Smart Manufacturing: September 2019
The September 2019 edition of Smart Manufacturing is available as a digital magazine. Links to individual articles are below.

When Will 5G Arrive? What Will It Mean for Manufacturers?
March 20, 2019
If you believe Glenn Longley, VP for IoT product management at Inseego, manufacturers in the U.S. will be adapting to 5G connectivity within the next 18 months.

Bringing Intelligent Automation Tech to the Broad Engineering Market
August 1, 2019
Amid vigorous growth in their industry, product lifecycle management (PLM) software developers are exploiting the cloud and machine learning to manage data and enhance the users’ experience.

Automotive Industry Warms to 3D Printing
August 1, 2019
The auto industry wants to expand the use of 3D printers. Automakers such as Ford Motor Co. and BMW AG are working directly with additive manufacturers concerning deployment of the technology.

Robot Company Creates Industry 4.0-Friendly Software
August 2, 2019
FANUC has made real one of the promises of Industry 4.0, that of predictive maintenance for factory equipment, with its Zero Down Time IoT solution. ZDT can be applied to any of FANUC’s robotic arms and their peripherals.

Brousell: To survive, think like Merck, Cisco, Lexmark and Dow
April 1, 2019
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.

The Best of Both Worlds in the Same Machine
August 2, 2019
Hybrid manufacturing—using one machine to perform both additive and conventional subtractive manufacturing processes—is gaining traction across manufacturing sectors, allowing companies to leverage the benefits of both.

How to Go About Harmonizing New Tech
August 5, 2019
Before harmonizing new technology onto the manufacturing floor, critical steps include determining the business problems to be solved and securing buy-in from all stakeholders, industry leaders said recently during an AeroDef conference panel talk on manufacturing production harmonization.

Tectonic Shifts Inside Jenoptik Include New Automation Hub in North America
August 5, 2019
The German metrology developer Jenoptik is shifting “from focusing on metrology and laser processing standalone equipment to integrated automation solutions for the automotive industry.
Up Front
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Smart Manufacturing
Serious About Industry 4.0? Then Adopt Open Standards
August 9, 2019Listen up, major manufacturers and CAD vendors: You’ve got the whole world in your hands—the world in this case being the vision of the digitally connected enterprise and cyber-physical ambitions for Industry 4.0.
Collective Intelligence
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Smart Manufacturing
Experts Describe Giving Chase to DFAM for Parts That Must Not Fail
August 5, 2019The U.S. Army is working assiduously to flight-qualify engine parts it has redesigned using additive manufacturing (AM).
Passport To Innovation
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Smart Manufacturing
Israeli Autonomous Machine Vision Firm: Skip the Integrator
August 27, 2019A conversation between Inspekto CEO Harel Boren and Editor in Chief Brett Brune.
Guest Columns
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Smart Manufacturing
To Prepare for Blockchain, First Check These Three Things
August 6, 2019The value-add of blockchain for businesses is estimated to grow into the trillions by 2030. Experts believe product recalls alone—estimated to cost $8 million today—could be practically eliminated through improved track and traceability enabled by blockchain. -
Smart Manufacturing
PRN-RIA Partnership: There’s Problem Solving in Numbers
August 6, 2019The Pittsburgh region is a hotbed of activity in robotics and AI. This activity includes research and technology companies that commercialize academic research and solve real world problems. -
Smart Manufacturing
Five Suggestions for How to Retain Tribal Knowledge
August 7, 2019What is tribal knowledge and why should a company care? It is valuable, exclusive information stored only inside someone’s mind and communicated only verbally (if at all). The “someone” may have played an important role in an organization for decades and knows a thing or two that the company treasures yet cannot duplicate. -
Smart Manufacturing
Finding the Right Fit for Custom Products
August 7, 2019There is an ever-increasing demand for the individualization of products from today’s consumer. When consumers are able to get exactly what they want (shape, size, color) they are more satisfied and more likely to do repeat business. But how do you scale custom part production? -
Smart Manufacturing
Cobots, End-of-Arm Tooling Minimize Automation Barriers
August 8, 2019Gear maker Osvald Jensen knew it needed to speed up work and improve its performance and productivity by shaving seconds off its run time while ensuring round-the-clock up-time on its machinery. -
Smart Manufacturing
Time to Push for Step and Other Open Standards
August 9, 2019In the age of Industry 4.0 and the digital thread, computer-aided design (CAD) data exchange should be open and seamless because it happens daily in a multi-tiered supplier ecosystem and so much interoperability depends on it. But we are not there yet.
Podcasts For You
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