Purchasing and supply executives expect manufacturing to continue expanding in 2019, according to a survey by the Institute for Supply Management.
Cyber criminals are increasingly setting their sights on today’s digitized manufacturing industry as an entry point into government and commercial supply chains.
There is no shortage of competition in a global market. As a manufacturer trying to get ahead of the pack, automation can help with problems like a limited skilled labor force, quality control issues and suboptimal throughput. But the high initial cost and extended implementation time can be deterrents.
Manufacturers are facing shrinking product lifecycles with frequently changing customer demands. As a result, they need agile production and flexible factory layouts that can easily be modified whenever needed.
A Michigan company that displays instructions for manual manufacturing processes on work stations via augmented reality (AR) is adding wearables to provide similar guidance.
Structured light systems measure surfaces by projecting a pattern of fringes, then using cameras and sophisticated software to convert them into point clouds of metrology data. Accuracy can reach the single-digit microns over millions of points.
The growing skills gap is causing trepidation among manufacturers and the lack of millennials building careers within the industry is part of the concern.
Manufacturing should expand in the first half of 2020, including increased revenue for companies, the Institute for Supply Management said this week in a semi-annual forecast.
Producing metal products is one of the most energy intensive industries. Improving both energy and production efficiency, as well as ensuring product quality is at the top of any manufacturers to do list. Engineers should consider using fixed thermal imaging cameras to optimize their manufacturing process.
The second level of machining automation is here. It may not be at every shop or factory yet, but it’s coming.
