sales will represent 26% of the total in Europe under
announced policies (EV means all types). Under a more
active policy strategy, IEA says almost half of all vehicles
sold in 2030 in Europe will be EVs. This will have an
industrial impact; fewer parts, fewer machine tools, fewer
people. Heller is on record as saying that electric
powertrains require just 20% of the machining capacity
that internal combustion engine powertrains require. But
demand for machines will not fall off a cliff, it says. At last
year’s EMO exhibition in Germany, Dr Heinz-Jürgen Prokop,
chairman of the VDW (German Machine Tool Builders’
Association) said: “The fact is that for a lengthy
transitional period there will be a rather high proportion of
hybrid vehicles. Their degree of complexity, due to the
combination of internal combustion engines and electric
motors, will continue to necessitate high metalcutting
volumes, according to German production researchers.”
Also at EMO last year, the changing nature of the
shop oor production environment was brought into sharp
focus, exampled by two global machine tool makers –
DMG Mori and Yamazaki Mazak – as we detailed in
November (https://is.gd/ahunez). And we return to the
language of platforms again here, with the machine tool
itself described as a platform by DMG Mori’s president,
Dr Masahiko Mori (certain types of machine are nearcommodities
these days, Machinery suggests). By this he
means the machine tool is the foundation stone that
draws on an eco-system of complementary hardware and
software services to better perform. The two global giants
are developing various parts of an ecosystem or
partnering with others to deliver it. This is the automated,
connected, data-driven and optimised Industry 4.0 world.
And we returned to Industry 4.0 connected shop oor
equipment for the nal issue of 2019, again drawing on
the EMO show, highlighting FANUC’s European launch of
its Industry 4.0 solution – FANUC Intelligent Edge Link
and Drive, FIELD (https://is.gd/poboqu). If machine tools
are the platform, FANUC, whose technology is on many
machine tool makers’ equipment, has the bigger platform
on which to build an eco-system, it could be suggested.
FANUC’s focus is on machine uptime, using onpremise
Edge computing power, while capabilities within
or closely allied to its CNC and motor technology boost
speed and quality of output.
Of course, Siemens too has a wide installation base
and has for some time offered its MindSphere cloud
solution to connect equipment and provide services – not
just machine tools, as its eld of activity is wider. But
now Edge solutions are increasingly promoted by
Siemens for the shop oor (https://is.gd/vobatu), while it
is also similarly developing CNC and related technology
to boost machine tool performance.
More so than for many previous decade starts,
Machinery’s preceding 12 months’ content strongly
points to the fact that the times they are a-changin’.
LEAD FEATURE THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’
processes, I’ll admit, but Autodesk also exampled how
plastic AM and generative design could be employed to
produce a xture to hold a metal part during machining –
it would usually be metal, of course, produced by
subtractive machining. Some xture-producing companies
are expressing much interest in this faster method of
production, and that is disruption at the production end of
the equation.
But disruption of production processes, while most
often allied to powerful software tools and the various AM
processes currently available is not exclusively so. We
wrote about cutting tool specialist Ceratizit’s High Dynamic
Turning process and associated FreeTurn tooling system in
our June issue (https://is.gd/rijuxa). The biggest turning
tool development in 100 years, it was hailed. A mechanical
system development, it is, however, made possible by
today’s powerful CNC machine tools plus associated
CADCAM software. It requires 5-axis-capable turning
centres (X, Y, Z, B and C), where the B-axis-located tool
spindle can be accurately indexed to position inserts
having multiple cutting edges (typically three); the in-cycle
adjustment of approach angle is also a key advantage.
Large gains in productivity plus a reduction in the number
of individual cutting tools required are bene ts.
Industrial disruption at large was also covered,
speci cally the electric vehicle (EV) revolution that is
seeing carmakers remodel not just their cars but also their
production facilities (February, https://is.gd/sozevi).
We opened with the statement that in 2017, 280,000
electric/hybrid vehicles were produced in Europe, but that
that will become 3.5 million in 2025. The International
Energy Agency’s Global EV Outlook 2019, published in
June last year, says that by 2030, electric vehicle (EV)
Above: DMG
Mori’s
connected
offerings
Below: FANUC’s
FIELD dissected
in December
Bottom:
CloudNC has
ambitions to
replicate supereffi
cient
facilities
globally
12 January 2020 www.machinery.co.uk @MachineryTweets
/www.machinery.co.uk
/ahunez
/rijuxa
/poboqu
/vobatu
/sozevi