As reshoring continues to bring manufacturing jobs home to the U.S., China is figuring out how to leverage its impressive manufacturing chops with much less American investment. One way is to improve technical training in China. Instead of an army of low-paid workers, China is ready to focus on manufacturing innovation and highly skilled work…. Read more »
Google Glass had some issues with its first version. People complained about the fact that users could secretly film and record people around them. People might have to get used to that, actually. It looks like they’re taking a selfie, but that phone next to you could totally be capturing the industry gossip you’re sharing… Read more »
Is your Rexroth motion control system obsolete? It depends on how you define it — as well as which system you’re using. But let’s define “obsolete” before we get any further. There are three kinds of obsolescence: Functional, Economic, and Absolute. Functional obsolescence means the item isn’t being made any more. Your antique computer still… Read more »
Julius Caesar could see the ancient Germans across a river. He had his troops build a bridge across that river. It took 10 days. The troops strolled around a bit, and then left, dismantling the bridge. The bridge wasn’t really the point, although that’s some impressive engineering. The point was to make sure that the… Read more »
We see some really amazing stuff from third party repair shops, and get some even wilder calls. We get calls about parts, which cannot be sold to third party repair shops. We get calls asking for technical information about the motors, which also cannot be released. These are pretty common. Third party repair shops naturally… Read more »
Two Rexroth experts, Neal Gigliotti , manager of Plastics Machinery Group and Paul Stavrou , manager of system applications, wrote an article for Plastics Technology on choosing the right drive. In plastics in the early 20th century, hydraulic pumps were the method of choice for driving motors powering extrusion machines. Later, the pumps… Read more »
Robots and people working together safely — it’s one of the big goals of industrial automation right now. Not because robots have evil plots directed at humans, but because they don’t have any awareness of humans at all. Out goes the heavy metal arm, and too bad for any people who happen to be in… Read more »
I had a call recently with a guy who was doing some upgrading for a facility that wanted to keep some of their legacy components — specifically, their legacy Rexroth electric motion control. This is great stuff. That’s why it’s still around and working after decades in the facility. The guy wasn’t happy about… Read more »
Nanotechnology is one of the most promising fields of manufacturing, when it comes to innovation. Solar power cheaper than fossil fuels coming right up! And semiconductor chips are right up there, too. But when you’re building something really small, a few particles of metal cause as much trouble as golf balls in the production line… Read more »
You’ve had your Rexroth legacy drives in storage for 18 months or so, you reinstall them on the line, power them up, and for some reason they don’t work, even though they were working fine when you put them into storage. What’s up? First, check the cables. We can’t count the number of times we’ve… Read more »
