days.

Liam Curham, CEO at Dataworks, says, “We are delighted to be partnering with Critical Manufacturing. Its solutions are designed and proven to take the life sciences industry to a new and more dynamic era. Dataworks core business is providing solutions that digitally transform how our clients work within the Life Science sector. We have a deep understanding of the processes in the medical device and pharmaceutical industries, and we know how to apply the right technologies. This leads to better outcomes for our customers, their team, and their patients. We also provide validation services as part of our core business, and this fits perfectly with Critical Manufacturing’s MES, which is focused on processes and requires validation once installation starts. Both our companies use Azure DevOps for development, and this means there are many opportunities for deep technical collaboration to enhance the automation of the validation process. This is an exciting time for both our businesses and the agreement will deliver enormous benefits to our customers. It fits with the direction in which regulatory bodies are pushing the industry to move, and a direction that makes complete sense in terms of the benefits it offers to all stakeholders.”

Be sure to attend this free webinar, October 20, 2022, 12 noon Eastern Time.

What: Richard Aboulafia examines the current aerospace market and what to expect as we head into 2023.

When: Oct 20, 2022 12:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Topics: “Supply constraints versus strong market demand, single-aisle jetliner strength and twin-aisle weakness, and the risk of defense crowding out commercial. Plenty to talk about, really!” – Richard Aboulafia

Presenter: Richard Aboulafia, fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, is managing director, AeroDynamic Advisory, of Ann Arbor Michigan.

Aboulafia is a widely respected aviation industry expert and contributor to Aerospace Manufacturing and Design’s annual forecast issue. He manages consulting projects in the commercial and military aircraft field and analyzes broader defense and aerospace trends.

He's advised numerous aerospace companies, including most prime and many second- and third-tier contractors in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. He also advises numerous financial institutions on aerospace market conditions.

Frequently cited as an aviation industry authority by trade and news publications, Aboulafia has appeared on numerous television news and radio programs including ABC, BBC, Bloomberg, Reuters, CBS, CNN, NBC, NPR, and PBS.

New orders of manufacturing technology grew in August 2022; Q4 shows it could be challenging.

New orders of manufacturing technology totaled $460.7 million in August 2022, according to the latest U.S. Manufacturing Technology Orders report published by AMT – The Association For Manufacturing Technology. August 2022 orders were up 16.3% from July 2022 but down 14.5% from August 2021. Total orders in 2022 reached $3.69 billion through August, a 5.3% increase over the first eight months of 2021.

“This is the first increase since March 2022 and the highest order level since April,” says Pat McGibbon, chief knowledge officer at AMT. “As we pointed out in the last release, July and August are typically slower, particularly in the months prior to IMTS in Chicago, the largest manufacturing technology show in the Americas. This increase in order activity was unexpected. While orders are returning to the typical seasonal patterns we expect, they are doing so at a very elevated level.

“Given the success of 2021, I would have expected it to take IMTS to bring the year-over-year numbers back to positive but finishing August over 5% above last year really bodes well for a stronger-than-expected end to the year,” McGibbon says. “From what I heard on the show floor, this year was maybe one of the best in over 40 years for selling machines right off the floor.

“Despite the positive signs, the last quarter of the year will present a challenge for the industry. Easing of supply chain pressures is not happening symmetrically. Inventories of durable goods components have been increasing steadily since September 2020, while certain supply bottlenecks are holding up the delivery of machines already ordered. We haven’t begun to see any significant increase in cancellations, but long lead times coupled with a potential economic slowdown could pose a threat to sustained order activity in the last quarter of 2022 and into the first half of 2023."

Scalable Robotics technology allows customers to easily program welding robots without any robotics experience.

ABB is entering into a strategic partnership with US-based startup Scalable Robotics, to enhance its portfolio of user-friendly robotic welding systems. Through 3D vision and embedded process understanding, the Scalable Robotics technology allows customers to easily program welding robots without the need for coding. ABB Technology Ventures (ATV), the venture capital unit of ABB, will be the lead investor in Scalable’s seed funding investment round. ABB did not disclose the level or the terms of the investment.

The investment is another milestone in ABB’s ecosystem strategy of partners who provide easy-to-use solutions for a variety of applications and industries.

“Businesses are looking to robotics to help build resilience, flexibility and efficiency in the face of global challenges including labor shortages, disrupted supply chains and uncertainty,” says Marc Segura, president, Robotics Division at ABB. “In the US alone, it’s estimated there’ll be a shortage of 400,000 welders by 2024. To tackle this, we need to aid the adoption of robots by providing technology that is simple to use and easy to program, enabling manufacturers to easily introduce automated solutions that can weld more parts in less time while minimizing scrap and maximizing quality.”

Scalable’s technology enhances ABB’s existing portfolio of no-code programming applications that help to remove the need for specialized programming knowledge. The Scalable platform allows a welder to teach a task to the robot by pointing to where the weld should be applied, with the robot learning the path on its own. The platform features a 3-D camera in a protective box attached to the robot end-of-arm tooling and uses a touchscreen interface to guide the welder through the scan, teach, validate and tuning steps. 

The welder teaches the robot the positions of the welds by clicking a handheld stylus to indicate the desired approach, path, and departure points of the weld. The platform automatically generates a weld path that is validated within RobotStudio, ABB’s leading simulation and programming software. The operator makes any final modifications before the robot auto-tunes the program and sends it to the robot controller so the weld can be performed.

“We founded Scalable Robotics on the premise that industrial robots are tools that should be available to enterprises of all sizes and levels of technical sophistication,” says Tom Fuhlbrigge, founder and CEO of Scalable Robotics. “Our novel human-robot interaction techniques enable people who know the arc welding process to intuitively show the robot what needs to be done with no robot experience required. We’re very excited to join forces with ABB – they are the ideal partner to help bring this technology to the market on a global scale.”