Most manufacturers have relied on third-party vendors to make parts that are then incorporated into the final product. From automakers sourcing stereos and aircraft makers contracting for jet engines to a small bakery ordering plastic bags or a woodshop buying nails, producers of all types have supplemented their internal capabilities through a painstakingly developed supply chain of external vendors.
Just getting familiar with the digital thread? You’ve come to the right place to learn what it is and why you need it for your products.
Having a plan for maintaining and improving the performance and reliability of every machine on a shop floor is vital to manufacturing operations. Reliable machines make short-notice production runs possible. And the more flexible manufacturers are, the more new customers they’ll attract.
Manufacturing Engineering asked thought leaders at five companies for their views on challenges and trends facing the metalworking industry.
In today’s booming software landscape, you see highly dynamic teams quickly iterating to develop and improve their products. Yet while the world’s software creators have learned to “move fast and break things,” hardware developers are still (slowly) moving to adopt a more agile product development methodology.
Tool presetting machines are a wise investment for machine shops that want to increase their machine utilization. Idle machine tools are often indicators of inefficient machining operations, and stopping a machine tool for any reason is synonymous to losing profits.
Shops today must track or measure their manufacturing operations to improve them. This need drives the growing use of MTConnect—an open, royalty-free protocol for extracting data from practically any piece of equipment, including machine tools and other manufacturing systems. The integration of MTConnect is a major undertaking, and can be a bit challenging unless certain preparations are made ahead of time.
Being a competitive player in the aerospace and defense industry is no small feat. In an industry in which you need to be accountable for every piece of an assembly, meeting customer expectations and requirements can be daunting tasks.
The US Department of Defense (DoD) is keen on exploring the implementation of additive equipment in the battlefield and shipboard for quick-turn part fabrication.
The 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.
