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Fabricated Metals |
Everyone likes a good technical standard. But they tend to like it only when it is done, and there are plenty of competitive products that meet the standard.
Using wireless sensor technologies in process automation is finally getting out of the labs and into the plants. There remains a reluctance to publicly come out of the closet about using it.
Forget the politics. Doing good for the environment can be very good for the bottom line.
While the fogginess around mechatronics may not have dissipated
entirely, one thing is increasingly clear: as a conceptual schema for
design, mechatronics continues to become more visible—and its
importance can only grow over the next few years.
The Kendall-Jackson winery packages more than 3 million cases of wine each year, so it’s a big challenge to position labels on bottles that race through its production lines.
In hopes of driving better bottom-line results, manufacturing companies are turning to business simulations to boost the financial savvy of employees.
Plants are using predictive maintenance and condition-based monitoring to increase availability, enhance process quality and improve safety.
Tracking products from herd to grocery shelf can reduce recall exposure. (Sidebar to "RFID & Bar Code After the Hype" from the September 2007 issue of Automation World)
Both technologies pay in production.
The main uses of today’s MES software are found in its correlation with Lean and Six Sigma programs, plus regulatory response to increase manufacturing throughput. A slower rate of growth in 2007 doesn’t mean there aren’t still plenty of sales opportunities.
The push is toward wireless, as mobile, handheld computing devices prove their worth in industrial maintenence applications.
If you’re an automation professional who is waiting
for the cost of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags to drop to
pennies apiece before deploying the technology on your production
lines, Helge Hornis has a message for you: Forget about it! The use of variable speed drives, premium motors and other technologies can help stanch the bleeding in today's energy budgets. William “Willy” Geary, 2006 president of SME, the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, recently took a pit stop during an SME conference on high performance manufacturing featuring auto race cars to speak with Automation World Editor In Chief Gary Mintchell about the society as a business and hopes for his term in office. Overall Equipment Effectiveness provides a single number that can point the way to productivity.
Arla Foods’ automated order system lets production orders flow through its new fresh-milk bottling lines in batches. Technology redraws the battle lines in fight between RFID and bar codes. Reduced downtime, increased productivity and a dramatic improvement in the quality of daily executive reporting are just some of the benefits Nucor Berkeley realized in the implementation of a new performance management solution.
indicates a sponsored article that was submitted directly to this Web site by the supplier, and was not handled by the AW editorial staff.
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