Implementing Industry 4.0 in Three Key Steps
If you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed by the prospect of Industry 4.0, and perhaps a bit sheepish about your lack of progress, you’ve got good company.
If you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed by the prospect of Industry 4.0, and perhaps a bit sheepish about your lack of progress, you’ve got good company.
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.
Cloud computing helps any kind of manufacturing with cybersecurity, efficiency, on-call scalability, and Industry 4.0. But for medical manufacturers, cloud computing brings additional critical benefits.
Sensors are making their way deeper into process manufacturing where they monitor PH levels in vinegar, ensure towering bins of sugar aren’t overfilled and measure humidity in bakeries. Sensors are even helping power better mousetraps.
Wyoming Completion had a shock when it began machining parts in an automated machining cell. It was a good shock: While the company hoped for a 25-35% boost in production, it experienced 400% improvement.
Put the paper and pencil away. Hybrid data management and analysis systems-where users combine paper tracking with computer processing-are no longer meeting the needs of manufacturers for speed, accuracy, traceability and compliance with regulations.
As I walked the floor this spring at North America’s largest trade show for automation technologies, Industry 4.0 was on everybody’s lips. One of the more complex of our industrial revolutions, Industry 4.0 has been about the Internet of Things: digitizing and connecting things.
The Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing (CCAM), Prince George County, Va., brings together industry, academia, and government to solve advanced manufacturing challenges.
CNC Software Inc., Tolland, Conn., the developers of Mastercam, has announced the winners of the 2018-2019 Wildest Parts Competition. The Wildest Parts Competition is held each year to encourage student interest and participation in manufacturing.
If you look at all the companies that were on the Fortune 500 list in 1990, “a very large percentage of them are not there anymore,” David Brousell, executive director of the Manufacturing Leadership Council, told people attending his talk on “Manufacturing 4.0” at Oracle’s recent Modern Business Experience conference.