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Manufacturing automation is trickling down from the massive automotive assembly lines toward the “mom and pop” machine shop. As you take your first look at automation, consider the benefits of and barriers to this technology.

Banking on the premise that sometimes the best ideas for solving problems come from the ground up, manufacturers are adopting no-code and low-code programming platforms to let employees solve problems by building their own custom apps.

Having a plan for maintaining and improving the performance and reliability of every machine on a shop floor is vital to manufacturing operations. Reliable machines make short-notice production runs possible. And the more flexible manufacturers are, the more new customers they’ll attract.

Twenty years ago, Open Mind first introduced CAM software capabilities to address five-axis machining in the mold and die industry and other general applications. Since that time five-axis technology has grown disproportionately larger when compared to the increase in overall manufacturing growth.

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.

As additive manufacturing (AM) moves from prototypes to mass production, manufacturers are setting their sights on the holy grails—the products and processes that will be game-changers. Many game-changers are already in play.

The well-established field of laser marking continues to break new ground with expanding business opportunities in automotive, oil and gas, medical and other industries.

Manufacturers are facing shrinking product lifecycles with frequently changing customer demands. As a result, they need agile production and flexible factory layouts that can easily be modified whenever needed.

Automated manufacturing operations are finely tuned ecosystems in which all components must function in complete harmony. Grippers used to pick and place, orient and hold components or end products at various points along the production chain are key to this process.

Most companies do not have a clear strategy for how they are applying IoT, Mark Weatherford, former Deputy Under Secretary for Cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security, said at an exclusive roundtable Smart Manufacturing convened recently in Chicago.