News Desk
Supply Management. Readings below 50 indicate contraction, while those above 50 indicate expansion.
Seven of the 10 indices that make up the PMI showed growth in August. Noteably, new orders gained 4.9 percentage points, to 63.2%, while prices gained 5 percentage points, to 54%. Also showing growth: production (62.4%), employment (53.3%), sup- plier deliveries (52.3%), exports (55.5%) and imports (58%). Indices that showed contraction include inventories (47.5%), customers’ inventories (42.5%) and backlog of orders (46.5%). For comparison, the PMI registered 55.4% in July, 50.8% in June, 49% in May, 50.7%, in April, 51.3% in March, 54.2% in February and 53.1% in January.
Announcements Boeing (Chicago) has selected ESAB Welding & Cutting
Products (Florence, SC) as a partner in the manufacturing of fuel tank structures for NASA’s new heavy-lift rocket, the
Space Launch System (SLS). The SLS will be the largest American rocket ever built and will measure 200' (61 m) taller than the entire space shuttle rocket assembly. The SLS will measure 384' (117 m) in total length, with a weight of 6.5-mil- lion pounds (2948 t). The construction of an assembly of this magnitude requires entirely new ways to fabricate, assemble, and weld the main fuel tank structures. Engineers and experts from ESAB have worked with Boeing and NASA for more than a year to develop the new Vertical Assembly Center (VAC), which is a giant orbital welding system that is capable of supporting the huge rocket fuel tank while circumferentially welding its sections together with the friction stir process. ESAB’s construction of the VAC will be the largest welding machine of its type in history, and is the most precise part of the assembly.
Okuma America Corp. (Charlotte, NC), a leader in CNC machine tool manufacturing, on Sept. 3 released a new app that displays scheduled maintenance and inspection remind-
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ManufacturingEngineeringMedia.com | October 2013
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