Many of the new technologies in manufacturing these days are about data collection. Collecting data isn’t a bad thing. The question is, what do you do with all that data? At what point does this fire hose of data become actionable insights? Manage what you measure Having highly accessible tracking of maintenance needs, machine uptime,… Read more »
Bees are essential to humans, because they pollinate food crops. One third of our food supply — and 100% of our almonds — are pollinated by honeybees. Commercial honeybees have been dying in unprecedented numbers over the past few years, maybe because of pesticides, maybe because of poor farming practices. Is this a threat to… Read more »
According to current estimates, nearly half of human jobs could be done by robots. A British study reported that 90% of UK government jobs could be done by robots. Some Chinese factories have already replaced that percentage of workers. And the list of jobs which could, in theory, be done by machines is growing. But… Read more »
Rexroth is funding the first Center of Excellence in Industry 4.0 Automation Technology to open in India. The Center is being established at the Vishwakarma Government Engineering College under Gujarat Technological University in Ahmedabad. Rexroth is a global leader in Industry 4.0 technology.The company also has a long history of supporting integrated government/industry/education initiatives for… Read more »
Bat-Bot is a new example of biomimicry in robotics that uses biological information about living creatures to inform new ideas about how to make robots — and information derived from the robots to learn more about the living creatures. This kind of experiment is common enough nowadays that we see new reports every week. Sometimes… Read more »
How are you controlling the machinery in your facility? Do you have a great little retro set-up with machine languages operating on a DOS platform? Are you using a kiosk on the factory floor, or a user-friendly dashboard on a tablet? Has your smartphone got an app for that? Al these methods will soon seem… Read more »
President Trump has come up with a directive that says that every new regulation must be swapped out for the end of two regulations, with no additional costs. If we start with 10 regulations and discover that a new chemical causes cancer, we’ll have to “pay for” the new regulation regarding that carcinogen by cutting… Read more »
We’ve written about biomimicry in robotics focusing on the kangaroo, the ant, the cheetah, and more, but the winner for the most inspiring creature in robotics must be… the octopus. Octopi have inspired a variety of soft robots by now. The completely soft and not yet useful Harvard octopus robot may be the closest homage…. Read more »
This $180,000 knitting machine could show up in your local fashion boutique, ready to knit you a sweater in 45 minutes. That’s a lot faster than knitting a sweater by hand, but there are some disconnects between the machine’s actual prowess and the reporting. First, knitting a sweater from yarn, which is what this machine… Read more »
Rexroth’s Ecodrive series was billed as “The Intelligent Servo Drive Solution,” implying that all previous drives had been… well, stupid. Why? Back in the day, the distinction between smart machines and dumb machines wasn’t that the smart ones could adapt to parameters communicated by workpieces or alert you when they were about to run out… Read more »
