Ed Potoczak has written an article in Industry Week suggesting some practical steps to help the American workforce keep up with the industry needs in manufacturing. Improve manufacturing’s rep. Too many people have an outdated idea of the working conditions in manufacturing. Rexroth’s involvement with schools and communities is a good step in the right… Read more »

An octopus-inspired robot is an idea we’ve met before, and it’s no surprise that a new version of the octorobot is being developed. After all, one of the big limitations of robots is that they’re hard. Soft robots with flexible limbs could do more things in more places than the more common hard metal robots… Read more »

Industry 4.0, the Industrial Internet of Things, the Smart Factory of the Future… it’s all possible because of… telephones? Actually, the technology required for the connected factory has been around for some time. But getting factories from their current dumb, dark, unconnected state to the bright, new, visible, smart factory of the future is difficult…. Read more »

Bosch Rexroth collaborated with Coventry’s Institute of Engineering and Technology to host an Open House Day at the Advanced Manufacturing Training Centre. The open house welcomed kids from 8 to 15 to  meet working engineers and learn what they do. Introducing engineering as a possible future career path was a big part of the motivation, and… Read more »

Happy Labor Day to the working men and women of the USA.

We’re not talking about factories in space, though these imaginary spacecraft could just as well be whopping robotic arms waiting for a chance to build something intergalactic. We’re talking about space in factories. Wired Magazine reports that 14 football fields could fit into the Tesla factory. Most facilities don’t have that luxurious space. A smaller… Read more »

Robots with the proper industrial motion control systems can do some amazing things, producing paper cups at a phenomenal rate or maneuvering heavy car parts into precise placement in seconds. But some actions are just too hard for robots. Getting a robot to open a door (by turning the handle, not just crashing through) or… Read more »

China became the largest consumer of industrial robots in 2013. It could have been a reaction to the U.S. reshoring  initiatives, which have relied on increased automation. China could have been working to increase automation in their local factories in an effort to offset the rising labor costs that made multinational corporations think they might… Read more »

The title of this post may seem a little bit emotionally charged. But this is actually an emotionally charged subject. Consumers are gaining more power in the supply chain. There was a time when the factory could call the shots, telling brands what was possible and rejecting designers’ whimsical ideas in favor of more standardized,… Read more »

When human populations grew large enough to divide up into different groups and spread around the world, they took their language with them. As generations passed and the various human groups spoke within their own groups, their language changed. You could say the language evolved. But since its evolution took place in different environments, with… Read more »