Alicat Scientific is an ISO 9001 manufacturer of mass flow meters, mass flow controllers and pressure controllers for gases and liquids. Based in Tucson, Ariz., Alicat has been designing and manufacturing precision instruments since its inception in 1991.

Hitachi Powdered Metals (USA) Inc. began a gradual investment in industrial robots at their Greensburg, Ind. plant in 2005, driven by the emergence of a tightening labor market and the opportunity to produce an extremely fragile product.

There’s a big new trend sweeping the world, and not in a good way. The new coronavirus goes by other names, including COVID-19, the novel coronavirus, and SARS-CoV-2, but by any name it is bad news.

We sat down recently with SME Fellow Douglas Decker, an internationally known expert in the field of advanced composites fabrication and assembly, to discuss his background and innovative approaches on several critical military programs.

In the 1970s, medical specialists made advances in in-vitro fertilization that leapfrogged laws and regulations. The same is true today for bioprinting human organs for transplant.

Modern manufacturing is a data-driven endeavor. The sheer volume of data available to be collected and analyzed is staggering—and something that couldn’t have been envisioned even 20 years ago.

Many organizations struggle with applying new technology in their manufacturing operations. SME conducted the Manufacturing Technology Harmonization Study to understand how companies approach this challenge of integrating smart manufacturing, big data, and both new and old capital equipment in a cost-effective and practical implementation.

This article is based on the Workforce Leadership Exchange held at FABTECH 2019 in Chicago. It is the continuation of coverage that began with the Up Front column in Manufacturing Engineering, January 2020.

For the last few years, many of us in the manufacturing automation field have expressed the need to “build bridges to everywhere” within the context of Industry 4.0. It is a way to describe the capability and the goal of connecting shop floor resources, for example single machines with pallet pools, machines with robotic machine tending, and multi-machine cells and FMSs.