By its nature, the Census gives us information that is a little bit out of date. The most recent publications from the U.S. Census Bureau, including the upcoming special every-five-years Economic Census, use data from 2012 at the latest. But that doesn’t mean that we should look elsewhere for data. When it comes to thoroughness… Read more »
Human safety in factories is a central goal for all manufacturers, but factories can be dangerous places by their nature. Automation helps. Automated process can free human beings from performing repetitive motions that can damage fragile human muscle and joint systems, from working in areas that might create exposure to toxins, or from interacting with… Read more »
Steve Brambley, deputy director of Gambica, wrote an interesting column at Drives & Controls. Natural selection, he said, was fine until we began changing our environment too fast for biology to keep up. Now, natural selection and evolution are simply too slow and random. In the business environment in particular, Brambley suggests, nobody should be… Read more »
Walmart announced their latest Made in the USA initiative last year, and they’ve made good use of their purchasing power to increase manufacturing in the states ever since. Walmart is in a position to assure manufacturers that their investment in American factories will pay off, and their logistics and supply chain expertise allows them to… Read more »
One of the special features of Indramat servomotors is the “Personality Module,” known in Europe as a programming module. The Personality Module is programmed with the settings that ensure compatibility between the servo amplifier and the motor. These Personality Modules make configuration easy. When you replace an Indramat drive, you can just pull the Personality… Read more »
Alex Chausovsky, of IHS Industrial Automation was recently reported as identifying two ways to look at industrial motion control. Americans, he says, look at the efficiency of a motor and the efficiency of the motor control. Europeans look at the efficiency of the two together. At first, it seems as though there might not be… Read more »
There’s something hypnotic about this, isn’t there? It’s hard to stop watching, and at the same time there’s something about the mix of music and movement that just makes you want to dance. Having your servos fail doesn’t make you want to dance. It might make you want to pull out your hair. If those… Read more »
Manufacturing in the United States has been on the upswing for a while now, and has rebounded from the difficult winter, now that spring has come. The winter was difficult for a lot of manufacturers, though the Federal Reserve Board reports steady growth for manufacturers across the nation. Consumer confidence continued to be shaky in… Read more »
Indramat made three basic types of control: CLM CLC PPC Each of these controls comes in a variety of flavors. When you need a replacement or repair, you’ll need to know the details of your control. How can you tell which one you’ve got? Here are some questions that will help you identify the control… Read more »
One of the industries in which Indramat motion control is most commonly used is in preparing packaging. There may be some question about the future of print books, magazines, and newspapers, but it’s clear that packaging for products is around for the long haul. In fact, some industry insiders will tell you that all the… Read more »
