UMATI takes centre stage in Thailand

At the end of last month, 48 leading German companies from the machine tool and metalworking industries were guests at Metalex in Bangkok.

Metalex is the largest metalworking trade fair in the ASEAN region and, for the first time, Germany had been named a partner country. The German presentation focused on an industry exhibition and a joint stand, showcasing UMATI (universal machine tool interface). The ‘UMATI@Metalex’ special show featured three machines from DMG Mori, Heller and Trumpf, which were connected for live production at the event.
For further information https://vdw.de/en/

Intelligent solutions for tomorrow

At the recent EMO 2019 exhibition in Hanover, Tornos presented intelligent and interactive solutions that it says not only meet customer needs, but also anticipate them.

Beyond machines, Tornos offers production workflow solutions, including its Industry 4.0-enabling TISIS software, which allows programming and communicating directly with the machine. The user is guided intuitively to ensure optimal use of all available tools.
On Tornos’ stand, expert engineers and R&D team members demonstrated the range of possibilities offered by the intelligent software, which the company is constantly developing for connected production.
Additionally, Tornos was among 50 machine tool manufacturers from all over the world demonstrating at EMO how UMATI – universal machine tool interface – makes machine data usable. Today’s customers expect to integrate new machines into their own information technology (IT) ecosystems without any difficulty whatsoever.
The networking of machines, systems and software is one of the most important trends in manufacturing right now. Today’s customers expect to be able to integrate new machines into their own information technology (IT) ecosystems with no difficulty. UMATI does this easily, quickly and securely on the basis of the Open Platform Communications (OPC) Unified Architecture (UA) international interoperability standard.
For over two years, a team of various machine-tool manufacturers has been working on developing this uniform language for machine tools. Together with control manufacturers, the companies aimed at making it as user friendly as possible. Along with all other UMATI project participants, Tornos was connected to a central dashboard. Furthermore, 18 software and data evaluation service providers demonstrated how this information could be used to generate added value for customers.
For further information www.tornos.com

Assisting in quest for highest quality

NEMA Ltd, a manufacturer of motors, actuators and electromechanical assemblies, has invested in the latest Keyence IM series measurement system.
Andy Wilding, managing director at NEMA Ltd, says: “Aiming for, and indeed maintaining, the highest possible standards is an absolute necessity for us. We were committed to investing heavily in our inspection facilities, and had already identified areas where we felt improvements could be made.”

Companies involved in the aerospace industry face very stringent inspection requirements. These needs can be time consuming, putting a bottleneck on production, reducing productivity and, ultimately, costing money. In some cases, they may even provide a barrier to dealing with some of the larger tier-one companies.
With the IM series, more accurate measurements can be made and, in a short space of time, bottlenecks can be eliminated and costs reduced, says the company.
“With new equipment and a controlled environment, we felt the IM series was a key device for us to acquire,” continues Wilding. “In a nutshell: it matched our needs perfectly.”
The IM series image dimension measurement system was selected because of its range of specialist measurement tools, its built-in dimensional reporting feature and its speed of operation, among other criteria. These features all play a role in NEMA’s design, development and repair of electric motors and electro-mechanical assemblies. In addition, the image-measurement system allows NEMA personnel to measure more accurately than before.
“This Keyence device has proved essential to satisfy the needs of our varied customer base, which includes a number of tier-one aerospace companies,” concludes Wilding.
For further information www.keyence.co.uk

Creaform releases HandyScan AeroPack

The Creaform HandyScan AeroPack is a new 3D scanning solution suite that addresses the specific challenges of aircraft quality control, such as assessing damage from hailstorms or aircraft incidents, as well as flap and spoiler inspection. HandyScan AeroPack can also be used for reverse engineering, maintenance and repair operations, and designing hard-to-acquire spare parts. The suite is available in the UK from Measurement Solutions.

Creaform’s HandyScan AeroPack includes HandyScan 3D, a metrology-grade, portable 3D scanner designed to acquire accurate, repeatable and reliable measurements – even in difficult environments, such as aircraft hangers or shop floors, and with both complex surfaces and parts of all sizes. Also featured is SmartDent 3D, an aircraft surface inspection software for assessing aircraft flaps, spoilers and fuselage panels. VXinspect, a dimensional inspection software module for quality control workflows and inspection reports, and VXmodel, a post-treatment software module to finalise and further process 3D scan data in any CAD solution, complete the offer.
Simple and intuitive to use by operators of any skill level, HandyScan AeroPack makes quality control and reverse engineering processes efficient by reducing user impact on measurement results and accelerating the generation time for final reports or CAD designs.
HandyScan 3D is listed in the Airbus Technical Equipment Manual, and is part of Boeing’s Service Letter, meaning it can be used for recording the physical attributes of dents on all Boeing commercial aircraft.
“Aerospace is facing increasing challenges due to manufacturers’ accelerated innovation, stricter regulatory standards, heightened concerns for passenger safety, mounting costs of grounded aircraft and profitability targets,” explains Jérôme-Alexandre Lavoie, product manager at Creaform. “As the HandyScan AeroPack was developed with these challenges in mind, aircraft and MRO companies can now tackle them head on.”
For further information www.creaform3d.com

Disrupting the metal AM market

The AMRC has joined forces with a UK technology start-up and a global engineering giant in a transatlantic bid to disrupt the $3bn metal additive manufacture (AM) market by using AI and robotics to carry out the otherwise labour-intensive removal of support structures.

Project SALSA (Separation of Additive-Layer Supports by Automation) will see the development of a tool that will use robotics and machine vision to detect and remove supports from metal-additive parts. Led by Bristol-based Additive Automations, SALSA also involves Renishaw Canada, the National Research Council Canada (NRCC) and the AMRC.
For further information www.amrc.co.uk