Weekly Update 08/30/2007

August 30, 2007
NEWSLETTER SPONSOR Makino

Makino— a leading manufacturer of horizontal and vertical machining centers and EDM machines — has announced a new series of online Webinars. Designed for shops of all types and sizes, the seminars are free to anyone who registers. The planned seminars are intended for shops in the automotive, aerospace, medical product and die and mold industries. In addition to metal cutting and die/mold, the seminars will cover new technologies, such as micromachining. Mark Rentschler, marketing manager, says, "Online seminars allow anyone with an Internet connection to attend without losing a day of work." The seminars concentrate on shop efficiency, lean manufacturing, asset utilization, machine tool integration and automation, machine tool technologies, and metal cutting processes. Makino's application engineers, product managers and guest speakers will give presentations. Click here for more info on upcoming seminars and registration information.

In The News

12 How Many Axes Does Anybody Really Need? You could do a lot of damage very quickly with 13 axes on a machine tool but, are all of those axes necessary?
Trade Associations Fighting For Small-To Mid-Sized Companies The Tooling, Manufacturing & Technologies Association www.thetmta.com has seen its role more than double - it represented companies with 22,000 employees and now represents companies with more than 47,000 employees - in the last seven months. The association was founded in 1933 as the Michigan Tooling Association, but changed its name and direction early this year to attract a national member base and to gain more political clout, and it looks as if that strategy is working.
China Learns From The Past The U.S. Defense Department views China as a potential threat. In its most recent annual report on defense planning, the Defense Department notes that as China has grown economically it has spent more and more on military modernization. The report concludes that China is the only power that challenges U.S. interests in East Asia, particularly in Taiwan and the surrounding waters.
June Manufacturing Technology Consumption Up 5.1 percent U.S. manufacturing technology consumption for the month of June totaled $347.70 million, up 5.1 percent from May, and up 0.4 percent from the total of $346.47 million for June 2006, said the latest U.S. Manufacturing Technology Consumption report www.usmtc.com.
Shumate Industries to Buy Sunbelt Machine Works Shumate Industries Inc. www.shumateinc.com, a Texas-based energy field services company, will buy Sunbelt Machine Works Corp. www.sunbeltmachine.com , a privately-owned precision machine shop for $14.5 million. Completion of the acquisition is subject to several conditions including due diligence, board approval and financing.

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Upcoming Webcast Series

The CNC Best Kept Secrets Series of educational webcasts from GE Fanuc and American Machinist is designed to educate manufacturers on the often overlooked ways to prevent downtime, enhance the speed of machine tools, and improve part quality.

• Best Kept Secrets to Improving Part Quality -- September 12, 2007 2:00 PM ET

Click here for more information.

Practical Machinist Metalworking Forum

Robert A. Heinlein's Waldo Outsourcing surgery? Honda Unveils a No Pollution Car Putting energy sources in perspective. What Is a Livable Wage? A few thoughts.

AMERICAN MACHINIST DIGITAL EDITION

Now you can get the latest edition of American Machinist delivered directly to your PC. Click here to learn more about the digital edition.

Welding Webcast Series

Hot topics you need to hear about.

• Best Practices in Electrode Selection: Maximum Profit Starts With the Process - September 25, 2007 @ 2:00 PM ET

Click here to attend these free Webcasts.

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