Displaying 371-380 of 829 results for

Sandvik will acquire DWFritz Automation, a U.S.-based provider of precision metrology, inspection and assembly solutions for advanced manufacturing. DWFritz designs, builds and supports high-speed, non-contact metrology solutions and automation systems.

I experienced the end of the Third Industrial Revolution as I began my career in manufacturing. Closed government and private networks gave way to an open network called the Internet.

For machine shops in a competitive global marketplace, keeping spindles running and making product is the only way to stay in business. Still, adding a new piece of equipment, even with the promise of improving the efficiency of your existing ones, may be a difficult sell to management.

We all know the buzzwords circulating around digital data and the factory. You have heard them—Industry 4.0, smart factories, data analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI). The question we all have is how will this impact workers in the long term? What do these terms really mean? Nevertheless, both traditional software suppliers and makers of advanced manufacturing equipment are offering digital solutions.

In my capacity as the Chair of the Council of the Manufacturing USA institute directors, I often get asked about trends in U.S. advanced manufacturing.

The institutes that make up Manufacturing USA need to move at the speed of business, considering that the endeavor represents the U.S. government’s biggest investment in the digitization of manufacturing to date.

In the age of Industry 4.0 and the digital thread, computer-aided design (CAD) data exchange should be open and seamless because it happens daily in a multi-tiered supplier ecosystem and so much interoperability depends on it. But we are not there yet.

Manufacturers of all sizes see an uptick in productivity after adding a factory within a factory via an automated machining cell. The cells are small-scale, clearly defined production units, often for a family of similar parts or a product, and they typically include a robotic arm and one or more machine tools.

Manufacturers who have deployed the digital or smart factory have put down their pencils, found new uses for their clipboards and closed their spreadsheet programs in favor of using real-time data gleaned from condition monitoring of their machinery.

There is still a lot of talk about breaking down the “silos” within a manufacturing enterprise. Siemens, like other software providers, is trying to address the problem by offering toolsets that are easier to integrate and work together.