October 2019 U.S. cutting tool consumption totaled $216.1 million, according to the U.S. Cutting Tool Institute (USCTI) and AMT – The Association For Manufacturing Technology. This total was up 10.2% from September's $196 million and down 3.3% when compared with the $223.5 million reported for October 2018. With a year-to-date total of $2.1 billion, 2019 is down 0.1% when compared with 2018. Please note there were revisions to September 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, “The modest decline in the cutting tool market that was forecast by IHS and others seems to have come to fruition. However, it is heartening to see that October improved over the prior month. We are also seeing improvement in some other recent indicators, such as the recent manufacturing employment increase in November and some of the Federal Reserve Bank Regional Updates, as well as some anecdotal evidence of a stronger finish to 2019.”

“October’s cutting tool data was an increase over September’s result, but this largely reflects seasonality. October performance has only fallen below September once since 2012 (in 2016). Rather, October was the sixth consecutive month with a year-over-year decline, undoing a strong start to the year and bringing 2019 below 2018 on a cumulative year-to-date basis. This is consistent with PMI results which indicate weakness in manufacturing in general, and with slowing car sales and continuing issues with the Boeing 737. Automotive and aerospace are the two largest demanders of cutting tool products. It is encouraging that October’s decline was the smallest of the past three months and may indicate that a trough is nearing. Trade frictions appear to be easing, and Boeing is expected to increase production in the first quarter of 2020. It is premature to expect a resumption of growth, but 2020 looks to offer some improvement,” says Scott Hazelton, managing director of Economics & Country Risk at IHS Markit.

The custom AC/DC converter, designed by Bear Power Supplies for a U.S.-based medical equipment manufacturer, will have a universal input and multiple outputs to power the entire system, including a 175VDC output to drive a solenoid, a 4mA current output to power a sensor, and outputs to drive displays and indicators.

Bear won the contract to design the power supply as part of the customer’s system redesign and upgrade. In the process, the Bear engineering team identified several opportunities to improve the overall system by incorporating additional features into the power supply. For example, the power supply will incorporate a microcontroller (MCU) to replace a number of analog circuits in the system, simplify the control, reduce component count, and make the system more configurable.

“We have a well-deserved reputation for our ability to design and manufacture custom power supplies to meet the most unusual requirements that a medical device manufacturer can bring us,” says Michael Allen, president of Bear Power Supplies. “Our power design engineers also take the time to understand the customer’s system and solve problems that the customer didn’t think could be solved.”

Bear will do the circuit design and PCB layout for the open-frame custom medical power supply. It will be certified to IEC 60601 standards and be integrated into the customer’s equipment for use in clinical settings.

Bear expects to complete the power supply design and begin production at its upstate New York, USA electronics manufacturing facility in 2020.

VivaLNK received Class IIa medical device CE Mark for its multi-vital medical wearable sensor and software development kit (SDK).

At only 7.5g, the reusable patch is the smallest of its kind. Its reusability factor can increase the economic value of using the patch 10x or more compared to single use devices. The combination of a wearable sensor and an associated SDK enables any application developer to build medical wearable solutions without the need to become experts in hardware and sensor networks.

The multi-vital wearable sensor can generate a continuous stream of ECG rhythm, respiratory rate, heart rate, RR interval, and three-axis accelerometer. Based on VivaLNK's eSkin technology and patient-centric design, the sensor comes in the form of a small bandage sized patch designed to be user friendly, reusable, and well suited for both in-patient and remote patient monitoring (RPM) applications.

"The CE Mark is another major milestone in VivaLNK's pursuit of delivering advanced patient monitoring solutions to market. VivaLNK's unique electronic skin technology offers powerful technical capabilities without compromising user experience," says Jiang Li, CEO of VivaLNK. "Our aim is to accelerate medical application development by providing the sensor platform so that the industry can rapidly innovate novel solutions while at the same time making it more accessible to patients around the world."

The multi-vital sensor and SDK is part of VivaLNK's Medical Sensor Platform strategy which accelerates medical application innovation by decoupling the sensor hardware, data capture in remote locations, and cloud connectivity from the application so that healthcare solution developers can focus on the algorithms and analytics for their specific domain.

Applications powered by VivaLNK's Medical Sensor Platform include:

• Chemotherapy remote patient monitoring
• Clinical trial remote patient monitoring
• Cardiac arrhythmia monitoring
• Patient infection monitoring
• Hypertension stress management
• Heart failure event detection
  

Xometry has acquired Munich, Germany-based Shift, the largest on-demand manufacturing marketplace in Europe. Through the acquisition, Xometry will accelerate its international expansion into 12 new countries, leveraging a worldwide network of more than 4,000 manufacturers.

“Global expansion is a key step for us,” says Xometry CEO Randy Altschuler. “Many of our customers, like BMW and Bosch, have a global presence and we can serve more of their needs with a global network. Our AI-driven algorithms and intelligent sourcing platform give us a competitive advantage as we expand across new geographies and manufacturing technologies.” 

“We are thrilled to join the Xometry team,” says Albert Belousov, Shift co-founder and managing director of Xometry Europe. “Our customers and suppliers will benefit from us joining forces with Xometry.”

Dmitry Kafidov, Shift co-founder and managing director of Xometry Europe, agreed, saying, “We’re eager to leverage Xometry’s technology to continue to scale our business in Europe. We look forward to providing our customers additional manufacturing capabilities, including additive manufacturing and injection molding.”

Shift co-founder and head of technology for Xometry Europe Alexander Belskiy notes, “There are huge opportunities in enabling Xometry’s Instant Quote Engine and other product features in the European market.”

Shift has built the largest on-demand manufacturing network in Europe and a customer base that includes some of the leading manufacturing companies in Europe. Shift will operate as Xometry Europe and continue to be headquartered in Munich, Germany.

Shift’s lead investors include Cherry Ventures who will become investors in Xometry. Christian Meermann, founding partner, Cherry Ventures states, “The custom manufacturing industry is a massive global market of over $100 billion. We’re excited for Shift to utilize Xometry’s industry-leading technology as well as leverage the global manufacturing expertise from other Xometry investors, including BMW i Ventures and Robert Bosch Venture Capital.”

Xometry has raised $118 million since it was founded in 2013. During the past two years, the company has grown from 100 employees to more than 300 while more than doubling revenue each year.