The ever-volatile oil and natural gas industry—roiled most recently by September’s drone attacks on Saudi Arabian oil facilities that temporarily reduced the kingdom’s output by nearly half (about 5 percent of global production)—faces particularly challenging requirements for machined components to meet evolving supply targets.
Pittsburgh International Airport has announced plans for Neighborhood 91, a development that condenses and connects all components of the additive manufacturing/3-D printing supply chain into one production “neighborhood” concept.
The Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing (CCAM), Prince George County, Va., brings together industry, academia, and government to solve advanced manufacturing challenges.
The term generative design has been popping up in the manufacturing world of late. Its promise is to create many design permutations to let engineers choose an optimum one that meets sometimes conflicting requirements.
Acquisition to Position PTC as CAD and PLM Industry Transitions to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
Siemens is planning the acquisition of Edge technology from the US
company Pixeom. With this action, Siemens is strengthening its Industrial
Edge portfolio by adding software components for Edge runtime and for
device management.
Kennametal Inc., Pittsburgh, has formed a 3D printing materials and production business unit, Kennametal Additive Manufacturing, as part of its Infrastructure segment.
The concepts Industry 4.0 in Europe, Made in China 2025 and smart manufacturing in the U.S. “all share a common goal—to create cyber-physical systems to innovate in manufacturing,” IDC's Bob Parker said at Dassault Systèmes’ recent Manufacturing in the Age of Experience event. “And it’s really dependent on a set of new technologies like IoT (the Internet of Things) and artificial intelligence (AI).”
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.
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.
