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 »
As energy savings become increasingly important for manufacturing, Rexroth has pointed out four common errors in construction of industrial automation systems that lead to energy waste. Here’s how to avoid those errors: Build for fluctuations. There will be fluctuations in energy demand. No way around it. When you set up your systems to run at… Read more »
3-D printing, or additive manufacturing, is a fairly recent idea. It’s used primarily for prototyping in manufacturing today, and most of the excitement about it is not based in or indeed anywhere near industrial automation. The jazziest 3-D printing plans have to do with creative custom applications in healthcare or food and nothing to do… Read more »
Wishing everyone an excellent holiday with no emergencies!
Automation World reports that there is a robot revolution going on. Just not the one you might have been expecting if you keep up with the movies. The first thing people think about when they invest in a humanoid robot like Baxter, its makers say, is how it might endanger them: Will it hurt me?… Read more »
For your Friday coffee break, check out an example of modular thinking in a hub-centered assembly line. Modular design has been a hallmark of Rexroth’s products for many years. It’s just one example of how design thinking can make big changes in productivity, use of space, and energy costs. There’s a servo motor behind every… Read more »
It seems smart at the time. Your company enters into a company-wide repair agreement (let’s call it CWRA) with a vendor that works with automation. All automation, to hear them tell it, but then your legacy Rexroth machinery needs some support. The big automation company can’t repair the legacy components. They can’t get OEM parts,… Read more »
We’ve seen so many cases of biology inspiring robotics that we shouldn’t be surprised by a new report from Caltech. Robotics engineers have been inspired by kangaroos, octopi, and more. So why not moon jellyfish? In this case, the big news is self-repair. Self-repair in the natural world usually involves regenerating limbs or healing wounds,… Read more »
IoT, Industrial Internet of Things, Industry 4.0… whatever you call it, it is bound to have some effects on human beings. Much of the discussion has been about economics. Will the robots take all the jobs? Will this settle the minimum wage argument? Will we be able to collaborate effectively with robots? All these questions… Read more »
No Ordinary Disruption, a fascinating new book by Richard Dobbs, James Manyika, and Jonathan Woetzel, lists four global forces to be reckoned with. One of these four is the speed with which technological change is taking place. If you fell asleep like Rip Van Winkle in 1300 and woke up in 1400, you might not… Read more »
