While cameras and motion control have worked in tandem for at least 15 years, their integration has improved because networks have gotten faster, more reliable, and more deterministic (i.e., nothing will interfere with a function that’s a priority).
There is no better way to resolve a problem than by eliminating it entirely. At least that’s how KTH Parts Industries Inc. (St. Paris, OH) regarded its decision to automate a manual equipment changeover process for its robotic welding cells.
Parker Hannifin’s Marissa Tucker talks with Senior Editor Patrick Waurzyniak
For many years, the knowledge economy and traditional industries like manufacturing appeared to be on parallel tracks. Now those tracks are converging.
Industry 4.0 is inevitable, and everyone is looking to find a way forward. But manufacturing leaders who focus only on the technology involved will be frustrated—because the new industrial revolution is just as much a culture and people thing as it is a technology thing.
You don’t have to look too far to find tooling presetters that fit the machining requirements of just about any size shop. The value of off-line tool presetting—rather than stopping machine spindles to touch off tools as machines sit idle—continues to prove itself invaluable, especially to the smallest first-time user shops.
With the latest product lifecycle management (PLM) tools, manufacturers take aim at speeding developments using the Digital Thread, an integrated set of CAD/CAM/CAE and cPDM (collaborative Product Data Management) solutions that weave together new Digital Twins of manufacturing processes.
Summary of report from EGGELSBERG, Austria—Bernecker + Rainer Industrie-Elektronik GmbH, the 3,000-person firm that ABB recently said it would buy, shows Smart Manufacturing how it puts together automation PCs, or APCs, in a batch-size-one mode.
Keeping products clean is becoming a more significant part of manufacturing as standards for cleanliness, deburring, and finish grow more stringent.
Robotic machining technology has advanced to where it poses a serious alternative to metalcutting applications on more traditional machining centers. With the latest robotics equipment and related software, automation suppliers and robotic system integrators are gaining some traction using robots in many material-removal applications previously done only with machine tools.
