Industry Week is great about bringing us news of manufacturers who have been in business for a century or more. These are the titans of industry, the companies that have stood tall for over a hundred years, weathering economic storms, technological revolutions, and the ever-changing tides of human history. Here are some from their most… Read more »
Manufacturing madness… is is the political fallout over changes in tarrifs? A more recent version of Mad Hatter disease, the results of mercury poisoning among hatmakers? In fact, it is the annual contest to determine the Coolest Thing Made in South Carolina. 16 local products go head to head in brackets similar to the NCAA… Read more »
Of course you need robots at your factory. Certainly robots are great for warehouses. Construction sites and farms? Increasingly, robots are becoming essential at these workplaces as well. We’re even willing to believe that they can be useful at home. But weddings still don’t seem like an obvious place for a robot. How romantic is… Read more »
You know that Rexroth Indramat product you have in your plant right now, the one acquired in 1980 — or 1970? Can you put your hands on the manual? I bet the answer is, “No.” That manual has probably biodegraded by now, or it’s in a water damaged box in the back of some forgotten… Read more »
Robotics has good reason to be grateful for biology, but now biology has to be grateful to robots, too. Schmidt Ocean Institute set out on an undersea expedition with an underwater robot and found about 100 new species. Traveling along the Salas y Gómez Ridge stretching between Chile and Easter Island, researchers used a remote-control… Read more »
New ideas in robotics are often inspired by animals. From kangaroos to octopi, creatures from all over the animal kingdom have given great ideas to the roboticist that study them. The latest: earthworms. Japanese researchers created a new robot based on worms that can travel 9 mm per second. If you’re having trouble imagining that… Read more »
Robot orders fell in 2023 compared to the record-breaking figures of 2021 and 2022. In fact, American robot orders overall are down by 30%. Here are some of the key reasons behind this decline: Economic Slowdown A global economic slowdown in 2023 led many companies to tighten their budgets and put off large investments, including… Read more »
Manufacturing is full of challenges, with everything from labor shortages to increasing variable ambient temperatures making life harder for manufacturers. Would it be better to try manufacturing in space? Varda Space Industries is ready to land its first manufacturing capsule, which has been out in space since June, growing crystals of Ritonavir, an antiviral drug… Read more »
There’s a new home service robot available. Its video shows it partially filling a glass with water. It does this extremely slowly, and the glass is only about one third full, but it does it. Then the camera pulls back and you can see a human being holding a wand. The human is controlling the… Read more »
The automotive industry relies on automation more than any other. One car making plant may use more than a thousand robots. So for Black History Month, we want to celebrate Black inventors who made a difference in this industry. George Washington Carver is justly famous for his work with peanuts, but he also developed a… Read more »
