Ranked as the top additive manufacturing (AM) platform vendor, Stratasys (Los Angeles) scored highest in the overall category of implementation and topped four of the 12 ranking criteria, announced Oyster Bay, N.Y.-based ABI Research, a market-foresight advisory firm providing strategic guidance on the most compelling transformative technologies.
One of the key advantages of additive manufacturing is its digital thread, which allows for rapid communication, iteration, and sharing of a design model and its corresponding physical representation. While this enables an efficient design process, the flow of data opens vulnerabilities to cyber-attack.
Additive manufacturing (AM) once was called “rapid prototyping.” Its earliest forms made prototype parts—and nothing else. However, manufacturers were intrigued by the prospect of using it to make cost-effective metal parts in production. That day is here.
Two new production resins are available for 3D printing: one from 3D Systems is a thermoset that thinks it’s a thermoplastic and another from Carbon is a hybrid that’s 30 percent biomaterial, the company’s first resin with a reduced carbon footprint.
The second level of machining automation is here. It may not be at every shop or factory yet, but it’s coming.
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.
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.
What do you think of when you hear the word factory? Probably some huge space, with machines humming and personnel walking around with notepads in their hands.
What 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.
The 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.