When it comes to assessing and ensuring quality in your manufactured components and products, sometimes just taking a few static data measurements, post-process, is sufficient: a dimension here, a position there, a weight, or any one of countless other factors that could be measured. Other times, in order to ensure quality, dynamic measurements …
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Multiple Press Operations in a Limited Space
One of the constraints manufacturers come up against is limited space. It is entirely too common for a manufacturer to develop a grand plan to improve their process, only to find that the physical space required for the new equipment, including multiple presses, simply is not available, and the idea of having to move a heavy workpiece into multiple …
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Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)
A Coca Cola machine on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University in the 1980’s is often held as being one of the earliest examples of the Internet of Things (IoT), even though the term IoT didn’t appear until almost a dozen and a half years later. In the beginning, it was a curiosity for the initiated few. The Coke machine had been …
Intelligent vs. Dumb Manufacturing Systems
There is a lot of talk in manufacturing about having smarter processes, more intelligent systems, and more intelligent equipment, in order to minimize defects and maximize productivity, but very few of these conversations really define just what that means. In some cases, the system’s intelligence comes from retrofitted sensors added to an …
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Cellular Manufacturing is the Future
One of the newest trends in the arena of manufacturing is cellular manufacturing. Traditional assembly line manufacturing had operators perform their individual tasks, exactly as prescribed, over and over again, as the unit being assembled came past on a conveyor or was brought to them by some such similar means. Assemblies would be passed …