Meticulous Recordkeeping Doesn’t Have to Be Painful February 21, 2019 The requirements for FDA 21 CFR Part 11 are in place for a good reason: When companies are making a part that goes inside your body, the engineering and manufacturing process must be meticulously documented, tested and controlled. People’s lives are at stake.
Energy Storage Systems Can Help Calm Sea of Uncertainty February 19, 2019 Energy markets across the world are changing rapidly with the increase of renewables and the change to a more distributed energy network. Energy storage is key. The capabilities of large-scale batteries have expanded, allowing users to capture more value and create a powerful tool to manage energy needs.
On-Premises or the Cloud: Which Makes More Sense? February 21, 2019 So you have finally decided to start your digital transformation. You have seen the benefits around digitizing your operations. By connecting your disparate systems, you can start seeing what is actually happening in your plant and become more efficient. And not just in one plant, but in multiple plants.
How a Small, Influential Maker of Robots Sees Human Workers February 25, 2019 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.
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.
Bridge Tool & Die: CNC Turns ‘Feel’ Into High-Precision Carbide Grinding November 28, 2018 Glenn Bridgman describes the difference between his shop’s manual grinders and its newest state-of-the-art CNC ID/OD grinder, a Studer CT960 OD/ID from United Grinding (Miamisburg, OH), as “feel vs. facts.” Bridgman, president of Bridge Tool & Die (Buckley, MI), believes that manual grinding is a somewhat personal operation.
GDPR: A Rick Oppedisano AI Love Story October 16, 2018 Artificial intelligence will go long way to imbue data management with trust.
Seeing shop-floor steps clearly helps workers quickly learn on the job April 3, 2018 A talk with Shannon Bennett, implementation and Sales Engineer at Visual Knowledge Share Ltd.
High-Torque Retention Knob Gives Job Shop Spindles The Competitive Edge April 25, 2018 Despite the addition of more than 750,000 CNC mills in the past 15 years in the US, CNC machining job shops often hover at the bottom of the totem pole, where there’s little room for error as most bids are won by a 1–2% price variance.
Securely on the smart manufacturing path and looking at the next phase April 3, 2018 Smart Manufacturing sat down with KIMBERLEY HAGERTY, Industry 4.0 digital manufacturing transformation manager at Pratt & Whitney, at the Westec conference in Los Angeles in September to hear about the progress her firm is making adopting smart manufacturing processes, solutions and strategies.
