The well-known German mould-making house Otto Männer recently upgraded its profile grinding capabilities as a way to guarantee the high precision demanded from its broad range of international customers.

The new SMS Heligrind SH series of grinding machines from SMS Maschinenbau permits a wide range of grinding applications, thanks to its modular design.

The display of machines at the Jones & Shipman Hardinge booth at AMB include the Kellenberger 100 platform concept cylindrical grinding machine and two Hardinge Super Precision turning and turn/grinding CNC centres.

For over a decade now, Intermash has been manufacturing grinding, drilling and milling machines, accessories, equipment and spare parts.

There is new movement in the portal milling machine market. Although centres are still designed to produce as many chips as possible for decades to come, this is no longer enough. In precision, flexibility and cost-effectiveness, the heavyweights are getting nearer and nearer to the small and medium-sized processing units.

Cornwall-based Pharmaceutical company West Pharmaceutical Services developes pharmaceutical packaging components. For their moulds, they recently acquired grinders by Jones and Shipman for the surface treatment of their high grade stainless steel moulds.

Germany - Increasing cost pressures and fiercer competition are driving toolmakers to embrace new concepts such as Tooling 4.0 and to industrialise their operations to reduce idle and lead times by limiting the number of variations in tool components and processes.

3D printing starts in your head: Designers need to rethink their approach to unlock the huge opportunities offered by this relatively new manufacturing technology. The experts in coolant systems at Grindaix and Bionic Production did exactly that.

Fine filtered cooling lubricants represent an important cornerstone in tool manufacturing and are instrumental in achieving high tool quality quickly and economically. With choosing the right technology, manufacturers can avoid unsatisfactory grinding results and, in addition, can save money.

Production has to be more flexible and efficient. Efforts strive for simplicity, standardisation and process optimisation. Regardless of clamping system and machine type, the focus is the CNC system, says Joachim Zoll, head of machine tool systems at Siemens.