Tech in Action at IME West 2024

Advanced engineering and manufacturing ideas animated the West Coast’s largest manufacturing trade show, IME West 2024, which featured Design & Manufacturing (D&M) West, Medical Design & Manufacturing (MDM) West, Automation Technology (ATX) West, Plastec West, and WestPack shows as well as several educational sessions and networking events. The event was held February 6-8 in Anaheim, CA.

While the event featured a significant number of sessions and exhibitors for medical device design engineers, aerospace manufacturing took the spotlight in the keynote panel, Manufacturing Beyond Gravity: Unlocking the Potential of Space for Innovation on Earth on the Axiom Station. During the discussion, Dr. Arun Sharma, assistant professor, Board of Governors at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, shared that "everything is different when you remove that variable of gravity from the equation in terms of how our bodies and cells respond to that environment. . . . From the purpose of manufacturing, that can be a huge benefit. From our previous experiments . . . we've been able to show that the cells that we sent to space are able to grow in ways that are simply impossible on the ground. . . . It enables us to harness that for ground-side applications for clinical therapies, cell-based manufacturing, disease modeling . . . ."

Following are a few scenes from the exhibition depicting the latest in engineering, automation, materials, and manufacturing:

Kassow Robots's 7-axis collaborative robot, the KR1205, one of the company's five cobots:

Molded precision gears from Aptyx for high-tech medical devices and automation:

Junkosha's Peelable Heat Shrink Tubing (PHST), which can eliminate the skiving step in catheter production:

Linear motion technology from THK America, including Omni Edge, the company's predictive analytics system for connecting a sensor to a rail, a motor housing, or a power cord:

Covestro's new Apec 2045 polycarbonate for high-heat silicone overmolding applications:

Micropsi's MIRAI software for six-axis industrial and collaborative robots: