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COVID-19 has taught manufacturers a valuable lesson: when humans fall ill, machine tools and equipment sit idle. Granted, they already knew it, just as they knew that employees take lunch breaks and vacations, arrive late because their car won’t start, and go work at the shop down the street for fifty cents more an hour.

Manufacturing engineers, information technologists, and “smart” robots in flexible manufacturing cells are working ever more closely in manufacturing companies around the world.

Manufacturing is moving towards high-mix production different products in very small lots. Advanced robotics may be needed to get there.

Controls help make modern manufacturing go. Controls help shop floor employees monitor Industry 4.0 technology. Controls also boost productivity on the shop floor. Technology companies are highlighting improvements designed to maintain the forward momentum of advanced technology.

Ford Motor Co. is leasing four-legged robots from Boston Dynamics as part of a program to reduce cost and boost efficiency.

As in other industries, U.S. forming and fabricating companies are experiencing a critical shortage of skilled labor. In this SME Media podcast, Alan Rooks, Editor in Chief of Manufacturing Engineering magazine, talks with Robert Tessier, National Director of Advanced Fabrication Technologies for Airgas about the skills gap in the forming and fabricating industry; changes needed in the education system to fill the need for skilled labor; how automation factors into efforts to reduce the skills gap; and efforts at Airgas to develop workers for manufacturing operations, including a special program for military veterans.

FANUC was named a GM Supplier of the Year by General Motors during a virtual ceremony honoring the recipients of the company’s 28th annual Supplier of the Year awards on June 24.

In a recent demonstration of the vendor-agnostic Smart Manufacturing Innovation Platform (SMIP) from CESMII, project partners first helped managers of North Carolina State University’s water purification plant get off the dime and analyze the data they were collecting with smart instruments.

Finishing operations have traditionally been manual, but automation and robotics are making major inroads in this key manufacturing process. In this podcast, Alan Rooks, Editor in Chief of Manufacturing Engineering magazine talks with Normand Stoycheff, Business Development Manager for AV&R, and Giovanni Bevilacqua, Business Development Manager also with AV&R about emerging trends in automation/robotics; the main reasons allowing robotics to evolve from traditional pick-and-drop usage to more elaborate processes; how robots help the surface finishing process throughout the industry; and how surface finishing operations are developing the capability to inspect and repair.

Mitsubishi Electric Automation has appointed new executive personnel to grow and increase its presence in the Americas. In a series of hires and promotions, Mitsubishi Electric Automation Inc. (MEAU) has named key personnel to new executive positions detailed below.