Everything’s humming along, pushing out rows of whatever you make at your facility, and then it’s not. Once you’ve smothered the sparks and quieted the screeching, you have a question to answer: repair or replace? A new study reported in The Guardian says that consumers in general would rather repair machinery than replace it. You… Read more »
When people first started trying to explain the human brain, they chose clockworks as the most similar systems. Clocks were, at that point, the most complicated system available to use as a metaphor. Once computers were developed, we were able to switch over and describe the human brain as being like a computer. New robotics… Read more »
The Rexroth Linear Motion Designer has been updated to offer a more intuitive user interface. Enter dynamics, mass, force, and other process data, and the Designer uses an updated algorithm to calculate maximum torque drive and the correct dimensions for your linear motion system. At that point, you can download a CAD model without entering… Read more »
Friction. This word doesn’t always mean what you think it means. As an engineer, you have a certain understanding of the word “friction.” But it’s also used to describe human interactions and transactions. Specifically, a transaction that flows smoothly without requiring attention is a transaction without friction. You’re heading in to work with a lot… Read more »
You can buy Indramat drives, servos, and controls on eBay, no question about it. I checked just a minute ago and found more than four thousand choices for a simple search on “Indramat.” The question is not, “Can you buy Indramat on eBay?” The question is, “Should you buy Indramat on eBay?” At first glance… Read more »
Industry 4.0 is a reality now, not a dream, and Rexroth is a big part of that transformation. But your facility doesn’t have to rip out all the old machinery and start over with smarter stuff. You can introduce key elements of Industry 4.0 with your current equipment. Start with sensors. It’s practical to add… Read more »
Robots are good at a lot of things, but not so good at traveling from one place to another. They fall down. They run out of juice really fast if they have to walk any distance before they get to their actual task. They get confused or completely stopped by things that humans would… Read more »
Collaborative robots — some call them cobots — are a growing segment of the industrial robotics market. They’re a game changer in manufacturing, especially for small to medium businesses that aren’t ready for full-scale industrial automation. Rexroth doesn’t use the term “cobots.” Contact-free human-robot collaboration (HRC) is the Rexroth term. Also Automatic Production Assistants (APAS). Special names… Read more »
The global average for industrial robots is 74 per 10,000 manufacturing workers. Clearly, we’ve got the robots comfortably outnumbered. Except that the global average doesn’t work that well in this case. The country with the largest concentration of industrial robots, South Korea, has 631 robots for every 10,000 workers. The lowest number reported, in India,… Read more »
Made in China 2025 is a ten-year initiative to make China the dominant power in Industry 4.0 and associated fields like robotics and AI. The plan is to become a manufacturing superpower and to be largely self-sufficient when it comes to technology. Rexroth has been part of the plan since the beginning. Rexroth’s support has… Read more »
