Hot Off the Press
January Machine-Tool Consumption Up 11.3 Percent
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
January 2006 U.S. machine-tool consumption totaled $225.94 million, according to AMTDA, the American Machine Tool Distributors’ Association, and AMT--The Association For Manufacturing Technology. This total was down 31.9 percent from December 2005 but up 11.3 percent from the total of $202.94 million reported for January 2005. “This signals another promising year of continued momentum within the U.S. manufacturing economy, as companies continue to recognize the benefits of investing in new machine-tool technology to improve productivity,” says John J. Healy, AMTDA President. “Although parts of the Midwest continue to experience the struggles of the automotive industry and the South continues to deal with the aftereffects of Katrina, many U.S. regions have shown strong double-digit growth spurred by aerospace, defense, energy and medical-manufacturing activity.”
New PVD-Coating Center Opens in Houston
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Balzers, Inc., Elgin, IL, has opened a new 16,000-sq.ft. coating center in Houston, TX. The facility applies coatings--standard coatings like titanium nitride as well as advanced high-performance coatings and pre- and post-treatment processes—to cutting, forming and molding tools and precision components. The Houston facility is the fourth Balzers center to open in the past 12 months--other locations opened in Bakersfield, CA, Nashville, TN, and Toronto, Ontario. It will service the South Central region, which includes Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana, catering primarily to the cutting-tool Industry as well as other markets such as stamping, die casting and molding. Learn more at
www.bus.balzers.com.
Ultra Tech Machinery Adds Midwest Representative
Monday, March 13, 2006
Ultra Tech Machinery, Inc., Cuyahoga Falls, OH, has selected Miller Industrial Services, Inc., Milwaukee, WI, as the sales representative for Ultra Tech’s machinery and robotic integration/automation services in Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois.
Ultra Tech makes horizontal machining modules and two-module horizontal machines as well as vertical turning centers, flowforming machines and robotic integration and automation systems.
For more, visit
www.utmachinery.com.
