IMTS is the pinnacle of all United States machine tool shows. If you have never been to one you owe to yourself to attend at least one. It honestly takes more than a day to see the whole show and conferences. While all vendors are there to sell, there is much more of an educational emphasis at this show than other shows I have been to. This is the show where companies bring out their newest, latest and greatest. The show is BIG and kind of spread out so bring comfortable shoes and be prepared to do some walking. The walking comes in handy as the food in Chicago is not only very good, but their deep-dish pizza is about 700 calories a slice and you know you have to try some of that.
Some of the booths at the show are so big they have their own zip code. Over the years I have seen some that have a cafeteria in them. The price tag for a company to do all this is not inexpensive so yes, they are there to sell.
This issue is chock full of press releases on companies that have a booth at the show. A lot of the press releases are about CNC WEST advertisers, and I hope you make a point to look at their products. These are the companies that help ensure that you receive CNC WEST every other month. Since the show is so spread out it makes sense to have a game plan and if you have any appointments to make them close together if the times are near each other.
There is much more in this issue though. Our cover article tells of TCI Precision a facility that is not a machine shop, nor a straight distributor that just chops and ships. All material is sourced directly from the mill or local distribution, and they process it into a tight tolerance pieces of raw material called Machine-Ready Blanks or pre-machined blanks. Tolerances are within thousandths of an inch. Water jet is one of the main ways they use to achieve this.
Another article done by Sean Buur is about Workshop for Warriors. WFW programs provide advanced manufacturing education, job placement, and mentoring to transitioning military, low-income veterans, and wounded warriors. The training is accelerated, and what would normally take years of schooling is compressed into 16-week training sessions. The programs offer beginner, intermediate, advanced, and apprenticeship-level coursework in four areas: computer-aided manufacturing, computer-aided design, CNC machining, and turning, welding, and fabrication.
In another article the answer to the question ‘what you need to know about replaceable inserts is provided by Allied Machinery and Engineering. There are even more articles too along with detailed information about what companies will be showing in their booth at IMTS. If you go to the show I think the list will come in handy.
As always thanks for reading and if you lose your copy remember you can join the thousands of other readers who look at the magazine online each issue.