Kennametal’s vice president of Product Engineering, Fred Patterson, representing a team of product and software engineers, will be honoured with a 2014 Carnegie Science Award in the Advanced Manufacturing category in May. The award recognises the Kennametal team for its vision in developing NOVO, a groundbreaking on-demand digital system designed to optimise and streamline manufacturing processes for Kennametal customers.
NOVO integrates the application engineering and production experience of Kennametal’s 75-year history to provide users access to Kennametal’s historical collective knowledge and more than 50,000 products. With a refined and intuitive tool advisor, selector and configurator, all aspects of the manufacturing process become more efficient – from parts quoting to programming, presetting and production.
In addition, NOVO helps address the ever-widening skills gap in manufacturing by digitalising experienced workers collective knowledge of best-in-class solutions and creating a community that is capable of harnessing ongoing expertise. This will allow inexperienced workers to improve their skills quickly by leveraging the knowledge of previous generations.
Established in 1997 by the Carnegie Science Center, the program aims to recognise and promote outstanding science and technology achievements in western Pennsylvania. This marks the tenth time that Kennametal has been honoured with a Carnegie Science Award.