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I met a man recently. He had worked at a small manufacturing company for 20 plus years and was the sole technician responsible for the assembly of his company’s most complex product. After years of dedication to the company, he was set to retire.

The economic challenges brought forth by COVID-19 are causing a more intense focus in manufacturing on the need for the kind of alacrity achieved with digital tools and the kind of digital savvy achieved with strong partnerships.

Listen to this Smart Manufacturing magazine article: Pandemic makes case for more automation, robotics. Outbreak poised to prompt changes in the way manufacturers use automation.

As in other industries, U.S. forming and fabricating companies are experiencing a critical shortage of skilled labor. In this SME Media podcast, Alan Rooks, Editor in Chief of Manufacturing Engineering magazine, talks with Robert Tessier, National Director of Advanced Fabrication Technologies for Airgas about the skills gap in the forming and fabricating industry; changes needed in the education system to fill the need for skilled labor; how automation factors into efforts to reduce the skills gap; and efforts at Airgas to develop workers for manufacturing operations, including a special program for military veterans.

Finishing operations have traditionally been manual, but automation and robotics are making major inroads in this key manufacturing process. In this podcast, Alan Rooks, Editor in Chief of Manufacturing Engineering magazine talks with Normand Stoycheff, Business Development Manager for AV&R, and Giovanni Bevilacqua, Business Development Manager also with AV&R about emerging trends in automation/robotics; the main reasons allowing robotics to evolve from traditional pick-and-drop usage to more elaborate processes; how robots help the surface finishing process throughout the industry; and how surface finishing operations are developing the capability to inspect and repair.

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.

Ford Motor Co. is leasing four-legged robots from Boston Dynamics as part of a program to reduce cost and boost efficiency.

Listen to this Smart Manufacturing magazine cover story: In the thick of the ‘herculean’ vaccine push. Moderna is among the companies able to tackle the most urgent of matters precisely because of their digital strength.