Year in Review: Industry Embraces Supply Chain Trends of 2016
There is still much work to be done with regard to technological advancement and operational process before the 2016 trends peak, but there's no doubt that the manufacturing industry is evolving like never before.
YCF - 2017 could be year of smart factory
Katie Mallinson for B Daily: 2017 could be the year of the smart factory. That’s the opinion of Huddersfield-based YCF – the not-for-profit organisation committed to supporting the manufacturing industry and its supply chain.
The statement follows months of speculation around Industry 4.0 – the idea of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technology.
Simply, it’s the computerisation of manufacturing, involving systems that communicate with each other, monitor physical processes and make decisions. And YCF’s CEO Jill Mooney thinks that 2017 could be the year that manufacturers start to plan the implementation of such machinery. Cont'd...
Dubai Govt, US startup to team up for 3D printing
Paromita Dey for Construction Week Online: The Dubai Government is set to collaborate with US-based startup, Cazza Construction Technologies, to aid 3D printing in the country through the company's construction automation technologies.
According to the 'Dubai 3D Printing Strategy', which was launched by UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum in April this year, 25% of the buildings in the emirate will be based on 3D printing technology by 2030, and this percentage will rise with the development of global technology as well as growth of market demand.
Chris Kelsey, CEO of the Silicon Valley-based startup, said: “We were one of many groups invited to showcase our technologies in Dubai. The government has been looking around the world, whether it was companies from the Netherlands, China, Russia, or the USA to see the upcoming technologies involving construction automation and 3D printing. Cont'd...
Upcoming Tradeshow, Conference & Exhibition Summary - February - April 2017
Here is a summary of what Tradeshows, Conferences & Exhibitions to look forward to in the coming months.
What are the business and security impacts of Industry 4.0?
Ben Rossi for Information Age: Industry 4.0 will make manufacturing more efficient and productive. By optimising factories, it will directly improve yield. On the product side, it will also extract greater value from data for usage-based design and mass customisation, which in turn will open the way to new markets. On many levels, it will completely change the business model to an outcome-based approach.
Accenture estimates that automation, connectivity and embedded software can increase production line productivity by up to 30%. The shift from selling products to selling measurable outcomes will redefine whole industry structures. This is the shift to servitisation, whereby companies are using the Internet of Things (IoT) to find new ways to grow revenue and increase profits.
Industrial equipment manufacturers sell outcomes, like machine hours or price-per-user, rather than just products. For the customer it means less disruption, increased uptime, incremented factory yield and ultimately higher satisfaction. Cont'd...
Using 3D Printing, Lithography & Soft Robotics: New Prosthetic Hands Made for $50 at Cornell
Bridget Butler Millsaps for 3DPrint.com: What’s so incredible about the soft robotic hand created by a team at Cornell? It can grip, sort, and sense what it is touching. But what’s truly astounding is the potential it offers in terms of price and prosthetics for the future. Bringing forth further innovation and progress to the world of robotics, at $50 one can see how it might have realistic, significant impact on numerous levels.
Dispelling the idea of robots as lovable but clunky machines with a steel and rigid grip, Cornell researchers have managed to create what looks like—and offers the feel of—a human hand. This means that the task list for robots may expand exponentially as they are able to handle more delicate items, to include items like food and other fragile products. This also means that they would be able to work with people without injuring them, such as in a medical setting. Cont'd...
One-Stop Repair for Food & Beverage Processing Equipment
Food and beverage processors speed repairs and reduce costs by working with single source for full gamut of machine repairs, from electronic controllers to motors.
Japan's Rust Belt Counting on Robonomics to Run Assembly Lines
Yoshiaki Nohara, Toru Fujioka, and Daniel Moss for Bloomberg: A withering factory town in Japan’s Rust Belt is looking for revival through a dose of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s "robot revolution."
Kadoma’s population has declined 13 percent as the nation ages, prompting mergers among elementary schools and emergency services departments. Factories can’t find enough people to run assembly lines, further threatening an industrial base that includes titan Panasonic Corp. and smaller businesses like Izumo Co., a maker of industrial rubber.
Yet Izumo President Tsutomu Otsubo doesn’t believe the solution involves finding more people. He’d rather find more machines to do the work so his company can capitalize on Abe’s plan to quadruple Japan’s robotics sector into a 2.4 trillion yen ($20 billion) industry by 2020. Cont'd...
Tough PLA - Advanced 3D Printing Material
Tough PLA is an engineer's material. You can make truly high-strength, high-wear prototypes or even durable end-use parts like jigs and fixtures.
OEMs Consider Cross-Border Move in Face of Uncertainty
Border towns, such as El Paso, Texas, could service as "middle ground" if OEMs with operations in Mexico decide to relocate stateside.
A New Use for High-Speed Fiber Optics: Connecting Smart Factories
Jennifer Baljko for EBN Online: Machine-to-machine (M2M) connectivity and the Internet of Things (IoT) have risen to the forefront of many strategic technology conversations.
Companies are revamping product designs and component capabilities to allow for seamless, real-time communication flows between devices. Executives talk about how constant transmission and automated analysis of machine-generated information will transform the way we live, work, play, drive and shop, and change the landscape of our homes, offices, cars, malls, supermarkets, hospitals, gas stations and every other place we move through on a daily basis.
As M2M and IoT shape business and operations strategies, influence product design and compel companies to re-examine how suppler and customer data is collected and used, a question begs: How will companies pool together all their internal factory and supply chain data in a way that matches the speed, consistency and reliability of what IoT promises? The factory, after all, is the heartbeat that keeps many companies operating, and a data bottleneck there comes with a costly implication.
Many in the industry in have started to realize that, and it's resulting in a deeper conversation around industrial IoT, or IIoT. Cont'd...
Spanish City Installs 3D-Printed Bridge
Jen Kinney for Next City: Alcobendas, Spain, this week unveiled a 3D-printed pedestrian bridge, reports 3ders.org, a 3D printing news site. The approximately 40-foot concrete bridge is made up of eight separate parts that fit together, and was created using an additive manufacturing process. It spans a small canal in Castilla La Mancha Park.
According to a statement from the Alcobendas City Council, the 3D printing process resulted in far less waste than normally produced while creating concrete structures, making it less expensive than traditional processes.
Large-scale 3D printing holds the promise of versatility — since structural elements can be created without molds or forms — and of sustainability, since raw material can often be recycled and fewer resources are required during manufacture. Cont'd...
Intel Forecasts 2017 Industrial IoT Trends
Intels Antony Neal-Graves has shared his initial thoughts on how the industrial landscape will evolve in 2017.
EtherCAT Soft Motion Control Auto-Configuration
Configuring servo motors and drives through network control software can be cumbersome and time-consuming
Seven Career Paths Opening With the Industrial IoT
Joe McKendrick for RTInsights: From maintenance experts to solution sellers, the industrial IoT offers numerous career opportunities.
If you’re looking for an IoT career, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) doesn’t sound quite as glamorous as the broader IoT, which promises smart homes, smart cars, smart cities, wearable sensors, and everything else that can be outsmarted in daily life.
But for IoT careers, industry is actually where most of the action will be taking place, and when you drill down and look what’s happening, a lot of this work can be far more rewarding and impactful than building smart toasters. This encompasses a range of activities, from real-time tracking tools and parts at industrial sites to analyzing data coming in from machinery, engines and power plants. The sky’s the limit. Cont'd...
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