Nearly a year ago, the world became aware of a new computer virus known as WannaCry. Many institutions were affected by the ransomware. It encrypted and locked a Microsoft Windows computing system and demanded payment.
The next cycle of technology disruption is upon us. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is taking hold in every industry and manufacturing is no exception. AI enables companies—from medical device and electronics manufacturers to pharmaceutical firms—to leverage their Big Data and IoT investments to see new patterns and insights and to perform tasks more efficiently and quickly than ever before.
Companies like ABB, Balluff and Sick would be within their rights to film a commercial with exuberant sensor product managers breaking out in a song of cheer.
What is good about inventory? Being able to find a part when you need it. What’s not so good about inventory? Where to even start…
Although laser welding is a well-established manufacturing solution, many sheetmetal fabricators have been hesitant to implement the process at their shop.
Not all threaded connections serve similar purposes.The load-carrying needs of an aerospace engine support bolt in a tension assembly greatly exceed those of a simple screw that fastens a cover plate to an electrical wall socket. International thread-acceptance documents and standards recognize this basic engineering fact, and incorporate different thread-inspection requirements into their verification standards.
Despite the availability of spindle rebuilders nationwide, not every firm provides the same level of quality.
In the 1955 short story “Autofac,” Philip K. Dick envisioned a world dominated by self-replicating robots that work incessantly, eventually depleting the planet’s resources.
As a self-aware millennial, Pat Evans has long been wary of how quickly technology is taking over our lives and quickly dominating the economy. Attending HxGN Live in June, Hexagon AB’s annual digital solutions conference, some of those fears were reinforced, while others were quelled.
The human factor is sometimes just too cumbersome in manufacturing. Take the German chipmaker Infineon: By using an autonomous robot called Scout from MetraLabs for the last several years, the automotive supplier shrank to 10 from 300 the number of minutes it takes to collect the clean-room data needed to measure the presence of rare gases in the air.
