As additive manufacturing emerges from a long infancy, the industry is grappling with a key challenge: A file format and design tools from the 20th century are being asked to do 21st century jobs.
Modern manufacturing is rapidly adopting model-based definition (MBD). When employing an MBD strategy, the CAD model becomes more than the nominal to which all parts are measured and inspected against. MBD keeps the all-important digital thread intact—from design to manufacturing to inspection and quality reporting.
Simulation tools are making it much easier for manufacturers to optimize their processes, visualizing the entire path of production from NC metalcutting simulations through 3D design and factory-floor imaging.
New ISO safety specification helps automation developers design safer robots for close encounters on the factory floor
Modernizing the smaller shop with the latest digital tools available from enterprise resource planning (ERP) software developers
Cutting tool and tooling systems specialist Sandvik Coromant has unveiled its CoroPlus suite of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) solutions aimed at helping manufacturers prepare for Industry 4.0. The concept is designed specifically to improve the control of productivity and costs through a combination of machine connectivity and CoroPlus – the suite of connectivity solutions from Sandvik Coromant – helps manufacturers prepare for Industry 4.0 access to manufacturing data and expert knowledge.
The nexus of cyber and physical security threats is the stuff of nightmares, and while manufacturers are waking up to it as a reality, experts worry that the awakening is happening too slowly.
Data management and the maintenance of clean, usable data for asset performance metrics pose great challenges for manufacturers today.
The road to manufacturing success today runs through the mountain of data that tools are generating in metalcutting applications, and most importantly communicating and reacting to in real time on the shop floor.
A dynamic safety concept has been implemented in the Industrie 4.0 demo production plant of the SmartFactoryKL consortium on the basis of an industrial, Ethernet-based communications protocol.
