At Mazak, we’re proud to provide manufacturing technology that companies around the world use to build the products and infrastructure of the future. Our machine tools cut parts that appear on racetracks and in undersea oil wells, on airplanes overhead and wastewater systems below. And thanks to advances such as Multi-Tasking, 5-axis machining and HYBRID Multi-Tasking, we’ve been pushing the envelope year after year – including far beyond our atmosphere and to the stars.
Recently, the team at Mazak hosted James Frederick “Jim” Bridenstine, who heads up NASA as its administrator, and Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who visited the Mazak iSMART Factory™ and National Technology Center in Florence to see how we use Mazaks to build Mazaks – and how our facility’s attention to detail and manufacturing capabilities allow us to achieve the precision necessary to build space-worthy parts.
As a hub for aerospace manufacturing, the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky region drew Administrator Bridenstine for a roundtable discussion among representatives of local manufacturers as well as state and local politicians. Mazak Corporation President Dan Janka also attended the meeting where Bridenstine discussed NASA’s future plans. The agency’s first goal? To get astronauts back on the moon by 2024, where they’ll potentially stay for up to a year.
On the tour itself, Bridenstine and Massie had the opportunity to see firsthand the capabilities of HYBRID Multi-Tasking machines with part-processing capabilities ranging from the latest in Additive Manufacturing (AM) to Friction Stir Welding (FSW), technologies that will be in high demand as NASA gears up for its next mission. Naturally, NASA has long been on the forefront of manufacturing technology, including additive technology, but as the agency prepares to send astronauts back to the moon on an aggressive timeline, its engineers need access to timesaving, cost-efficient technology that leverages DONE IN ONE® performance for exceptional productivity.
Janka, who led Bridenstine and Massie’s tour, noted that the company’s guests came away impressed. “Both were extremely impressed, especially with Mazak’s work in digital connectivity and cybersecurity along with our automation technologies, including those we’re using in our own plant. But what really caught their attention was the use of Mazak machines to make Mazak machines, which we’ve been doing since the plant’s opening. We were thrilled to host them, and we look forward to working together with NASA to get astronauts back on the moon and onward to the stars.”
Learn more about the capabilities of the Mazak iSMART Factory™ and HYBRID Multi-Tasking on MazakUSA.com.