The proverb “time is money” applies to almost every profession today, but especially to manufacturing, and certainly to CNC machining. Lights-out facilities are becoming more prevalent, and the importance of active controls with automated feedback is growing, too.

Craig Kuchta, the new Fischer representative and technical adviser for this office, has more than 20 years of technical instrumentation sales and support of products by manufacturers such as Siemens, Honeywell and Wika.

Industrial computed tomography has been a buzz-worthy technology for several years, and NDT experts know it’s a valuable tool for inspecting the complex internal geometries of 3D-printed parts, or for finding porosity in both additively and traditionally manufactured parts.

Regular tensile testing is important for checking rigid plastics through the entire manufacturing cycle, from the raw material to the forming process and ultimately the production part.

The organizations involved in the Additive Manufacturing Center of Excellence will focus on bridging standards development with R&D. 

Deciding whether to perform inspections in-house or to hire contract service providers is not solely a question of upfront investment versus long-term need. For some suppliers, a third-party contract service can also provide assurance that parts have been inspected and approved by an unbiased party.

The Metrology Solutions Expo is focused 100% on metrology technologies, instruments, systems and automation engineering in industrial manufacturing applications, making it the only trade show of its kind in the southeast.

IMTS bringing technology partners to demonstrate advances in additive manufacturing.

I offered some comments that relate to gaging problems in the last column but thought it would be worth giving measuring instruments the same treatment.

Flexural strength testing has become increasingly important for plastics—especially composite and carbon fiber-reinforced plastics—as structural parts in the aerospace industry are made from these newer materials.