Monday, September 14, 2009

MTConnect Institute and MTConnect Technical Advisory Group Meetings

I am on the Board of Directors for the MTConnect Institute and I am a member of the MTConnect Technical Advisory Group (MTAG).  Last week we held meetings for both groups in Latrobe, PA at NCDMM.    The meetings were very successful and the MTConnect open and royalty free standard continues to gain momentum.


The National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM) was established in 2003 to address and support the broad manufacturing and machining needs of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and its Suppliers.  NCDMM's Headquarters in the same complex with Kennametal.   As stated on Kennametal's homepage, Kennametal has engineered innovative metal-cutting products and techniques for nearly 70 years using complex metallurgy and materials science in tungsten carbide, ceramics, high-speed steels and other materials.

One of the great things about staying involved with MTConnect is that opportunity to visit such great organizations such as NCDMM and great companies such as Kennametal.   The President of NCDMM, John VanKirk, was kind enough to take us to the Latrobe Golf Course that Arnie Palmer owns and where Arnie learned how to play golf.   It was Arnie's 80th birthday the second day of our MTConnect Meetings which was September 10th, 2009.

Mr. VanKirk was kind enough to arrange for a tour of Kennametal and allowed us to take some pictures that were in the public area.  Below is a photo that I took:


What you are looking at above is the classic V twin from Harley Davidson.  What Kennametal does for Harley Davidson is an extrude honing process to clean up the interior passages.  Extrude honing is essentially forcing a liquid that has abrasives in it that is forced through passages to clean up internal passages.