Making Robots Smarter and Safer August 19, 2020 COVID-19 has taught manufacturers a valuable lesson: when humans fall ill, machine tools and equipment sit idle. Granted, they already knew it, just as they knew that employees take lunch breaks and vacations, arrive late because their car won’t start, and go work at the shop down the street for fifty cents more an hour.
Automation champions battling show-stopping integration issue in U.S. December 7, 2020 Like the United Nations’ international delegates who use interpreters to understand each other, robots, machines and other industrial components from various vendors speak different computer languages and need translators to help them communicate.
Robotics Australia Group seeks government survey participation October 27, 2020 Robotics Australia Group is asking creators of robotics and robotics-related technology to complete the Australian Government’s new survey of Australia’s artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous systems capability.
Shop-Floor Monitoring Critical to Improving Factory Processes July 1, 2013 Process improvement encompasses a wide range of tools, techniques and strategies. When properly deployed, shop-floor data collection and monitoring systems can help factory-floor managers leverage key data metrics including overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and total effective equipment performance (TEEP) that measure machine uptime and pinpoint bottlenecks or other problems in order to improve machining performance.
Nesting, MRP Solutions Can Boost Fabrication Productivity June 1, 2013 Nesting is the process of arranging parts to be cut from sheets of metal or wood in the most efficient manner possible in order to maximize yield and speed the cutting process. By reducing scrap and accelerating the cutting process, fabricators are saving on material cost while running more jobs.
Aerospace Automation Picks Up the Pace March 1, 2013 With thousands of fastener locations that need to be drilled and filled to complete a plane, drilling and fastening remain the largest areas of opportunity for automated robotics applications in aerospace. New developments are also making robots more attractive than ever in the aerospace and defense space—especially improved rigidity and accuracy in the robots themselves.
Betting Big on Multitasking February 1, 2013 The cost benefits of deploying multitask machine tools are undeniable, with multitask machines offering the ability to perform many machining operations on parts with just a single setup.
Aerospace Builders Automate Processes March 1, 2012 Automation development in the aerospace industry has quickened its pace, with the aviation and defense industries attempting to further automate manufacturing processes to meet growing OEM order backlogs and critical aerospace-defense program deadlines.
Electropolishing Automation April 1, 2012 Today’s products require high finishes, burr-free edges, freedom from contamination, and often close tolerances. Electropolishing provides all of those conditions and more in a matter of seconds for many metal parts. It is a process that has been used for more than a hundred years. It is widely known and the science is widely discussed, but its ability to run job shop lots and high-precision high-volume parts in the same equipment makes it a bit unique.
CAD/CAM Software Advances February 1, 2012 Speeding up programming tasks on CAD/CAM software ranks at the top of machine shops’ requirements when faced with making quality parts on a deadline. The more efficient a shop’s toolpaths are, the less chance that any programming problems result in wasting very expensive machine time on the shop floor.
