November 2008 Edition

IMTS WRAP-UP

IMTS Has Its Most Successful Show Since 2000

While it’s impossible to adequately cover all of the events and revelations that took place at the show, here are some of the highlights

Despite general economic uncertainty, the International Manufacturing Technology Show 2008 had its most successful show since 2000. Total registration for the six day event, which ran from September 8 through 13 at McCormick Place in Chicago, was 92,450. IMTS covered 1,233,878 ft² of exhibit space with 1,803 companies exhibiting.

Kennametal’s Cardoso: Productivity is Solution to U.S. Financial Woes

"I’ve had worse jobs than in manufacturing," Carlos Cardoso, chairman, president, and chief executive officer of Kennametal, Latrobe, PA, said during an interview at IMTS. He was referring to the trend away from blue-collar careers in the U.S., and the perceived need for all high school students to attend college rather than select careers in manufacturing.

While the current trend by politicians is to promise to increase jobs, Cardoso said that it isn’t a matter of increasing the number of jobs in the manufacturing area that will help solve the current financial downtrend, it is making the U.S. more productive that will drive the overall economy.

"Politicians should talk about raising productivity rather than increasing jobs," he said. "We’ll have to go through some hard times before people realize that America is the land of opportunity."

"The company [Kennametal] doesn’t chase cheap labor," he said, "but it does produce where it sells. There’s been growth in the North American market, but there has been faster growth in other countries." Kennametal has a presence in 60 countries.

"Much of the offshore work is coming back to the U.S. because of the weak dollar, less export credit in China, and the cost of transportation. We would like to have a balance where a third of Kennametal’s growth is in North America, a third in Europe, and a third in the rest of the world."

Cardoso said Kennametal introduces about 10,000 new products per year, but values its human resources as well as its product development.

"Kennametal spends about two percent of sales on personnel development," he said. "We try to retain and attract the best people possible."

Before attaining his current role with Kennametal, Cardoso served as the company’s vice president and chief operating officer where he was responsible for the company’s Metalworking Solutions and Services and Advanced Materials Solutions businesses, representing 90 percent of the company’s total revenue.

MT Connect Debuts with the Promise of Interoperability

MT Connect, the new standard promoting interoperability between controls, devices, and software applications by sharing data over networks using Internet protocol debuted at IMTS 2008. Created at UC Berkeley, the purpose of the standard is to let machines, and other systems, understand each other’s data. Near real-time data collection sharing increases efficiency and productivity.

At the Emerging Technology Center at IMTS, examples of how machines throughout the halls, from several different manufacturers, posted data to a computer was available to viewers. By touching the company logos, they could see what each machine was doing.

Several companies signed on to participate in MT Connect at the IMTS premiere, including MAG Industrial Automation Systems, Sterling Heights, MI, and Mazak Corp., Florence, KY. Both are members of the MT Connect Technical Advisory Group – MTCTAG – along with 15 other companies. More than 20 other companies are involved in this project.

MT Connect Version 1.0 is in the review stages by the MTCTAG and plans are for its adoption as an open standard by the fourth quarter of 2008.

The protocol will be rolled out in three phases:

• Phase One provides the connection between devices through CNCs and the capability of sharing data between them, allowing users to build an application that can interpret the information coming from a wide variety of devices. The application can query another, find out what type of tool it is, and what it is designed to do.
• In Phase Two, users will have the ability to write data that is being discovered and shared between devices. The host system would be "in charge" of sending out the queries between devices and monitoring what each is doing and what data each is collecting. This system will be able to control certain aspects of the CNC remotely.
• In Phase Three, there will no longer be a need to rely on a host system. Information will be shared, collected, and controlled across multiple devices, similar to how it is done in a USB hub. The CNC now becomes part of a network that is defined at the machine. This will let machine tool builders build entire applications on top of connection protocols that are already in place for nearly every conceivable type of device.

More information is available at www.mtconnect.org.

Art Meets Artisanship

United Grinding, Miamisburg, OH, auctioned off a unique Studer favoritCNC universal grinding machine at the show. Swiss artist Philipp Klopfenstein airbrushed a bald eagle and American flag design on the machine, which has a Fanuc 0i control with Studer Pictogramming software; a 20" OD wheel for more abrasive with easy change-over; a 12 hp wheel drive; and an MT4 tailstock and MT5 workhead with 16 millionths runout for extreme accuracy, chucked or between centers. It is suitable for one-off or light production runs.

Coopervision, Inc., Norfolk, VA, won the grinding machine with a bid of $173,100, of which $40,000 went to the National Institute for Metalworking Skills.

New Logo for Company Consolidation

Walter AG, Germany, completed its transition to a unified brand at IMTS. The three well-known competence brands Walter, Walter Titex, and Walter Prototyp now are combined under the umbrella of Walter. The company develops, produces, and markets precision tools for metal machining. It announced its new logo at the start of the show.