McDermott International is using Digital Twins to grow its business and to keep information flowing instead of trapped in silos.
Well into the 21st century, the medical industry faces a host of intriguing challenges, from aging populations to a growing range of personalized and at-home diagnostic and care devices—all set against a backdrop of increasing digital collection, transfer and storage of sensitive patient data.
Maybe your company specializes in aerospace or medical components, and you need to produce complex geometries in metals too tough to cut via conventional machining methods.
One of the foundational aspects of Industry 4.0 protocols is the creation of electronic “digital twin” models of product data and production processes. This includes an exact replica of all machine tools, including complex work envelopes showing the particular spindles, fixtures, and cutting tools.
Additive manufacturing, and AM machines, have gone mainstream over the past five years. The technology has advanced. More materials, including metals and composites, are being used for 3D printing, where parts are made from a digital design.
Industry 4.0, Automation and 3D printing are three of the hottest topics in manufacturing, and this podcast targets all three! Listen in as Alan Rooks, Editor in Chief of Manufacturing Engineering magazine, talks with Steve Fruehe, pre-sales solutions consultant, and Zach Gray, strategic business developer for Siemens about the basics of digitalization; approaches to gathering and storing the required data; and how app development figures into the equation.
SkillsUSA wields a large shovel, but we have a big hole to fill. That hole is in the American economy and it is called the skills gap—the widening gap between the jobs available and the skilled workers ready to fill them.
Connected manufacturing and digitization technologies are spurring many of the major innovations in CNC machine controls that help machine shops cut metal and create parts as quickly and efficiently as possible.
If “automation” is the constant drone you hear from practically everyone in metalworking these days, job shop owners might be the only people yelling “No!” Or at least “Wait!” How, they ask, can you cost-effectively automate low-volume, high-mix parts? Yet it’s not only doable but probably necessary.
A single phone call changed my life forever. In 2003, I was sitting in my office at a fuel cell manufacturing company where I was vice president of operations. A voice on the other end of the line said, “Hello, my name is Mark Tomlinson. I’m calling as a representative of the SME Manufacturing Enterprise Council.”