June 2020 U.S. cutting tool consumption totaled $150.6 million, according to the U.S. Cutting Tool Institute (USCTI) and AMT – The Association For Manufacturing Technology. This total, as reported by companies participating in the Cutting Tool Market Report collaboration, was up 10.1% from May's $136.8 million and down 24.6% when compared with the $199.7 million reported for June 2019. With a year-to-date total of $1 billion, 2020 is down 19.7% when compared with June 2019.

These numbers and all data in this report are based on the totals reported by the companies participating in the CTMR program. The totals here represent the majority of the U.S. market for cutting tools.

According to Bret Tayne, president of USCTI, “Consistent with recent reports on other industrial activity, the cutting tool industry rebounded somewhat in June. We still have a long way to go to return to activity levels that preceded the pandemic shutdown, but we appear to be headed in the right direction.”

Costikyan Jarvis, president of Jarvis Cutting Tools, adds:

The June figures of the Cutting Tool Market Report provide some hope that the worst of the contraction is behind us. With all the challenges that we faced, having a June number that is both a 10% improvement over May and a 5% improvement over April is a good sign. We should also take comfort that some of the initial July indicators show continued growth. The reduction, and the latest estimate of the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow is a 20.5% growth.

In this recession, both automotive and commercial aerospace industries, the two largest users of cutting tools, stopped producing for many weeks. In previous recessions, production has never gone down to zero; the implications of this are not yet understood. These industries have supply chains that are international and complex, and it is unclear if their supply chains have fully recovered. In addition to a drop in demand, customers are also talking about seeing significant de-inventorying in the supply chain. It will take several more months for everyone to understand both the shape of the recovery and how these industries adjust to the post-COVID world.

In an effort to increase production of respiratory care products in the fight against COVID-19, Crank Software teamed with Ventec LifeSystems to enable rapid design improvements to the VOCSN critical care ventilator. Crank Software’s Storyboard embedded graphical user interface (GUI) development platform made it easy for Ventec to add additional functionality to the ventilator’s touchscreen and support a partnership with General Motors to deliver 30,000 critical care ventilators to the U.S. National Stockpile.

Storyboard’s rapid prototyping and design tools helped Ventec update the GUI in less than 30 days to provide software with preset ventilation functions to better serve the needs of frontline medical professionals fighting COVID-19.

© Ventec | www.venteclife.com

A Crank customer since 2013, Ventec relies on the Storyboard GUI design platform for its advanced respiratory systems. Storyboard software powers all of the graphics and critically sensitive touch buttons and presets launched on the screen of the 18-pound VOCSN Multi-Function Ventilator. The mobile device combines five therapies – ventilator, oxygen concentrator, cough assist, suction pump, and nebulizer – into one machine.

“We continue to rely on Crank because it makes it easy to update the user interface. We’re constantly innovating, and Storyboard lets us tweak graphics and optimize animations with great ease, with little to no impact on our product development cycles,” says Michael Holmes, senior software engineer at Ventec Life Systems. “In fact, our users often comment on how much they like the touch screen interface and how quick and easy it is to set up.”

“We’re proud that Storyboard performed a critical role in helping our customer rapidly change their GUI design, ensuring it could be operated with great ease and increasing accuracy,” says Brian Edmond, president of Crank Software. “Securing approval for medical devices is no easy feat, and that generally means many stakeholders and multiple rounds of changes. We designed Storyboard specifically to facilitate the design iteration process, so that our customers can get their user interface designs approved more quickly, and with less headache.”

An enhanced version of the ApolloBVM designed by Rice University engineers has received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as an emergency resuscitator for use during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The device, as further developed by the Houston manufacturer Stewart & Stevenson Healthcare Technologies LLC, a subsidiary of Kirby Corporation, is designed to deliver air to the lungs of adult patients who require ventilation while they await the availability of a full ventilator.

The manufactured version, dubbed Apollo ABVM, is a sturdy and portable system the company believes can be rapidly deployed in emergencies during the EUA period.

Open-source plans for Rice’s ApolloBVM remain online and available to the maker community. The plans have been downloaded by nearly 3,000 registered participants in 115 countries.

© Stewart & Stevenson

“The COVID-19 pandemic pushed staff, students, and clinical partners to complete a novel design for the ApolloBVM in the weeks following the initial local cases,” says Maria Oden, a professor of bioengineering at Rice and director of the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen (OEDK). “We are thrilled that the device has received FDA EUA.”

Development began in 2018 when a Houston emergency physician, Rohith Malya, brought his idea for a bag valve mask automation device to students at the OEDK at Rice’s Brown School of Engineering. The students designed and built a device that would squeeze a standard bag for hours on end, potentially saving lives.

A video produced by Rice as the students neared graduation in 2019 caught the attention of health professionals around the world last March, spurring a Rice team of staff engineers and one student, along with Malya, to revisit the “Take A Breather” device.

Working around the clock for weeks, the small team, alone in the OEDK during the initial pandemic lockdown, toughened the device and added safety features for use in a medical setting, a process continued by Stewart & Stevenson, which licensed ApolloBVM in April.

“The FDA authorization represents an important milestone achievement for the Apollo ABVM program,” says Joe Reniers, president of Kirby Distribution and Services. “We can now commence manufacturing and distribution of this low-cost device to the front lines, providing health care professionals with a sturdy and portable ventilation device for patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Several manufacturing sites supported the effort, including manufacturing plants in Oklahoma City and Houston. “It is a testimony to the flexibility of our people and our manufacturing facilities that we are able to readily utilize operations to support COVID-19 related needs,” Reniers says.

The ExOne Company has launched ExOne Scout, a secure Industry 4.0 app that provides real-time machine monitoring and analysis of production 3D printers on a wide range of digital devices, including smart phones and watches.

Now available for download in the Apple App Store and on Google Play, the Scout app is part of a feature-rich web-based program that can deliver push notifications to smart devices about job status, printhead speed, fluid levels, temperature, humidity, and other actionable manufacturing data. 

Scout is currently designed for use with two ExOne production 3D printers enabled by Siemens MindSphere, an Internet-of-Things operating system with multilayered security:

• S-Max Pro sand 3D printer, used for the production of sand molds and cores for metalcasting parts in the aerospace, automotive, agricultural, defense, and other industries
• X1 160Pro metal 3D printer, currently in production and slated to begin shipping to industrial customers by year-end

Users will now be able to connect these MindSphere-powered 3D printers to Scout in order to simplify machine monitoring, receive real-time insights and benefit from enhanced quality assurance and analysis. 

“ExOne Scout is an important step forward as we work to deliver on our vision for smart and sustainable 3D printing technology at production volumes,” says John Hartner, ExOne CEO. “We plan to surround our high-speed binder jet 3D printers with a complete end-to-end digital workflow in the future. While our 3D printers remain the centerpiece, we’re looking to streamline the entire sequence of digital manufacturing around our systems with automation, software and remote monitoring and controls. ExOne Scout is a step toward delivering a complete digital manufacturing package.”

Future Scout releases are slated to enable layer monitoring and analysis by camera, as well as other artificial intelligence and analysis features.