Energy Industry’s Up-and-Down Cycle Continues December 6, 2018 The energy industry is often at the forefront of our minds as we watch fuel prices climb and then celebrate when they come down. We continually find ways to be as energy efficient as possible in our homes and workplaces. Media outlets keep us constantly informed of this often-volatile industry’s ups and downs.
A New Approach to PLM? December 6, 2016 You have heard it before, today’s manufactured products are becoming ever more complicated. As computers and microcontrollers get ever cheaper and more powerful they have become more enticing for product engineers to use and incorporate. This means the intellectual property in the embedded software has grown increasingly in value – possibly exponentially.
Sense and Sensibilities: The Evolution of Automation March 16, 2017 The latest trends in automation are wide-ranging. They include the integration of the cloud, Big Data and the Internet of Things; protecting the software that runs a plant from hackers; manufacturing execution system (MES) apps that can be deployed a la carte; collaborative cobots that can safely do the heavy lifting side-by-side with humans; and robots that can do more than ever before—both on the production line and well away from it.
Real-Time Mobile Messaging Keeps Factory Floors Humming April 18, 2017 Launched in November 2016 at FABTECH, Squeaks is a mobile-first Industrial Internet of Things [IIoT] messaging app that facilitates quicker, better decision-making and closed-loop collaboration, with machines as part of the conversation.
Locking Down the Factory Floor December 1, 2015 With more factory assets getting connected to the Web, particularly with the coming explosion of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, today’s manufacturing management must look for rock-solid technologies for securing their factory-floor machinery and the mission-critical intellectual property assets that now often reside in cloud-based software.
Leveraging Digital Analysis for the IIoT, Big Data January 1, 2016 Jon Sobel, CEO and Co-Founder of Sight Machine Inc. in San Francisco, sat down with Senior Editor Patrick Waurzyniak to discuss numerous topics related to Controls and Software, including how Sight Macine Inc. uses analytics software to help shops leverage plant-floor data.
Masters of Manufacturing: Herbert B. Voelcker July 1, 2009 A self-described “river rat” during his teenage years, Herbert B. Voelcker grew up in the small town of Tonawanda, NY, just north of Buffalo, where as a young man he grew to love the water, boats, and steam engines. His early fascination with how things worked eventually led him to study mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA), and to embark later on a greatly varied technical career highlighted by his research into the mathematical foundations for 3-D solid modeling.
Five-Axis CAM Slices Into Food Processing November 2, 2017 Urschel Laboratories has come a long way since its founder William E. Urschel introduced the gooseberry snipper to Michigan canneries in 1910. Today, the company’s innovative machines are used by virtually every food processing manufacturer worldwide to slice, dice, trim, grate, and process foods that are stored in pantries and refrigerator shelves. For the record, Urschel’s gooseberry snipper machine handled the removal of a stem and thick bud appendage from the berry.
Solving the Shop-Floor Data Analysis Puzzle February 2, 2018 As the move toward a more connected manufacturing industry gains momentum and manufacturers start collecting factory-floor data, the need for fast, efficient data analysis becomes ever more critical.
Compressing the Moldmaking Design and Production Process May 2, 2018 Moldmakers are under constant pressure to speed up the moldmaking process, improving their processes and product quality while boosting productivity.