Rexroth’s manufacturing roots date back to 1795 when the Rexroth family acquired a water-driven hammer mill. A lot can change over the course of 200-plus years, but Rexroth’s dedication to quality, performance, and reliability remains constant. Many legacy, or mature, Rexroth products still operate in factories and plants across the globe, and they’re still serviceable. Does Rexroth support legacy systems? Yes, Bosch Rexorth supports mature Rexroth products, and even supports legacy Indramat systems (Bosch Rexroth acquired Indramat in 1965). You can send your defective drives, controls, or servo motors in to the factory for repairs. An error code or fault [&hellip

Adidas opened a factory in Germany and one in the U.S. over the past two years, both of them very modern and automated. They’ve just confirmed that they will be ending production at those facilities and moving the machinery to Asia. The New York Post announced, “American robots lose jobs to Asian robots as Adidas shifts manufacturing.” Increasingly, that’s the news for manufacturing. Reshoring didn’t live up to the high expectations people had for it a few years ago, but automation has already reduced the number of unskilled workers in manufacturing. In fact, it’s estimated that 80% of jobs lost [&hellip

Rexroth’s electric industrial automation division began when the company acquired Indramat in the 20th century. Rexroth brand names like “IndraDrive” and “IndraDyne” still honor Indramat, a revolutionary motion control company in its own right. If you see the word “Indramat” on an ailing servo, drive, or controller, you’re in luck. Rexroth continues to support most Indramat models, and the chances are good that we have a remanufactured model on hand. Call us immediately when you need Indramat or Rexroth service or support. Changes coming Of course, there have been changes since Rexroth took over Indramat. When you send in a [&hellip

Reman, or remanufacturing, is one of your options when you’ve got a faulty servo motor, drive, or controller. Is it your best option? Certainly, reman can save you money. But you might be surprised to hear that reman can be better than new. Legacy parts With legacy parts, you don’t have the option of buying new. Rexroth supports many of their legacy parts, and many of them are still in service. You can upgrade to a newer version of most Rexroth legacy components. If this is your preference, we can help. But sometimes upgrading means you’ll have a part with [&hellip

The Wall Street Journal reports that plenty of retailers, warehouses, and logistics companies are gearing up for the holiday season by hiring tens of thousands of human workers. This happens every year, and it really isn’t news. “Surge” workers help out in the holiday season when retail and related industries may see demand increase tenfold. What’s new? Surge robots. Enterprise-scale companies may need 100,000 seasonal helpers to feed the holiday frenzy, but increasingly they’re also bringing in a few thousand robots. Some of the surge robots are leased just for the season. Other companies go ahead and do their buying [&hellip

Industrial security is on everyone’s minds. As the Industrial Internet of Things connects more machinery, there are more opportunities for insecurity — or are there? There are two different kinds of security issues. One is the malicious hacker, the industrial spy, the saboteur. Realistically, it’s hard to stop someone with skills who is really determined to get past your security. If they’re determined enough and have enough time, they can probably come up with some way in. This has been the underlying theme of many a good movie, and it’s true in our lives and in our work as well. [&hellip

Integrated safety technology in Rexroth drive and motion control systems focuses on motion control. Devices may be locked, motions may be limited, brakes may be managed… the object is always to keep your machinery from being in the same place at the same time as a human operator or bystander. The newest version of the safety technology includes robots that sense a human presence and stop when people are close enough to be in danger. But you might still see safety technology error codes when you use IndraDrive systems. These codes begin with F3. Here are a couple of examples: [&hellip

When you’re building an industrial robot to pick and pack or tighten bolts, your design decisions can be pretty straightforward. Practical issues and branding may cover most of them. When you’re designing cobots (collaborative robots) or service robots, one big decision starts you off. Will you make your robot humanoid or not? Will there be a face involved? One company is actually inviting people to send in a photo of their friendly face if they’re willing to license it for $130,000. Just as Aunt Jemima and Betty Crocker once wore the faces of real women, Geomiq wants to start its [&hellip

Automation is great in real life, but it’s even better in movies, where no one has to worry about plausibility and there are props managers to clean up the mess. These  favorite movie automation scenes focus on conveyor belts. Perhaps the most memorable of all, the great I Love Lucy conveyor belt scene. This of course predates Indramat’s brushless servo motors, so the bellowing of “Let ‘er roll!” and “Speed it up!” provide much of the drama. Conveyor belts have been popular movie automation devices since the introduction of the Evil Mastermind in films. The dashing hero or plucky heroine [&hellip

“We don’t automate jobs,” Alex Garden, CEO of food-tech startup Zume, said in a recent interview. “We automate boring, dangerous, repetitive tasks.” This is the general story of automation: using technology to improve the lives of human beings. The human beings don’t always appreciate it. One group of anti-machine protestors were the Luddites, a group of English workers who broke the machines factory owners bought to automate textile making. The Luddites were sock makers. They used tools called frames to knit socks. This was already a slightly automated way to make socks, compared with traditional hand knitting, but it still [&hellip