Big Kaiser celebrates 30 years

© Big Kaiser | www.bigkaiser.com

Big Kaiser Precision Tooling Inc. is celebrating its 30^th anniversary. When the company began in 1990, most shops used boring tool technology from the 1950s, where tool changes were a costly and a time-consuming process. Big Kaiser’s sales team set out to take on the industry’s toughest problems and prove the efficiency and time savings of modular boring tools.

Now a member of Big Daishowa Group, Big Kaiser plays an integral role in the company’s worldwide R&D and manufacturing strategy. Big Kaiser develops and provides high-performance tool holders, boring heads, workholding, measuring instruments, and custom engineering support for machining companies.

 

Haas Multigrind LLC relocates US office

© Haas Multigrind | www.multigrind.com

Haas Multigrind LLC has relocated their US office from Indiana to Charlotte, North Carolina.

The 6,500ft² facility includes office, classroom, and conference space, a machine demonstration area, and spare parts warehouse.

"We are pleased that the new location will enable us to better serve our customers, with better proximity to a major airport and better access to talent to fill key positions within the organization," says Harry Schorner, General Manager of Haas Multigrind LLC.

 

 

Horn USA to move to new facility

Horn USA Inc. is moving to a new state-of-the-art facility during the third quarter of 2020. The new headquarters for North American operations is approximately 110,000ft² (10,220m²) and is located 0.5 miles (0.8km) from the company’s current location.

© Horn USA | www.hornusa.com

With the implementation of the new production area, once it reaches full capacity, Horn USA will be able to roughly triple the number of precision cutting tools that it manufactures in Franklin, TN. Future additions will allow for in-house coating as well as toolholder manufacturing. The new warehouse infrastructure will have the ability to immediately ramp up to 350 picked line items per hour.

With 44,600ft² (4,143m²) of production space, the facility holds an additional 27,000ft² (2,508m²) for future growth.

 

Schunk promotes Allan Logan to Vice President of Sales, Toolholding and Workholding

Schunk has promoted Allan Logan to Vice President of Sales, Toolholding and Workholding. Logan has more than 20 years of territory sales and team management experience in the metalworking industry. He started his career in account management for cutting tools and abrasives before holding various roles as sales engineer, aerospace industry specialist, and regional sales manager.

Since joining Schunk in 2018 as the Director of Sales for Eastern US, Logan has managed a group of regional sales managers across 20 states. His team has been responsible for incremental sales growth in the last two years. In his new role, Logan will drive and execute strategic channel and global focused product initiatives.

Platinum Tooling Technologies Inc., the exclusive North American importer of standard and custom live tools, angle heads, and multiple spindle tools manufactured by heimatec GmbH, has released a new catalog with an updated look and featuring their high-quality machine tool accessory lines. These include:

• heimatec GmbH – live tools, machining center angle heads
• Tecnicrafts Industries – collets & guide bushings for Swiss type CNC lathes
• Henninger GmbH u. Co. KG – mechanical, air & motor speeders, custom machining center angle heads
• Andreas Maier GmbH & Co. KG (AMF) – cleaning & marking tools

Platinum Tooling Technologies Inc. is located in Prospect Heights, Illinois, just outside of Chicago. They recently expanded their facility to provide increased inventory to better serve the marketplace.

Norman Noble, Inc., a family owned and operated medical device contract manufacturer, has begun improvements on a new 50,000ft² facility in Highland Heights, Ohio. The new facility will provide additional manufacturing space to meet medical OEM customers’ growing requirements for products, including nitinol-based structural heart implants and neurovascular devices as well as multileaf collimator (MLC) assemblies used in cancer radiation therapy equipment. The new facility is scheduled to be operational in Q4-2020.

“The additional facility is needed to support demand growth for next-gen products. The additional space will also provide our customers with production surge capacity. We are very excited to grow our facilities and expand our team of highly skilled associates as we continue to strengthen our partnerships with the world’s largest medical companies,” says Chris Noble, COO at Norman Noble.

Norman Noble manufactures medical devices and implants to customer specifications in compliance with FDA regulation 21 CFR part 820 and ISO 13485:2016. State-of-the-art processes include laser machining and welding, Swiss turning and milling, conventional and wire EDM, high-speed seven-axis contour milling, nitinol shape setting, and clean room assembly and packaging.

May 2020 U.S. cutting tool consumption totaled $136.6 million, according to the U.S. Cutting Tool Institute (USCTI) and the Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT). This total, as reported by companies participating in the Cutting Tool Market Report collaboration, was down 4.4% from April's $142.9 million and down 36% compared with the $213.4 million reported for May 2019. With a year-to-date total of $854.1 million, 2020 is down 18.8% when compared with May 2019.

“The cutting tool industry is doing its best to survive the effects of the forced pandemic recession that is resulting in a significant decline in shipments,” says Brad Lawton, Chairman of AMT’s Cutting Tool Product Group. “The questions are, when will we see recovery, in the third quarter or after the first week of November? And will we return to the sales volumes experienced in 2018 and 2019?  Whatever the answers, the financial effects will be with the industry for an extended period.”

“The cutting tool market in May continued to shrink from April but at a much slower pace. We are now starting to see some market segments begin to stabilize and those segments should start to recover slowly in the months ahead,” says Phil Kurtz, Vice President of Business Development of Dormer Pramet. “It is very possible April and May will represent the bottom of the cycle, but considering the volatility of the current market only time will tell.”