MTConnect Exec: Standards Help See Into Future, Integrate Diverse Equipment July 20, 2020 Russell Waddell, managing director at the MTConnect Institute, dives into why so many standards exist, what manufacturers can gain from a digital factory project, and how they can cut through the hype—to at least achieve shop floor monitoring. MTConnect, a standard with more than 10 years of history, frees up manufacturers to focus on value-add functions instead of normalizing data. And it has been installed on more than 50,000 devices worldwide. Today, the use case is not just what happened or what is happening “what is going to happen: looking at … anything that is forward-looking and anticipating what will happen next.” Perhaps most important, embracing standards allows for quick and easy integration of all types and brands of equipment.
COVID-19 is teaching us just what innovation is possible July 20, 2020 What a difference a month makes. In a survey by the Manufacturing Advocacy and Growth Network (MAGNET) in February, only 24 percent of Ohio manufacturers said innovation was a priority.
Ericsson, Hexagon cook up example of 5G in action July 17, 2020 The promise of 5G is tempting. Fast data speeds and low latency rates make wireless connectivity, and real-time monitoring and decision making a possibility. Cost, legacy systems, security and other issues might be a deterrent that keeps some from dipping their toes into 5G waters.
Trillium Machine finds a way to effectively train newbies July 17, 2020 One of the biggest challenges that any shop faces in 2020 is finding skilled workers to backfill those baby boomers who are retiring, or simply finding staff to meet the demand of a healthy manufacturing economy.
VR stands ready to stand in (for R) July 16, 2020 When designers at Siemens started using virtual reality (VR) to quickly evaluate early-stage ideas, the usually slow and costly design-and-iteration process went from days and hours to minutes.
Conveyance, warehousing plans involve cyber risks July 16, 2020 The arrival of COVID-19 onto the global manufacturing landscape has changed operations in a number of important ways.
CESMII’s SMIP shines in test drive July 15, 2020 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.
IACMI supplies scale-up testing for new composite parts July 15, 2020 Until just a few years ago, if a vehicle maker wanted to test the process for making a newly designed composite part at full scale, the company’s R&D engineers would call one of its Tier Ones and ask to schedule a trial run on the composites fabricator’s machines during off hours.
Industry’s vaccine against future COVID-XX challenges July 15, 2020 The COVID-19 crisis caught all of us off guard and interrupted global systems in a way not experienced in recent memory.
The Growing Role of Automation in Finishing Operations July 15, 2020 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.
