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.
Could Switching to Grinding Help My Manufacturing Process? October 15, 2020 While recent advancements in machining centers have allowed for increased capability around high-volume operations, there are several factors that still necessitate the need for grinding.
Gundrilling for Job Shops September 25, 2020 Today’s job shops can distinguish themselves from competitors by adding deep hole drilling/gundrilling to their offerings. But complex, custom-built machines require more floor space and a bigger investment.
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.
New Mazak VMC Eases Shops Into Full Five-Axis and Automation August 24, 2020 Shops that have always wanted full simultaneous five-axis machining capability but were afraid to take the plunge now have access to a recently developed vertical machining center from Mazak Corp. that the company says not only helps reduce the intimidation factor of full simultaneous five-axis machining, but also makes automation integration a whole lot easier.
TRAK Machine Tools and New Century Careers Partnership Supports Post-COVID Recovery August 14, 2020 While businesses were in lockdown and people were quarantined at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, TRAK Machine Tools – Southwestern Industries Inc. and New Century Careers continued to forge a partnership that will benefit Pittsburgh’s regional manufacturing industry.
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.