Visibility, uptime, profits, and part quality: why a networked manufacturing floor is no longer a nice-to-have
Schaeffler Technologies AG saw an opportunity to improve manufacturing throughput and reduce the required cell footprint of certain automated tasks.
Smart strategies to address workforce development challenges
Changes in technology are spurring manufacturing to expand in the U.S., speakers said this week at a trade show.
CMMs and other multifunctional metrology devices are becoming faster and more sophisticated, but top-quality gages and measuring tools still have an important place.
FANUC America, a leading supplier of CNCs, robotics and ROBOMACHINEs, announced a West Campus expansion that will push its operational space in Oakland County, Michigan to nearly two million square feet.
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.
Technology is changing ever more rapidly. Sometimes this means topics learned in engineering or technical school become obsolete. Whole new fields emerge within a few years, so that even those with freshly minted educations suddenly find themselves faced with new challenges.
While suppliers are under more pressure than ever to produce precision parts faster and with less scrap, in-process metrology means manufacturers can detect as soon as possible when a part is going wrong, correcting the issue quickly and saving it from scrap.
Basic trends in modern manufacturing are driving growth in 3D optical metrology. “One is the highly complex and high-tech material that manufacturers are using today. For example, in the aerospace turbine blade market, they simply cannot touch the part like they used to—the surface finish of the material is too readily affected by any kind of contact metrology."