Scanning metrology providers respond to varied needs; software improves to help engineers with scan data
When it comes to using new materials, medical and dental device makers are ultra-conservative—because they need to clear devices through a thicket of federal regulators.
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.
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.
Metrology-grade laser scanners are expanding their range of applications. New users are finding the main attractions of laser scanners—speed and ease of use. What prevented more widespread use in the past were laser scanners’ perceived tradeoffs. Using one usually meant sacrificing accuracy or working with noisy data.
Information technology and operations technology are unlikely candidates for a successful marriage. But to ensure that manufacturers thrive in the digital age, OT and IT must find ways to work together—or to at least, as on Tinder, swipe right to indicate interest.
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.
The road to manufacturing success today runs through the mountain of data that tools are generating in metalcutting applications, and most importantly communicating and reacting to in real time on the shop floor.
Meeting the needs of the evolving digital manufacturing initiative, Open Mind Technologies (Needham, MA) has recently partnered with Heidenhain TNC controls (Schaumburg, IL) to provide exclusive first use of their new NC code-based machining simulation solution hyperMILL Virtual Machining.
Conrad Leiva, vice president for product strategy and alliance at iBASEt and chair of the smart manufacturing working group at MESA International, speaks with Smart Manufacturing magazine Editor in Chief Brett Brune.
