Xiris Automation Inc., a global leader in the creation and manufacturing of welding cameras and weld inspection software, has announced that they have greatly expanded their technical sales representation in North America to better serve their customers. Five months ago, Xiris set out to expand its outside sales team so as to provide the best customer service experience in the industry by adding four outside representatives (REPs) in Canada and twenty outside REPs in the United States. The goal of this initiative is to greatly improve the reaction time to train distributors and provide faster response to requests for demonstrations. Xiris Automation is also pleased to welcome Michael Staiger to the team as our new European Service Technician. Michael will be an excellent addition to the team as he is highly skilled in electronics and mechanics with over 18 years of experience performing technical service and support for complex machinery all over Europe. Based out of the Xiris GmbH office in Duesseldorf, Germany, Michael will be responsible for installation, calibration, and training for all new Xiris customers, as well as servicing and repair work of Xiris equipment across Europe.

Orders received by the German machine tool industry in the third quarter of 2018 were 2 per cent down on the same period last year. Orders from Germany fell by 1 per cent whereas those from abroad were down by 2 per cent. Orders increased by 7 per cent in the first nine months of the year. Domestic orders grew by 20 per cent, while foreign orders rose by 1 per cent. “Orders and production are set to make 2018 a record-breaking year,”
said Dr. Wilfried Schäfer, Executive Director of the VDW (German Machine Tool Builders’ Association) in Frankfurt am Main. “Nevertheless, for the first time in more than a year we are currently seeing a slight downturn in orders. The boom is gradually coming to an end and demand is normalising,” Schäfer continued. On the one hand, the global economy is slowing, with growth having stalled in the markets outside the euro zone. On the other hand, the strong domestic demand in the second half of 2017, as evidenced at the EMO Hannover, is now leading to a fall in total order levels. And
finally, global developments – including the spread of trade conflicts, increasing protectionism, rising oil prices, high inflation in various emerging markets, unchecked debt etc. – are unsettling customers, especially  small and medium-sized enterprises.

Employment and capacity utilisation continuing to soar

Accounting for almost 73,700 employees in August of this year, the sector workforce remains at record levels. At 95 per cent, there was almost full capacity utilisation in October 2018. The last time such high levels were posted was in July 2012. “Bottlenecks in employees, capacity and materials continue to be the challenges most frequently mentioned by companies,” explained Schäfer.

Production at record levels and higher than expectations

Overall, sales rose by 13 per cent in the first nine months, according to the association’s survey. “It will not be possible to sustain this double-digit growth over the year because production skyrocketed at the end of 2017,” said Schäfer. However, the strong growth has prompted the association to raise its production forecast by a further percentage point. The VDW now expects production to grow by 8 per cent to over EUR 17 billion in 2018. However, Schäfer specifically drew attention to the renewed divergence in the performance of the different sectors and of individual companies.
Metal cutting equipment, which boomed last year, is now growing much more slowly. Forming equipment, on the other hand, is again boosting growth.

After the exhibitor and visitor record of 2017, Katja Stolle, LASER World of PHOTONICS Exhibition Director, is dangling the prospect of further growth in 2019. Also awaiting visitors in parallel, from June 24 to 27, 2019, is a trend setting conference boasting seven individual conferences and more
than 5000 experts from around the world. In Munich are expecting more than 1,300 exhibitors from around 45 countries – setting new standards in the process. The imaging and sensor area in particular is growing rapidly. One of the things you will notice is that in addition to the SPIE conference
“Optical Metrology” organizers have included the new OSA conference “Imaging and Applied Optics” in the World of Photonics Congress program.

That means that for the first time there will be seven individual conferences in 2019. Katja Stolle, Project Manager at World of Photonics, provides an
overview of the main topics to be covered during the event: ”Imaging and sensors are trailblazers for quality-assured, high quality, automated production processes in Industry 4.0 – and as such are in demand across industry sectors. We are currently witnessing a strong boost from the automotive industry with electro-mobility and autonomous driving. Optical technologies are paving the way here. Autonomous driving requires camera, LIDAR and radar systems, numerous vehicle on-board sensors as well as data processing and communication systems. None of this is possible
without photonics. Lasers are also considered to be enablers in the production of high voltage batteries, electric motors or lightweight construction for electric vehicles”. The scientific program is of great interest, both for the speakers and for the topics in the lineup: the newcomer is the OSA conference “Imaging and Applied Optics”.

In addition, the “European Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics and the European Quantum Electronics Conference” (CLEO®/Europe – EQEC) will again be shining the spotlight on basic research in the laser technology and quantum optics fields. The WLT “Lasers in Manufacturing” conference will be dealing with industrial laser material machining and additive manufacturing. At the same time the European Optical Society (EOS) will be picking up on trends in the manufacturing of optical systems and the fledgling technology field of optofluidics at the “Optical Technologies” conference. And SPIE Europe is organizing not one but two individual conferences on optical metrology and on digital optical technologies. Also, in partnership with the OSA, it is inviting people to attend the European Conferences on Biomedical Optics (ECBO) dealing with innovative optical techniques in biomedical applications. The main scientific speaker will be Prof. Dr. Karsten Danzmann, Director of the Institute for Gravitational Physics at the University of Hanover and Director of the Albert Einstein Institute.

Sawing and storage technology specialist Kasto is launching an innovative solution for maintaining its machines and systems remotely. By means of a tablet, smartphone or smart glasses, users can send live videos to Kasto’s service experts and receive visual assistance and information in real time in the event of a fault or maintenance work. Downtimes can be reduced to a minimum, which has a positive effect on the cost balance. Kasto has long been fitting sawing machines and storage systems with a remote maintenance facility. As an option, service engineers can connect to the systems online to rectify faults or optimise processes. A time-consuming site visit is therefore no longer necessary in many cases. Kasto is once again significantly expanding its service spectrum with VisualAssistance. The heart of the system is an interactive app for tablets, smartphones or smart glasses. Customers can use it to connect to service staff using video and audio streams. Users and engineers share the same field of view in real time. This immensely simplifies mutual understanding and helps to quickly identify individual system components and possible faults. The app also enables Kasto experts to provide visual assistance and to superimpose markings, for example, on the live video. The customer receives all necessary information directly on his display by means of augmented reality while he is carrying out maintenance or repair work on the saw or storage system on site. If he is using smart glasses, his hands are also free, which additionally makes his job easier. Kasto service engineers have a virtual presence on site and guide staff accordingly. Extensive training and expensive site visits are therefore superfluous. At the same time, users benefit from minimal downtimes as well as high availability and productivity of their machines and systems.

Schwarze-Robitec has delivered two of its booster bending machines for use in Vietnam’s boiler and power plant industries. Martech Boiler Co., Ltd., an energy solutions provider, will now use a CNC 100 DB for the mandrel-free bending of thick-walled boiler tubes, and a FL 2000 for processing welded boiler walls. The machines, which are part of Schwarze-Robitec’s Boiler & Power series, are specially designed for the particular requirements
of boiler and power plant construction. They guarantee high-precision bending performance and are designed for years of continuous operation.
Martech Boiler Co., Ltd., is a company based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, which specialises in the production of boilers and pressure vessels for the energy industry. Its portfolio of products includes waste heat boilers and boilers for fluidised bed combustion. For years, Martech has
been using a CNC 80 DB from Schwarze-Robitec to bend tubes up to 88.9 mm in diameter. Impressed by the reliability and durability of the machine, Martech has again put its trust in Schwarze-Robitec. Thanks to the new CNC 100 DB from the German company’s Boiler & Power series, Martech is now able to bend – without a mandrel – thick-walled tubes up to 114.3 mm in diameter at a wall thickness of 8 mm. One particular stand-out feature is the compactly designed construction unit of the tube boost and integrated tube clamp element, which safely transfers the boost force to the tube. This enables, for instance, the mandrel-free cold bending of very small radii up to a radius of 1 x D with minimal reduction of wall thickness and optimum ovality. The Schwarze-Robitec method surpasses the tolerance specifications for wall thinning and ovality, for example, of the European standard EN 12952 and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers standard ASME B31.1 as well as all other international norms. This means that various media can be transported in the tubes in a consistently reliable manner.

Finned walls enable effective heat exchange

State-of-the-art power plant construction would not be possible without finned walls consisting of multiple tubes welded together, otherwise known as membrane tube walls. They ensure effective heat exchange as part of a huge piping system. As part of this process, individual tubes are welded together to form bending membrane walls. They then undergo bending to align with boiler dimensions before being installed. To bend such finned walls, Martech uses the FL 2000 from Schwarze-Robitec. With millimetre precision, this machine processes entire bending membrane walls with a through-width of up to 2,000 mm in a single operation. The diameter of the tubes can go up to 70 mm and the wall thickness up to 5 mm. In addition, there is increasing demand for diagonal bending, which is something the FL 2000 is able to achieve thanks to its horizontal rollers.
The extremely powerful machines from the Boiler & Power series are able to overcome the demanding conditions which often dominate the
boiler and power plant industry. They have been used for many decades throughout the world.