Advanced Manufacturing Now

Chris Cagle of the South Bay Workforce Investment Board in Hawthorne, Calif., explains what his organization does, how the apprenticeship program works, and why such programs are so important. He enumerates employee and student benefits. And he speaks about his organization's work with SME to develop and register the first aerospace engineering apprenticeship occupation in the U.S.

Smart Manufacturing magazine Editor in Chief Brett Brune interviews Daniel Martinez, a member of the aerospace vertical market team at Siemens Industry USA, at the AeroDef show in California. Martinez talks about how Siemens adapted its CNC strategy to recent changes in the machining of aerospace/defense parts, as well as to additive manufacturing in aerospace. He also addresses the recent partnership between Siemens and Comau, and Italian robotics company.

Smart Manufacturing magazine Editor in Chief Brett Brune speaks with Suhner's Lee Coleman about high-volume machining and how the growth of composites in the market has impacted the Suhner tool strategy. (The company has worked in single-layer materials, such as SMC, CRFP, fiberglass and plastic, for years, but it has had to redesign & develop components/spindles to work in the STACK/complex materials market.) Among the challenges: Abrasive dust, a corrosive environment and, in aerospace, very dissimilar stacks. The Swiss company developed the STACKmaster in part to provide commercial aviation with small, lightweight and powerful units to drill these new complex stack materials. Coleman showed the new product at AeroDef in Long Beach, Calif., in March.

Smart Manufacturing magazine Editor in Chief Brett Brune asks EMAG USA CEO Peter Loetzner about new drivers in his company's A&D business model. The two discuss the trend toward more cell manufacturing. Loetzner talks about lessons he learned in his automotive career that have application in A&D—and explains why blisk manufacturing and power generation are EMAG'S sweet spots in A&D. He also details how Industry 4.0 is benefitting smaller manufacturers. And he provides insight about supply chain issues EMAG is taking on.

Smart Manufacturing magazine Editor in Chief Brett Brune speaks with Jon Jay of Ingersoll Rand Power Tools on how aerospace manufacturers can use digital data to understand and address quality risks in assembly processes. The pair discusses how the Ingersoll Rand QXN tools help aerospace manufacturers improve the quality of their output, make assembly operations more efficient and reliable—and save money. Jay also provides a before-and-after scenario about an aerospace manufacturer that replaced a traditional pen & paper approach to gathering data with a digital approach.

Amanda Pedersen, News Editor of MD+DI (Medical Device and Diagnostic Industry) and Qmed, discusses the trends and technology in the medical industry, such as artificial intelligence, surgical robots and virtual reality, and the opportunities and challenges associated with them. She also talks about UBM's presence at three co-located events in Boston on April 18-19: the Embedded Systems Conference, BIOMEDevice Boston and Design & Manufacturing New England.

Suzanne Deffree, a brand director at UBM and its Advanced Manufacturing Group, discusses the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence and their impact on engineering and manufacturing jobs. She also talks about UBM's presence at three co-located events in Boston on April 18-19: the Embedded Systems Conference, BIOMEDevice Boston and Design & Manufacturing New England.

Diego Tamburini, principal industry lead for Azure Manufacturing, talks with Patrick Waurzyniak, senior editor of Manufacturing Engineering magazine, about the cloud and why manufacturing companies need to embrace it. In the cloud manufacturers can host their IT environments, run applications from CAD/CAE/PLM/ERP/MES, etc., develop their own applications, and much more. Tamburini and Waurzyniak also discuss IaaS, PaaS, SaaS and how they are different, security concerns, and how Microsoft fits into the world of the cloud.

Hod Lipson, co-author with Melba Kurman of the book "Driverless: Intelligent Cars and the Road Ahead," asserts that AV technology is going to change things for everyone, in all business and sectors. "It's a tsunami heading our way." And, says the Columbia University professor of engineering and data science, "deep learning" software is so good at understanding and perception that it far surpasses humans. "It can see in the dark, in the rain. It can see not with two eyes but with 20 eyes. It is part of the reason robots will be able to handle a larger variety of tasks because they won't need to confine themselves to just one type of component. They'll be able to package different objects with different shapes and sizes without being programmed in advance.

Adam and Pam Genei talk to SME's Chris Mahar at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. They own Mobsteel, a design/build company that manufactures automotive aftermarket products and builds custom cars, and Detroit Steel Wheel Co., the manufacturer of the original Smoothie Wheel. They realized their biggest challenge was making a product domestically.