AM, Spare Parts, and the Rise of the Micro Factory March 8, 2019 Manufacturing got smart when companies figured out how to make products in one market and sell them in another. Today, we call this supply chain logistics. But somewhere along the way, the innovation chain connecting supply (manufacturing) and logistics (the supporting infrastructure) started to diverge.
Testing the Metal November 27, 2018 Materials science has opened new possibilities for designers of cars, planes and other products. Metal alloys are now as precisely engineered as they are machined. The result is longer lasting, stronger parts. But with a wider selection of materials comes risk—how can you be sure that one piece of gray metal stock is different than another? Careful warehousing procedures and paperwork only go so far.
How AM is Changing Inspection in Smart Factories November 1, 2018 In the manufacturing industry, the importance of metrology, or the science of measurement, is often underestimated. However, inspection is critical for ensuring products work and operate safely.
Keeping Machines Honest with Advanced Calibration, Optimization June 3, 2019 There’s nothing mysterious about the need for calibration. As Michael Wilm, business manager for calibration products, Renishaw Inc., West Dundee, Illinois, put it: “When you get gas for your car, you count on the pump being calibrated. That’s why we calibrate machine tools. If you don’t calibrate a machine tool you have no idea it’s going to give you reliable service for manufacturing your product.”
Hexagon AG’s HxGN Live Focuses on the Future of Manufacturing June 20, 2019 Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence, a business unit of Hexagon AB, outlined its vision for the future of manufacturing at HxGN Live, the company’s annual digital solutions conference, held June 11-15 in Las Vegas.
Control Software Improvements Spurring Manufacturing’s Digitization Push May 15, 2019 More and more manufacturers are seeing productivity as a crucial factor to their business success. In the meantime, business models are changing from the large quantities and few variants to small quantities with frequently changed variants. This change requires high flexibility during production.
ZEISS Completes Steel Construction of New Facility in Michigan June 13, 2019 With the Steel Topping Out event, ZEISS has completed the steel portion of its state-of-the-art site near Detroit. The new facility for the Industrial Quality and Research (IQR) segment of ZEISS, represented in the USA by Carl Zeiss Industrial Metrology, LLC, is scheduled to be complete in June 2020 and will consolidate four existing Michigan facilities into one location.
Legacy machinery can be data mined for modern operations November 22, 2021 Whether transmitted through wires or the air, data collected from older factory devices can help a shop owner make smarter business decisions.
RAPID + TCT emphasizes how additive manufacturing will expand November 18, 2021 This year’s RAPID + TCT show signaled a new wave of users, with 35 percent of the audience being new to adopting additive manufacturing technologies.
Data is King at EASTEC 2021 October 29, 2021 Digitization and data dominated the discussion as EASTEC returned to West Springfield, Mass., after its 2020 pandemic hiatus.