Is Ohio on the Cusp of the Fourth Industrial Revolution?

An operations technician at Eaton Corp.'s Parma plant assembles a panelboard. (Image courtesy of Mark Duncan/The Associated Press.)

As a swing state, Ohio received its usual helping of media attention in the run up and aftermath of last year’s Presidential election. The loss of manufacturing jobs has been cited as the primary reason that Donald Trump was able to claim victory in the Buckeye State, but a number of recent developments suggest that Ohio’s industrial sector is in the midst of a major transformation.

There have been investments aimed at helping Ohio SMEs grow their business through technological innovation and workforce development. Last year, the state became home to the world’s largest automotive glass facility. Cincinnati played host to conferences on industrial robots and worker safety and is also the home of GE’s Additive Technology Center.

Columbus even won the Department of Transportation’s Smart City Challenge.

All of these developments point to a state that’s on the verge of the fourth industrial revolution.

The latest example comes from BeAm Machines SAS, a European-based provider of directed energy deposition solutions. The company opened its US subsidiary BeAM Machines, Inc. earlier this year in—you guessed it—Ohio.

Staffed with service technicians, applications and manufacturing engineers, material scientists, machinists and technicians, the 20,000-sq ft. facility, located in Cincinnati, includes a training center, post processing machine shop, metallurgical laboratory and a final assembly area for machinery.

The company has also just taken delivery of the first Magic 2.0 in North America.

“The Magic 2.0 is a large format 5 continuous axis machine designed for serial production or repair of high value components in industries with long lead times and high buy-to-fly ratios,” explained Tim Bell, general manager of Beam Machines, Inc. “The standard machine specifications include an X, Y, Z build volume of 1200 x 800 x 800, Siemens 840D Control, IPG 2KW Fiber Laser, MacroCLAD 10Vx Deposition Head, along with many other industry-leading features.”

According to the company, the Magic 2.0 is often used by aerospace MRO sites to repair gas turbine engine shaft seals, stator vanes, LPT Blades and other high-value components that have been historically unrepairable.

“Some of the more unique applications include combining multiple advanced technologies such as powder bed fusion and directed energy deposition, leveraging the abilities of both of these additive manufacturing technologies at the component design level, allowing some of the worlds most advanced manufacturing facilities to push the envelope on what is possible,” Bell added. “The freedom of design that additive manufacturing gives our customers allows them to achieve component performance and life cycle levels that historically were only ‘pipe dreams’.”

For more information, visit the BeAM Machines website.