Americanmachinist 2955 83691doosansnew00000055701
Americanmachinist 2955 83691doosansnew00000055701
Americanmachinist 2955 83691doosansnew00000055701
Americanmachinist 2955 83691doosansnew00000055701
Americanmachinist 2955 83691doosansnew00000055701

News

Jan. 23, 2009
Starting at 8,700 sq.-ft, Doosan’s new Medical Engineering Center in Memphis has expansion room to 20,000 sq-ft. Doosan Infracore has opened a new technical center in Memphis, focusing specifically on the medical market. The ...
Starting at 8,700 sq.-ft, Doosan’s new Medical Engineering Center in Memphis has expansion room to 20,000 sq-ft.

Doosan Infracore has opened a new technical center in Memphis, focusing specifically on the medical market.

The center is third in a series of such facilities, Steven Lesnewich, president of Doosan Infracore Machine Tools, said. The others are an aerospace center in Orange County, Calif., and an energy and petroleum center in Houston.

The Memphis Medical Engineering Center is 8,700 sq.-ft and, at its ribboncutting in early December, housed five machines: a vertical machining center; a horizontal machining center; a turning center rigged with a robotic arm for parts loading/handling; Y-axis turning center; and a mill-turn machining center.

Located in a business park at the edge of Memphis International Airport, the site was selected based on Doosan’s existing distribution hub in Memphis as well as the number of major medical-market clients in close proximity, said David Nelms, manager of the center and a veteran of the medical machining market since 1987.

Nelms said the ultimate value of the center will go far beyond helping clients to engineer production solutions for medical parts and equipment.

“Our niche is going to be in the validation” that is required by an ever-increasing set of federal regulations governing the manufacture of medical parts.

“The government has put the burden of validation on the manufacturer. What we’re looking to do is take some of that burden and bring it in-house. We will develop the product engineering, tooling and fixturing, and get into the installation validation, process validation, machine validation and sell it as a turnkey package,” Nelms said.

The value will be realized in both time and money, he noted. Depending on a wide range of variables, it’s not unusual for a medical manufacturer to spend 3- to 5 times the cost of a new machine on the validations required to put it into production.

While manufacturers will still have to be closely involved in any such project, the timesavings can be meaningful. As for cost ramifications, the validation process is usually handled as an add-on expense after technology is selected. But if bundled with the cost of the machine, it can become part of the amortized cost of a project.

Peter Loetzner, CEO of Emag.

Peter Loetzner has taken over the position of C.E.O. at Emag LLC in Farmington Hills, Mich. He comes to the position after his role as executive vice president and plant manager at Gortz Schiele Corp., a tier one supplier.

Springfield Manufacturing LLC of Clover, S.C., has opened a new manufacturing facility in Houston, Texas, to support offload manufacturing from regional industrial gas turbine OEMs.

The company has recently proven out a machining process to clear and clean holes for a Houston OEM on industrial gas turbine blades after the thermal barrier coat and bond coats have been re-applied, yielding optimal airflow.

As part of its operation, Springfield Manufacturing incorporated WJ-156X and W-155 multiple-axis abrasive waterjet systems from Huffman Corp. The systems produce high quality, burr and dust free machining with no heat affected zones for cutting, drilling, milling, hole clearing, non-FIC crack cleaning, and complete stripping and coatings removal (thermal barrier coat and bond) in any direction for complex shapes in the more exotic metals, superalloys and composites. The shop’s waterjet process is a model of single piece flow, lean manufacturing principles and an environmentally friendly green process.

MFG.com, a global online marketplace for the manufacturing community, has announced that a continued focus on the company’s core business has attributed to record growth in revenue, buyer activity, RFQ volume, supplier subscriptions and other key performance benchmarks for the company.

Year-to-year MFG.com highlights from Q4 2007 to Q3 2008 include:

A record 52,000 sourcing events for direct materials with an annualized value of over $7 billion was sourced on the platform — resulting in a 65 percent increase in the value of award to MFG.com supplier members.

On average, buyers using MFG. com reduced spending on direct materials by an estimated 18 percent, equating to savings of $1.2 billion annually.

MFG.com’s supplier member base has increased by 28 percent. Supplier members now represent 43 countries, giving buyers the ability to do business with even more qualified suppliers around the globe.

Supplier member membership renewals increased 36 percent.

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