Like just about every other manufacturing operation, welding has made the leap into the 21st century with automation, agile manufacturing processes, and offline programming.
The warning about the vulnerability of the aerospace and defense industry’s supply chain came buried in the pages of a report issued by the consulting firm EY two years before the COVID-19 outbreak became a full-blown global crisis.
Improvements in manufacturing management software, robotics, additive manufacturing and thermal controls are making small batch sizes more cost effective—even for smaller shops. Manufacturing plants are able to reduce inventory, improve throughput and reduce demands on human operators.
We no longer need to accept that it takes a decade to create and make a safe and effective vaccine—thanks in part to smart manufacturing.
COVID-19 revealed some deep-rooted shortcomings in our approach to manufacturing and to supply chain design in the U.S. Well beyond the immediate and urgent need for PPE, we saw dramatic swings in both supply and demand for almost everything bought and sold here.
We have been remiss in not reporting a great deal on wearables since starting this magazine in early 2016. So, in this issue, we tackle that subject on two fronts of great import: worker safety and worker retention.
The figurative skull and crossbones marking the tech-demo and -validation period commonly called the “valley of death” are in the rearview mirror, MxD CEO Chandra Brown asserts.
How do you ask your vendors for security? How do you assess how extensive their security knowledge and practices are?
There is very good technology available today that helps manufacturers solve real problems, but that is not what digital manufacturing is about.
Manufacturers make strategic and operational decisions with digital production data and analytics, including information ranging from part counts and output speeds to machine conditions and alarm status.