That’s a wrap for 2023! We take a look at highlights from us and the industry in 2023 and share what we are looking forward to in 2024.

MCAM Northwest Events

2023 was a big year for events at MCAM Northwest, both in person and online!

Community events

We participated in 5 community events this year! Back in April, we presented at the Technology Exchange Symposium at Oregon Manufacturing Innovation Center Research and Development (OMIC R&D). OMIC remained a strong partner this year as we also partnered with them for EDU Training in August as well as Manufacturing Day and an Industrial Showcase in October.

As part of our mission to help reduce the Manufacturing Skills Gap in the Northwest, we once again had a table at the Central Oregon Skilled Trades Fair in Redmond in November. This career fair provides students with an opportunity to explore a variety of technical career options.

Trade shows

In 2023, we attended 2 trade shows! The Northwest Machine Tool Expo (NWMTE) was a two-day event held in May at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, Oregon. There were over 70 exhibitors at this year’s event, covering the areas of CAD/CAM, fixtures and workholding, additive manufacturing (3D printing), robotics, lean manufacturing, and much more.

In August we headed to Boise, Idaho to attend the annual Haas Demo Day. In addition to enjoying BBQ and networking, attendees had the opportunity to chat with vendors representing cutting tools, software, robotics vendors, and more.

Hybrid Events

In addition to attending in-person events, we hosted 2 hybrid events at community colleges this year. First up was Chemeketa Community College where we held our hybrid event focused on speeding up your programming in Mastercam using libraries. John showed attendees, both in person and online, how to build various libraries including  Tool libraries, operation libraries, and fixture libraries, and how much programming time they can save.

Our second hybrid event was held at Clackamas Community College in September. For this event, John compared CNC programming and cycle time in both Mastercam 2017 and Mastercam 2024 on the same part to see the advancements in CAM technology. Even if you’re still making the same parts you did 7 years ago, this one is worth watching!

Recording of both of these events are available to watch on our YouTube channel! Leveraging Libraries for Optimum Efficiency and Time Travel: Mastercam 2017- 2024.

Online events

We held a whopping 8 online events in 2023, including our Mastercam 2024 rollout event at the Canada-France Hawaii (CFH) Telescope Headquarters in Kamuela, Hawaii. This was a great opportunity to see demonstrations of new Mastercam features and CFH also showed parts they had made for their 3.6-meter optical/infrared space telescope with Mastercam.

Our other webinars included:

• Managing Documents & Data for Manufacturing  
• Mastercam 2024 New Feature Breakdown Part 1   and Part 2
• Get Excited for Mastercam 2024
• The Power of Mastercam Model Prep
• Programming Overview – Mastercam Lathe Plus Mill
• The Power of Mastercam Solid History

Company events

In 2023 MCAM Northwest hosted 2 company events, an IKEA Scavenger Hunt and our annual pumpkin carving contest. What is an IKEA Scavenger Hunt? Besides lots of fun, this photo contest had employees racing around the store taking crazy pictures and looking for unique objects. Two teams looked for the weirdest food they could find, took a group photo as a reflection in a mirror, spelled out IKEA with IKEA products, and more.

Halloween brought it with our annual pumpkin decorating contest. If you didn’t see all of our wonderful creations you should definitely go take a look!

New MCAM Northwest Employees

We were so excited to welcome not one but TWO new employees to MCAM Northwest in 2023, with Cuyler Ackroyd and Julie Grimmett both joining the team. Cuyler spent 10 years in the aerospace and defense industries in engineering, machining, and programming roles before joining the MCAM Northwest sales team in April 2023. Julie became part of the MCAM team in October as our new Marketing Administrator. With a passion for communication, she manages the company’s marketing efforts.

New MCAM Northwest Customers

Of course, we know we wouldn’t be anywhere without our customers! We were thrilled to welcome 18 new industrial customers and 2 new education customers in 2023. We look forward to getting to know all of you better and helping you reach your productivity goals in the years to come!

2023 Manufacturing Industry Overview

We celebrated National Manufacturing Day on October 5th! According to the White House, “U.S. manufacturing is an enduring and ever-evolving sector that contributes $2.65 trillion to the U.S. economy, employs nearly 13 million American workers, and accounts for 10.3 percent of the nation’s GDP.”

Other notable manufacturing statistics from 2023 include:

• According to the US Census, Manufacturing is the 5th largest employer
• ISM Manufacturing Employment in the United States peaked at 51.40 points in May
• The biggest exporting industry in manufacturing by revenue was Automobile & Light Duty Motor Vehicle Manufacturing

Looking Forward to 2024

We greatly appreciate all our wonderful customers and partners for making 2023 such a fantastic year! As we look forward to 2024 we can’t wait to attend more tradeshow events, like the Haas Demo Days 2024 in Meridian, Idaho, and more fun events at OMIC R&D. We will also continue our efforts to support local schools through events such as the Central Oregon Skilled Trades Fair as we believe that these types of events are instrumental to shrinking the skills gap in the industry as a whole.

We are optimistic for another great year and are always so proud to be part of such a resilient, innovative industry. We are looking forward to helping our customers utilize the latest technology to drive innovation, support higher productivity, and solve manufacturing challenges.

From all of us at MCAM Northwest, we wish you all a very profitable and joyous 2024!

Follow MCAM Northwest!

Facebook: @MCAMNorthwest

LinkedIn: mcam-northwest

Twitter: @MCAM_NW

YouTube: The MCAM Northwest

To view and register for upcoming MCAM Northwest Mastercam webinars, visit our Events page.