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SME Home Media Smart Manufacturing Magazine November 2019

Smart Manufacturing: November 2019

The November 2019 edition of Smart Manufacturing is now available as a digital magazine. Links to individual articles are below.
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Rob Totten, engineering manager at FANUC, programs one of the company’s cobots. Rockwell Auto-mation in 2015 released an add-on profile (AOP) for FANUC robots for simpler integration of FANUC robots into Rockwell architecture, he said.

Barriers to robot deployment falling one by one

October 16, 2019
Industrial robots are becoming easier to program, more versatile, more cost-effective, more accurate and more mobile. These changes are lowering barriers to entry, shortening return on investment and making robots a more practical investment.
By Karen Haywood Queen Contributing Editor, SME Media
Dustin Caudell, VP of sales for RFgen, demonstrates mobile barcoding demonstration for customers.

IoT + analytics = cool new stuff to sell

October 16, 2019
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.
By Karen Haywood Queen Contributing Editor, SME Media
Fredrik Rydman performed last year with an ABB collaborative robot in Sweden. At a recent tech conference in Shanghai, ABB showed a video of the performance to illustrate how safe robot-human interaction has become.

ABB’s ‘factory of the future’ in China to demo safety, sustainability

October 16, 2019
The $150 million “factory of the future” that the Swiss innovator ABB announced a year ago is becoming reality in this enormous city’s Pudong New Area.
Brett Brune
By Brett Brune Editor in Chief, Smart Manufacturing
Fastems LLC President David Suica said setup for a new part takes minutes vs. hours thanks to parametric programming.

American, German, Swedish manufacturers gladly adopt factory-within-factory concept

October 16, 2019
Manufacturers of all sizes see an uptick in productivity after adding a factory within a factory via an automated machining cell. The cells are small-scale, clearly defined production units, often for a family of similar parts or a product, and they typically include a robotic arm and one or more machine tools.
Ilene Wolff
By Ilene Wolff Contributing Editor, SME Media
PTC CEO Jim Heppelmann, left, and Rockwell Automation CEO Blake Moret announced a strategic partnership in June last year that is accelerating growth for both companies.

Traditional IT firms, traditional OT firms try newfangled ties

October 16, 2019
Information technology and operations technology are unlikely candidates for a successful marriage. But to ensure that manufacturers thrive in the digital age, OT and IT must find ways to work together—or to at least, as on Tinder, swipe right to indicate interest.
By Karen Haywood Queen Contributing Editor, SME Media
Plex Systems’ Anurag Garg said there are dozens of solutions that will enable data collection easily, but the real value is in contextualizing that data.

Contextualized insights gained from data save precious time, material

October 16, 2019
Manufacturers who have deployed the digital or smart factory have put down their pencils, found new uses for their clipboards and closed their spreadsheet programs in favor of using real-time data gleaned from condition monitoring of their machinery.
Ilene Wolff
By Ilene Wolff Contributing Editor, SME Media

Upfront

  • Brett Brune
    Smart Manufacturing

    Factory-within-factory idea delivers productivity gains

    October 16, 2019
    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.
    By Brett Brune - Editor in Chief, Smart Manufacturing

Collective Intelligence

  • Smart Manufacturing

    Blockchain can power move to monetize Big Data, experts say

    October 16, 2019
    Blockchain can help power the process to monetize Big Data and will play a role in the FDA’s regulations to limit pharmaceutical counterfeiting by increasing security of the drug supply chain, said experts Smart Manufacturing gathered at Westec 2019 for an exclusive blockchain-tech roundtable
    By Karen Haywood Queen - Contributing Editor

Field Intelligence

  • Eric Dynowski
    Smart Manufacturing

    Going digital helped mailbox maker supersize its product

    October 16, 2019
    Cloud technology presents manufacturers with opportunities to improve the flexibility, scalability and efficiency of their operations. Realizing these benefits will require more than simply doing a one-to-one transfer of current technology to cloud-based servers.
    By Eric Dynowski - Chief Technology Officer, ServerCentral Turing Group
  • Smart Manufacturing

    Ways to get ready to take part in evolving ecosystems

    October 16, 2019
    I experienced the end of the Third Industrial Revolution as I began my career in manufacturing. Closed government and private networks gave way to an open network called the Internet.
    By Conrad Leiva - VP Product Strategy and Alliances, iBASEt
  • David Suica President Fastems LLC
    Smart Manufacturing

    Hey, machining automation is growing up. Time to mark ‘2.’

    October 16, 2019
    The second level of machining automation is here. It may not be at every shop or factory yet, but it’s coming.
    By David Suica - President, Sucia
  • Joe Brooker IIoT Analyst Cambashi
    Smart Manufacturing

    At long last, IoT is breaking down walls between IT, OT

    October 16, 2019
    With an influx of investment in digital factories, the playing field is changing and the ROI for digitizing production is becoming ever more apparent. However, restraints, such as company size and a disconnect between IT and OT, means the road to a successful digital transformation is one very few will be able to do alone.
    By Joe Brooker - IIoT Analyst, Cambashi
  • Smart Manufacturing

    One way to calculate business value with AM

    October 16, 2019
    For years, companies have struggled to understand how additive manufacturing (AM) can add value to their businesses. This makes sense because for a long time, additive tech didn’t meet the threshold for producing industrial-grade parts.
    By Lou Rassey - CEO, Fast Radius
  • Mass Customization
    Smart Manufacturing

    Mass customization will only work if we return the power to the people

    October 16, 2019
    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.
    By Jürgen von Hollen - President, Universal Robots