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.
Comau, Microsoft and ICONICS are debuting here at Hannover Messe the results of their work together to improve manufacturing production around the world, in terms of efficiency and total cost of ownership.
Unplanned downtime and production loss due to equipment failure is one of the leading losses for manufacturers. Most shops perform maintenance on a fixed schedule or on failure. This means a machine will be maintained regardless of how often it is used and unexpected breakdowns will stop production.
Data management and the maintenance of clean, usable data for asset performance metrics pose great challenges for manufacturers today.
Mazak Corp. (Florence, KY) continues its steady advance toward the complete factory digitization of all its manufacturing operations with the recent transformation of its Oguchi, Japan, facility into yet another Mazak iSMART Factory.
Until the middle of 2010, first-tier subcontract machinist, JJ Churchill, could produce turbine blades only if they had their fir-tree root-forms preground elsewhere, or if they were subsequently added by another subcontractor. No longer is this the case.
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.
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.
Burrs, sharp edges, and rough surfaces plague even the most precise metal-cutting or forming process. Deburring and finishing can often be treated as the step-child of a manufacturing process, but its importance is growing as tolerances get tighter and precision devices become the norm.
New ISO safety specification helps automation developers design safer robots for close encounters on the factory floor