Kiwi ingenuity has seen a New Zealand owned cement company take lessons from ancient Roman concrete to create and launch a ground-breaking low-carbon footprint cement that helps reduce global CO2 emissions.

“HR CEMENT, based in Mt Maunganui, has managed to differentiate a basic commodity and develop a more environmentally friendly cement called ECO-CEM that has significant benefits when compared to standard cements,” said Chris Hall, Managing Director of HR Cement.

“ECO-CEM has the potential to reduce the carbon footprint of concrete utilised on construction sites by 15-30% and set a New Zealand benchmark for low-carbon concretes in New Zealand,” said Mr Hall.

“We looked at millennia-defying concrete mixtures used by the ancient Romans and, after applying modern cement manufacturing techniques, engineered a new cement using Pozzolan from the Central Plateau of the North Island.

Our focus when developing ECO-CEM was to produce a cement that has no downsides compared to the standard General Purpose cement available, coupled with all the clear advantages of a Pozzolanic cement, at a similar cost.

“The use of pozzolan and subsequently ECO-CEM, has significant advantages over standard concrete which are well known internationally. In comparison to standard cement, ECO-CEM gets stronger as time goes on, increases abrasion resistance, improves durability and permeability, alongside having a high resistance to the harsh climatic conditions experienced in New Zealand,” said Mr Hall.

One of ECO-CEM’s greatest strengths is that it is significantly more environmentally friendly than the existing production of Portland cement which is energy intensive and results in significant global greenhouse gas emissions.

The company’s location, being located within a volcanic field near high quality and natural Pozzolanic materials, gives HR CEMENT an economic advantage.

HR CEMENT believes ECO-CEM is a game-changer for the New Zealand concrete market as it will ultimately produce a stronger, more durable and more sustainable product,” Mr Hall said.

!  An HRCement release  |  January 24, 2017  |

Auckland Chamber launches confidential service to ensure employers meet New Zealand wage regulations.

Increasing numbers of migrants and younger workers being taken advantage of by employers; notes Auckland Chamber head Michael Barnett.

Anyone who believes they have been underpaid, had their passport confiscated or wanting to clarify their employment conditions can register confidentially on a dedicated website: www.paychecknz.co.nz.

“We will investigate the situation in complete confidence,” said Mr Barnett.

He stressed that the Chamber was not being anti-employer in setting up the service. “But we don’t want the vast majority of good employers to be branded by the minority.”

Through other services, the Chamber has successfully assisted many hundreds of migrants and young people who leave school without qualifications into employment. “Many are vulnerable people who can easily be taken advantage of.”

There is also a small group of employers who are migrants who may not be familiar with NZ’s wage regulations; e.g. that the minimum wage is $15.25, and could make use of the service, concluded Mr Barnett.

|  ACOC release  |  January 23, 2017  |

Why Trump will find it hard to achieve his economic plans

From a shortage of skilled workers to income inequality, Donald Trump will face at least six challenges.

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump’s economic plans are nothing if not ambitious: Annual growth of 4 per cent — or more. A diminished trade gap. The creation of 25 million jobs over 10 years, including the return of good-paying factory positions.

It all adds up to an immense challenge, one that Trump aims to achieve mostly by cutting taxes, loosening regulations, boosting infrastructure spending and renegotiating or withdrawing from trade deals. At the top of his agenda: Pulling out of the 12-nation Pacific trade agreement and rewriting the North American Free Trade Agreement to better serve the United States.

Yet to come anywhere near his goals, economists say Trump would have to surmount at least a handful of major hurdles that have long defied solutions.  He may yet succeed. But he faces deep-rooted obstacles that have bedevilled presidents from both parties for years.  Among the challenges are these:

A SHIFT TOWARD AUTOMATION

Trump’s goal of vastly expanding manufacturing would require at least the partial reversal of a decades-long trend toward a service-oriented economy and away from factory work. Former President Barack Obama sought to add 1 million manufacturing jobs in his second term but came up two-thirds short.

Even if Trump could return factory production to its heyday by toughening trade deals and threatening to slap tariffs on America’s trading partners, a surge of new jobs wouldn’t necessarily follow. The increased use of robots and automation has allowed factories to make more goods with fewer workers. Research shows that automation has been a bigger factor than trade in the loss of U.S. factory jobs.

The trend is spreading outside factory gates. Uber is experimenting with self-driving cars. Restaurant chains like Eatsa can now serve meals through an automated order-and-payment system. No cashiers or servers are needed.

“You cannot just slap tariffs on and hope that will bring back middle class jobs,” says Daron Acemoglu, an economist at MIT. “The jobs that went to China would come back to robots rather than people.”

A SHORTAGE OF SKILLED WORKERS

Jobs that can’t be automated typically require education beyond high school. Yet not everyone can or wants to attend college. Many analysts say the economy needs better and more widely available post-high school education and training, whether through community colleges, vocational schools or boot camps offering technology training.

Such a boot camp is how Sharnie Ivery managed to move beyond the retail and sales jobs he’d held right after high school. In 2013, Ivery began a six-month computer coding boot camp at Flatiron School in New York through which he obtained internships. Last year, he began working as a software developer at Spotify, the music streaming service. “There weren’t many opportunities for a career in technology” without training and experience, Ivery, 24, said.

Last year, the Obama administration opened some financial aid programs to Flatiron and other boot camps. But such efforts remain in an experimental phase, and any widespread successes from those programs are likely years away.

A lack of technological skills isn’t an issue only for the tech industry itself. Modern manufacturing work increasingly requires high-tech know-how requiring some education or training beyond high school. Since the economic recovery began in 2009, only 12 per cent of manufacturing jobs have gone to workers with no more than a high school degree, according to research by Georgetown University’s Center for Education and the Workforce.

SLUGGISH WORKER PRODUCTIVITY

In the past decade, the growth of American workers’ productivity — the amount they produce per hour worked — has slumped to roughly half its long-term average.

That slowdown has imposed a dead weight on the economy. When employees become less efficient, it slows economic growth, and companies can’t raise pay without boosting prices. A faster expansion needs a combination of more people working and more efficient workers.

Trump’s proposals might help somewhat. He favours expanded tax breaks for companies that invest in new machinery and equipment, which typically make workers more productive. And he’s vowed to build more roads, tunnels and other infrastructure, which can save on shipping and commuting costs.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the conservative American Action Forum, says Trump’s push to loosen regulations might also lead to more startup companies, which could prod established businesses to become more efficient.

Still, many economists, like Robert Gordon of Northwestern University, argue that today’s innovations — in mobile communications and biotechnology, for example — aren’t transformative enough to fuel the explosive productivity growth that resulted from inventions like the automobile, telephone and computer.

INCOME INEQUALITY

Economic growth since the recession ended has been both slow and uneven: It’s benefited wealthier Americans far more than low- and middle-income households. Trump’s nominee for Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, noted this concern at a confirmation hearing last week: “The average American worker has gotten nowhere,” he said.

The tepid gains for low- and middle-income families have slowed the economy because those groups typically spend more of their income than do affluent households, and consumer spending is the economy’s primary fuel. Against that backdrop, Trump’s goal of 4 per cent annual economic growth — a formidable one under any circumstances — might be next to impossible.

Mnuchin said the administration’s proposals to cut taxes for individuals and businesses would shore up families’ finances and encourage companies to hire more. Yet America’s wealth gap has widened even as previous presidents have cut individual taxes.

A SLOW-GROWING WORKFORCE

Trump has pledged to add 25 million jobs over the next decade. But with fewer people looking for work now than just a few years ago, it’s unclear where all those extra workers would come from.

The president’s pledge will run up against a long-standing trend: A decline in the proportion of Americans either working or seeking work. That’s largely a reflection of an aging population. Roughly 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 every day, and many retire. The Congressional Budget Office forecasts that the proportion of Americans working or looking for will keep dropping to 61.5 per cent by the end of 2020.

Mark Lashinske of Tempe, Arizona-based Modern Industries, which makes machine tools, says he’s struggling to fill 14 machinists’ positions. He blames the steady loss of manufacturing jobs since 1980 for discouraging an entire generation from factory work. His company is expanding its efforts to find younger job applicants.

The company has established an internship program and is working with a non-profit group to encourage disadvantaged high school students to consider manufacturing careers.

“We’ve been looking for quite a while,” he says. “We have such a shortage.”

Most economists argue that encouraging more legal immigration could help counter an otherwise slow-growing workforce and might help accelerate economic growth. Yet Trump campaigned on tightening immigration restrictions.

“In the absence of immigration, we shrink the size of our population and our economy and our global influence,” Holtz-Eakin says.

STRONG DOLLAR

Through renegotiating treaties like NAFTA and pushing companies to keep more jobs at home, Trump hopes to reduce — or even eliminate — the trade deficit, a measure of how much more America imports than exports. The U.S. has run trade deficits since 1975.

Yet if Trump’s policies accelerate growth, the Federal Reserve would be more likely to raise the short-term interest rate it controls to keep inflation in check. Faster growth and higher rates, in turn, would attract more investors to the dollar, raising its value compared with other currencies.

The catch? A stronger dollar makes U.S. exports costlier and imports cheaper — a recipe for an even wider trade deficit and a headwind for growth.

Read more:

• Meeting with business leaders, Trump again threatens ‘substantial border tax’ on manufacturing outside the U.S.
• Trump signs notice to withdraw from Trans-Pacific Partnership
• New trade relationship with U.S. may be outside NAFTA framework: Ambassador

| Published in thestar.com January 23, 2017  |

Back in March 2016 Slash gear ran this item about Autodesk's Project Escher printer.   This new 3D printer from Autodesk  wants to revolutionize 3D printing technology by allowing users to print larger items. Project Escher is an assembly line of 3D printers with a smart setup controller that is able to control an endless number of print heads to create larger items. Rather than having a single printer working on one large project, Project Escher has multiple print heads each working on one section of an object.

By having multiple heads working on a large project, the item can be completed more quickly. “By intelligently distributing toolpaths between multiple collaborating machines, systems enabled by Project Escher can manufacture parts faster than traditional 3D printers,” say the developers. “Project Escher is a parallel processing system where numerous independent tools collaborate to fabricate a design. It’s faster because whatever the job is, there are more workers on that job. And there is no compromise to detail because we’re using proven existing technology.”

Each of the independent printers has interchangeable tool heads. The company hopes to make the tool head changing automatic, along the lines of how a CNC machine works. The team of designers also hopes to create Pick-and-Place tools that would put pre-made components into an object during the printing.

Autodesk also expects to integrate other technologies into the printer including laser cutting. One key bit of information that is outstanding right now is when Project Escher will hit the market. Developers of Project Escher are looking at a 2017 or 2018 launch. The faster multi-head printer would be able to complete a larger piece for inspection the same day.

As exciting as the technology is, the industry has  been waiting for signs that Project Escher would actually be available to the public. At CES this year, the wait was put to an end as Colorado-based start-up Titan Robotics showed off Cronus, the first commercially available 3D printer relying on Project Escher technology.  

> > > Continue to read full article

You don’t get much closer to the spirit of engineering than in the beginnings of waterjet cutting.

“I got started years ago, in about ’71,” said Dr. John Olsen, one of the originators of waterjet technology and currently VP of operations at Omax Abrasive Waterjets. “I had been reading about some experiments done on rock cutting in England and a friend of mine and I thought it would be fun to try and build a pump and cut something. That was a kind of back-alley operation; it was in my garage and his garage.”  Dr. John Olsen is pictured above holding a tilting head waterjet with two linear actuators.

It might sound like many of the stories you hear about start-ups in Silicon Valley today, but the connections between waterjet and computing technologies run deeper than that, as Dr. Olsen explained:

“Oddly enough, one of the biggest changes that made abrasivejets practical was the advent of the PC. A jet is not a very rigid tool—it bends all over the place and makes taper and what-have-you. To make precision parts, you need quite a bit of computing power to predict what the shape of the jet will be so that you can compensate for it. At the time, we were told ‘Nobody will ever accept a PC on the factory floor. Doesn’t that sound funny today?”

> > > Continue here to the full article images and guide

Atlas Copco (IW 1000/325), the world’s largest maker of industrial compressors, plans to split into two listed companies in a move that will see the departure of its longstanding Chief Executive Officer Ronnie Leten and could spark takeover interest.

A newly created company with sales of about 28 billion kronor (US$3.1 billion) will focus on mining and construction tools, and will be spun off to shareholders in a tax-free distribution, the Stockholm-based company said in a statement Monday. Under the plan to be put to shareholders next year, Atlas Copco will retain the compressor and vacuum businesses that have revenue of 74 billion kronor in the year through last Sept. 30.

“The new company is a business that a large player like Caterpillar or Komatsu might be interested in buying,” Swedbank analyst Anders Roslund said by phone. “I don’t think that’s imminent, but it’s an interesting and well-run business.”   > > > Continue to full article

Donald Trump has been crowing as companies including Ford Motor Co. (IW 500/4) renounce plans to move factories to Mexico. But the main beneficiaries of this shift back to the U.S. aren't saying much by way of celebration -- industrial robots don't tend to speak.

While globalization's detractors blame countries such as China and Mexico for stealing the factory jobs of the West, experts point to less obvious culprits which are harder to scapegoat and to overcome in an interconnected economy with complex supply chains.

Since U.S. manufacturing employment peaked in the late 1970s, according to Michael Hicks of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University in Indiana, "95% of job losses were due to productivity improvements including automation and computer technology, rather than trade."

Indiana is one of the rust-belt states where Trump triumphed in November, and the president-elect has promised a punitive border tax against outsourcing companies as he bids to become "the greatest jobs producer that God ever created."     >  >  >  Continue to read full article on Industry Week   |

Laser system maker Trumpf has developed a femtosecond laser to weld glass light guides used in its own laser machines.

Trumpf is currently building the laser welding system to mass produce glass protective caps for the laser light cables in its production plant in Schramberg, Germany. The caps would traditionally be glued to the cables. Using a femtosecond laser to weld the components reduces costs and increases the durability of the seam.

Elke Kaiser, applications engineer at Trumpf, commented: ‘The laser system also serves as a pilot system to demonstrate to potential users that new, innovative laser methods are reliable and ready for deployment in glass processing and offer immense advantages.’

The new laser welding methods also mean that optical beam paths are no longer contaminated with glue, and there is no evaporation and no long-term embrittlement of adhesives.

Glass is hard and brittle, has lower thermal conductivity than metal, and tends to crack when heated unevenly due to the internal tension developed. Femtosecond laser systems can prevent such cracking. ‘The laser system must permit variable programming of pauses and pulses,’ explained Kaiser.

Glass is permeable to light with wavelengths ranging from ultraviolet to near infrared. Absorption takes place only when the energy densities are very high, so that processing within the glass is facilitated.

The highest performance density lies deep in the lower glass at the focal point. The energy from several thousand laser beam pulses causes a melt pool to be created and pushed upwards in just a few milliseconds. Skillful thermal management and an optimal ratio of pulses and pauses prevent the glass from cracking.

The joint strength of the glass parts depends primarily on the level of pulse energy. The pulse energy for 1,030nm infrared light needs to be 9µJ.

|  A LaserSystems europe release  |  January 18, 2017  |

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