Dover, OH: (June 20, 2019) Allied Machine & Engineering, a major manufacturer of holemaking and finishing cutting tool systems headquartered in Dover, Ohio, releases their most latest mobile app, Machinist Tool, available for download now at both the Apple Store and Google Play. This app is manufactured for machinists, tooling distributors, and manufacturing engineers working with Allied's tools. Machinist Tool offers easy to steer utilities and streamlines operations on the shop floor by mobilizing resources for drilling, boring, threading, reaming, and roller burnishing.
 
Allied's Machinist Tool includes speed and feed, as well as trig functional, calculators, G & M machine code definitions, and seven different tap drill charts including the ACME general purpose (full profile), the Unified National, and the ISO Metric - J Series. The app offers hot links to call Allied's engineers or to find a local Allied tooling distributor if users need technical support. Machinist Tool also includes quick access to GD & T definitions as well as the Boring Insert Selector, a utility that helps machine operators choose the correct insert for each boring application they might encounter.
 
The mobile app compiles a quick research library of Allied Machine's valuable holemaking and finishing resources such as technical guides and operation manuals. Obtainable tech guides offer an illustrated pocket research for threading as well as recommended cutting data for ISO material types like hardened steel, stainless steel, and titanium. Machinist Tool is available for download on both iPhone and Android devices and is available in Chinese, English, French, German, Korean, Mexican Spanish, and Russian.
 
Ben Morrett, a senior product manager at Allied Machine, says, 'No need to fumble through multiple apps. We produced the Machinist Tool app as a one-stop shop to be used in conjunction with Allied Machine's product lines.'



This article is originally posted on Tronserve.com

'In the factory of the future connectivity is key,' said Heiko Schwindt, Bosch Rexroth, Vice President of Automation and Electrification. 'Everything is attached, from field level to cloud-based solutions. Complex software solutions collect, transfer and process manufacturing data to offer maximum production visibility. With our Factory of the Future Experience, Bosch Rexroth is demonstrating to end-user businesses and their machine builders how they can make the Factory of the Future a reality of the present - where mobile and connected production equipment reconfigure themselves individually and flexibly to fast-changing specifications.'
 
Located at the Bosch Rexroth Automation & Electrification business unit in Hoffman Estates, IL, outside of Chicago, the company's Factory of the Future Experience is a multi-technology exhibit featuring intelligent, distributed drive and control components, connectivity modules, compact and versatile linear products, innovative chain conveyors and a wide selection of structural framing - all of which make it feasible to expand machines and systems as needed in a modular fashion.
 
During a tour through the Factory of the Future Experience, attendees can encounter new technology and hear about key topics - from open standards, to distributed intelligence, smart automation and connecting to the Internet of Things - to learn what is needed to put into action a factory of the future. In addition, Rexroth‘s automation experts address challenges and consult on how to accomplish productivity gains, production transparency and maximum flexibility.
 



This article is originally posted on Tronserve.com

In 2016, Harvard’s Wyss Institute introduced Root, a robot made as a practical tool for training kids how to code. Root had been under development at Harvard for a solid three years at that point, and after a huge $400,000 Kickstarter showed that they really had something, Root Robotics was spun out in 2017 to take the little coding robot commercial.
 
Today, iRobot is announcing the acquisition of Root Robotics, in order to “support iRobot’s plans to diversify its educational robot product offerings, further showing its dedication to make robotic technology more accessible to educators, students and parents.” This makes a lot of sense for iRobot, which has typically been a big supporter of STEM education—National Robotics Week was pretty much their idea, after all. But iRobot itself only really had the iRobot Create and Create 2 to advance STEM education immediately, and those robots are completely not for beginners.
 
As of right now, iRobot is selling Root for $200, along with a mate app and integrated K-12 curriculum. We’ll take a short look at everything this robot can do, and hear a bit from both iRobot CEO Colin Angle and Root Robotics co-founder Zee Dubrovsky on exactly what this new partnership means.
 
Root is loaded full of sensors and interactive elements, which makes it both fun and helpful to use. But from the start, the focus of Root was education—it’s very significant to understand that Root is not a toy robot that also instructs, but instead it’s an educational tool for coaching coding skills that also happens to be a robot. Robots are generally fun to play with, which is part of Root’s appeal, but the reason that Root exists is to provide a compelling focus for coding, turning abstract code into a thing that moves around and interacts with the world.
 
“We’ve revealed coding as a particular challenge, where we’re just not teaching it in schools,” iRobot CEO Colin Angle told us. “Providing a tool to aid kids code is of great interest to me personally. And the ability to use the exhilaration that is engendered by a physical robot is a fantastic strategy.”
 
Having a cool robot is just one part of this strategy—the other is developing a comprehensive set of app-based lessons that will effortlessly teach kids, improving with them as they develop their skills. Root was created to be educational for children as young as 4, in some cases educating very basic coding aspects even before children know how to read. This is possible because you can train Root by dragging and dropping symbols with pictures on them into the app interface. You can only do very simple things this way, but once you’re ready for more, it’s an easy adaptation to a more computational interface, where the visual symbols enlarge to entail things like logical operations, sensor values, and versatile variables. The final step is to switch over to full text coding in Swift, Python, or JavaScript, but being able to toggle back to the more visual interface makes the transition easy.
 
“With Root, we desired to create something that people can grow with,” says Zee Dubrovsky, co-founder of Root Robotics (and now general manager of educational robots at iRobot). “The barrier for entry is very low, you don’t even have to know how to read, so someone as young as 4 can start using the robot. And when they’re ready, they can level up [through other coding interfaces]. There’s a lot of transferable knowledge from one interface to the next.”
 
Root’s robust, flexible hardware and self-guided scalable learning have the potential to take kids through middle school and even high school, but we wanted to know what happens next, specially if you’ve got a particularly glowing kid who wants to be able to do more. “When you reach the limit of what Root does right out of the box, what we’ll see in the future is the ability to hack Root and build on top of it,” says Dubrovsky. “We’re also designing on releasing SDKs for Root.” Angle adds, “we’ll be providing more capabilities to Root over time, which we’re not announcing today, but this is a beginning not an end. Root is a platform that has the scalability to add more accessories and sensors.”
 
While Root is definitely obtaining the iRobot STEM spotlight away from the Create platform, part of the reason that iRobot acquired Root was to appeal to people interested in coding and robotics in a way that the Create was never designed to. Root and Create are for fundamentally different audiences: Create is a platform that you can build on top of, rather than learning on it, and it’s focused more on late high school, early college-level hardware projects. At this point, there’s no easy way to transition from working with Root to working with Create, but it’s possible that things could change in the future. In the near term, iRobot is driven on constructing out Root’s introductory content, with more advanced content to gradually follow, and we’d love to see an accessible pathway that bridges that gap into a more advanced platform, especially if iRobot decides to make its newest robots (with mapping and 3D sensors) hackable as well.
 
For now, though, Root will be taking advantage of iRobot’s resources and reach to execute on more ambitious plans while scaling more rapidly. It seems like a good match, since both companies share the same fundamental vision for STEM. As Colin Angle puts it, 'there is no greater investment you can make in your child’s future than helping them learn the language of coding.'



This article is originally posted on Tronserve.com

Rolando Bustamante monitors his employees turn-out one concrete block after another, from time to time checking an electronic tablet that captures orders from clients and that lets him communicating with suppliers.

How things go about if President Donald Trump carry through his warning to demand tariffs on the remaining $300 billion in Chinese goods that he hasn't already hit with 25 percent import taxes?

The Internet of Things (IoT) and its commercial counterpart, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), are perennial trending tips for good reason. Internet-embedded technology touches approximately every part of our daily lives, from smart electric meters and security cameras to personal health monitors and TVs. By 2020, over 20 billion devices will be part of the IoT base, and IIoT specifically will account for 15 percent of total IoT spending.

Finance ministers and central bank chiefs from the Group of 20 huge economies bound up a meeting in Japan on Sunday with a promise to use all the policies they can to guard global growth from disruptions due to trade and other tensions.

 
Integrated into conventional casting lines, VJET X printers are assumed to be the most powerful additive manufacturing technology for the cost-productive serial-production of complicated sand cores for the casting of metal components.
VJET X printers are 10x faster than previous models, which results in a layering speed of less than 5 seconds.
Inorganic binder system for zero emissions during core printing, storage and when using the sand cores in the casting process.
Integrated into fully automated handling systems for pre- and postprocesses like loading and unloading of the 3D printers; cleaning of the printed parts via robotic systems; transport of sand cores to casting lines.
A new procedure unit is at the heart of VJET X and makes additive mass manufacturing possible. It is a combination of numerous printing and recoating units which move with unparalleled speed (layer time below five seconds). It is considered to be the most complex piece of technology in the additive manufacturing industry. The new technology, to be first commercialized with a premium German car manufacturer and integrated into conventional casting lines, can for example be used in the additive mass manufacturing of complicated water jacket cores in metal casting applications. Water jacket cores are used for the exact temperature management in not only internal combustion engines, but also electric motors, inverters and battery systems. Efficient temperature management improves overall vehicle performance. Together with its industrial partners, voxeljet will present the new VJET X and VX1000-S printers at the GIFA show from 25 to 29 June 2019 in Duesseldorf (Germany).



This article is originally posted on Tronserve.com

Mechanical assemblies are common in both consumer products and industrial items. Even relatively inexpensive products can have dozens of individual components, and in complex machinery there can easily be hundreds or thousands of components. Additive manufacturing (AM) allows for high levels of part consolidation, sometimes even removing the need for assembly.
 
The benefits of additive manufacturing for part consolidation
 
AM is uniquely capable of producing elaborate geometries that can't be manufactured using conventional methods of manufacturing. A mechanical assembly that would generally have many parts fabricated as separate components and then brought together can be additively manufactured as a single unit, even if the geometry is very complex. In addition to design simplification, there are other tangible advantages to using AM for part consolidation:
 
Lower overall projection costs
 
The best and most apparent advantage of consolidating your parts with AM is that seeking fewer parts to assemble means you're spending less money on assembly costs. Taking assembly out of the equation also means that you'll reduce potential cost-driving factors such as quality control or inventory management. By using additive manufacturing to make multiple parts as one, you're lessening the risk of hidden costs and project delays.
 
Less material
 
In conventional manufacturing, as part complexity increases, part cost also commonly improves. With AM, this is not the case - as part complexity increases, part cost does not increase. In many cases the part cost will decrease, because increased complexity often means less material is being used. When using AM, it's possible to achieve upwards of a 70 percent decrease in materials used compared to ordinary manufacturing.
 
Lower overall risk
Part consolidation reduces or completely eliminates a number of risks. For sample, you can circumvent the risk that your distributor can no longer supply the part in question. This supplier risk is multiplied by the number of parts in the assembly. If you're able to print multiple parts as a single unit using AM, the chances of encountering this issue greatly lower.
There are other risks that are reduced as well. The instances of part failure decrease when the part has been manufactured as a single unit rather than assembled separately. Another risk is obsolescence; when the part reaches the end of its life you will not have remaining inventory that must be disposed.
 
Better performance
In many cases, AM makes you to make a better performing part, because it enables geometries that are desirable but that can't be made with legacy manufacturing. Some of the applications of AM that have exciting benefits for improved product performance include light weighting, high strength to weight ratio, heat transfer and fluid flow, and energy absorption.
 
Matt Schroeder is a Senior Application Engineer at Fast Radius, a leading additive manufacturing company. Fast Radius is respected as one of the 16 best factories in the world by the World Economic Forum (WEF), implementing 'technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.' The companies were chosen from 1,000 manufacturers worldwide, with Fast Radius selected as the only award recipient from North America. www.fastradius.com.



This article is originally posted on Tronserve.com

Living things are stupendously confusing, and when we make robots (even bio-inspired robots), we mainly just try and do the best we can to match the functionality of animals, rather than the details of their structure. One exception to this is hydraulic robots, which function on the same concept as spiders do, by pumping pressurized fluid around to move limbs. This is more of a side effect than actual bio-inspiration, though, as spiders still beat robots in that they use their blood as both a hydraulic fluid and to do everything else that blood does, like transporting nutrients and oxygen where it’s needed.
 
In a paper released in Nature this week, researchers from Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania are exhibiting a robotic fish that uses man made blood pumped through an artificial circulatory system to offer both hydraulic energy for muscles and a delivered source of electrical power. The system they came up with 'combines the functions of hydraulic force transmission, actuation and energy storage into a single integrated design that geometrically grows the strength density of the robot to enable operation for long durations,' which sounds bloody amazing, doesn’t it?
 
Conventional batteries may be more energy dense, but that Tesla also has to lug around motors and stuff if it wants to go anywhere. By using its blood to drive hydraulic actuators as well, this fish is far more streamlined. Inside the fish are two separate pumps, each one able to pump blood from a reservoir of sorts into (or out of) an actuator. Pumping blood from the dorsal spines into the pectoral fins pushes the fins outward from the body, and pumping blood from one end of the tail to the other and back again results in a swimming motion.
 
In total, the fish covers about 0.2 liter of blood, distributed throughout an artificial vascular system that was made on a pretty basic level to resemble the structure of a real heart. The rest of the fish is made of structural components that are somewhat like muscle and cartilage. It’s probably best to try not to draw too many parallels between this robot and an actual fish, though, and we may have already gone just slightly overboard on the whole “blood” thing. But the point is that combining actuation, force transmission, and energy storage has significant advantages for this particular robot. The researchers say that plenty of optimization is possible as well, which would lead to benefits in both performance and efficiency.



This article is originally posted on Tronserve.com

More than 200 years ago, German philosopher Immanuel Kant depicted virtual reality as a reality that exists in our minds and is distinct from the outside physical world. Right now we use the term in different ways, but the concept of virtual reality still retains Kant’s idea of a world that is not concrete, but that our mind can intelligibly perceive.

By any measure, the European Union’s ideas for a fully automated electrical power market are ambitious: a single, deregulated electricity market across 28 EU member states and 500 million energy consumers, which meets stringent environmental targets while preserving electricity users from supply issues.

The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port is starting to become a huge world supply of exported crude oil.

Huawei's founder said Monday that the Chinese telecom giant's revenue will be $30 billion below forecast over the next two years, as he contrasted the company to a 'badly damaged plane' in consequence of U.S. government actions against it.

The kinds of jobs that robots are perfect for are the kinds of jobs that humans just straight up do not want to do. This is where the whole “dull, dirty, dangerous” thing will come in, but even in those types, some jobs are duller, dirtier, or more dangerous than others. These are the jobs that we should be focusing on robotizing — not just jobs that are possible to automate, but jobs that need to be computerized because you only can’t find sufficient humans to reliably do them.
 
One of these jobs is business dishwasher. It’s dull and dirty, and turnover is very high, with the normal human quitting after just over a month and around 30 percent of dishwashing jobs going unfilled, according to one estimate. And if your dishwater doesn’t show up for work, everyone else in the kitchen has to pitch in to make sure that there are enough clean dishes, halting everything down.
 
Today, a startup called Dishcraft Robotics is announcing a new robotic dish cleaning system, developed to minimize the time and effort that humans spend scrubbing dishes. Brought to you by some of the folks behind Neato Robotics and Dash Robotics, the San Carlos, Calif.-based Dishcraft uses some clever engineering and practical limitations to make sure that meals are done cleaner, faster, better, and cheaper.
 
First, some context: There are, of course, already robots that wash dishes, and you may have one in your house. But a home dishwasher doesn’t hold enough dishes and takes far too long to be useful in a restaurant kitchen. Solving this challenge is not just a matter of cranking up the speed of a home dishwasher—part of the reason why a home dishwasher functions at all is that it replaces human scrubbing with water, heat, and time. Nobody has time for that in a commercial kitchen, though, which means that scrubbing is necessary.
 
Getting a robot to scrub dishes is a really challenging difficulty if you try to do it like a human does, because it requires grasping an assortment of very slippery things and then manipulating them with a substantial amount of dexterity. Robots are not ready for this on a commercially-viable scale, so Dishcraft had to find ways of making an automated system that’s a compromise between what robots can realistically do and what a kitchen wants.
 
The Dishcraft system inspects each dish in a fraction of a second for remaining food residue using computer vision and machine learning to obtain a regular level of high quality. But the really intelligent bits here are how tightly Dishcraft has constrained the system. First, dishes are pre-sorted and pre-stacked into those carts, solving two big potential problems for a robot thanks to humans for whom the tasks add only a very minor amount of effort.
 
Once the carts are wheeled into the Dishcraft system, you’ll find that there’s a robot arm that picks up each dish one at a time and drives it over to where it gets polished. The arm isn’t using suction—the dishes are all custom, made with a bit of steel developed into the bottom so that they can be picked up magnetically. It turns out that many places don’t actually care what dishware they use, so if Dishcraft can offer them with new dishware that’s much easier to clean, then great.
 
Each dish is personally cleaned with that rotating scrubber head, which is fashioned exclusively to work with the range of dishes that the system is expecting. It took Dishcraft a lot of experimenting to find the scrubber head that works best.
 
After the dish is scrubbed, it’s rotated through 120 degrees where it’s evaluated by the vision system for cleanliness. If it fails, it just rotates back around to get cleaned again, but if it goes, it’s set into a kitchen-standard dish rack and slides out of the system. From there, the rack passes into a sanitizer (which most commercial kitchens already have) for the final cleaning step.
 
The overall idea is that you hardly need any human participation at all, and undoubtedly no active or repetitive work on the part of a human. There’s putting carts into the Dishcraft system, and then taking trays out of the system and putting them into a sanitizer, and that’s pretty much it. You don’t really need a committed “dishwasher” anymore, and potentially someone who’s doing something more interesting could spend a little bit of their time minding the Dishcraft system as well.
 
As restricted as Dishcraft has attempted to make things, there are still humans in the loop, which signifies that they’ve had to make sure that their system is adjustable. For example, it works optimal if most of the food has been scraped away already, but it’s been manufactured to be able to handle stray t-bone steaks that have been left on plates (using an updated end-effector that isn’t shown in the video) that can make multiple passes if appropriate. It can also deal with old, dried up food, or things like nested bowls that had mashed potatoes in them causing them to stick together. After working on the problem for three years, Dishcraft is confident that the system is now ready to go to market. 
 
Many kitchens, it turns out, don’t need their own Dishcraft robot. What they do need is clean dishes, so Dishcraft offers “dishes as a service,” swapping clean dishes for dirty ones and then washing them in a centered location. This is the same model that most restaurants use for linens, like tablecloths and napkins. The company is also accomplishing custom installations for places that need more throughput.
 
Dishcraft was formed in 2015 by Linda Pouliot and Paul Birkmeyer, both robotics veterans: Linda co-founded Neato Robotics, and Paul co-founded Dash Robotics. So far, Dishcraft has elevated a healthy US $25 million, which is not all that surprising—they’ve handled to discover a real problem that can be resolved right now by a robotic system in a reliable and cost effective way, and what they’ve come up with seems quite guaranteeing.



This article is originally posted on Tronserve.com

Rockwell Automation, a leading solutions and services provider to the automotive industry, today opened a new 8,000 square-foot Electric Vehicle (EV) Innovation Center at 111 North Market Street in San Jose, California, within its Information Solutions development facility. The center will supply live manufacturing demonstrations, hands-on trials utilizing new technology and events presenting collaboration with industry experts and Rockwell Automation partners.
 
Utilizing augmented and virtual reality modeling, the EV Innovation Center offers automotive start-ups and established manufacturers an environment to learn new technologies and standards, enabling them to deliver electric vehicles to market faster, with less risk and at lower cost.
 
The combination of Rockwell Automation technology with partner technology is what makes the center exclusive. Specifically, Rockwell Automation's FactoryTalk InnovationSuite, powered by PTC, is an unmatched integrated solution that brings together software from PTC and Rockwell Automation. Similarly, Eagle Technologies offers the battery pack assembly machine, and FANUC furnishes robot technologies, both integrated with Rockwell Automation technology.
 
Hirata, a turnkey assembly line builder, supplies an assembly cell that demonstrates electric drive unit assembly and testing. Emulate 3D, Rockwell Automation's simulation software, helps to prototype and test machines before they're made. Teamtechnik performs functional testing to establish performance before developing the drive into the electric vehicle.
 
'With growing global consumer demand, electric vehicle companies are challenged to meet aggressive production timelines,' said John Kacsur, vice president, Automotive and Tire Industries, Rockwell Automation. 'We established the Electric Vehicle Innovation Center to increase their possibilities and get their products to customers quickly and at the lowest possible cost, while working more effectively.
 
'It's an immersive experience that helps customers build and realize The Connected Enterprise — our vision for smart manufacturing that enables customers to influence data and attain positive business results,' said Kacsur. 'With over 4,000 successfully designed, installed and commissioned automotive manufacturing projects, Rockwell Automation knows how to help EV manufacturers get to market faster and better manage enterprise risks.'
 
Kacsur noted that the EV Center supports digitalization efforts not only for auto and tire customers but for customers in all industries. Customers are welcome to visit the EV Center and contact with industry experts.
 
By 2040, it's expected that 54% of new vehicle sales will be electric vehicles, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Batteries currently represent a third of the cost of an EV. As battery costs continue to fall, demand for EVs will rise, with up to 40 million new EV batteries needed annually to power new vehicles.



This article is originally posted on Tronserve.com

PORTO, PORTUGAL, June 18, 2019 - Critical Manufacturing is pleased to mention that it has basically released version 7 (V7) of its modern Manufacturing Execution System (MES) for Industry 4.0. This Augmented MES release offers four new modules: Augmented Reality, Experiments Management, Weigh and Dispense, and BI Cards. This current version takes the already feature rich, modular solution to new levels; enhancing users' experiences; speeding new product introduction (NPI); improving safety, reliability and visibility of processes and key performance indicators (KPIs).
 
Critical Manufacturing (CM) MES V7 is the most comprehensive and advanced MES solution usually available in the marketplace. It is created to provide a pathway to smart manufacturing with Industry 4.0 technologies for innovative, high-tech discrete manufacturers and now offers endless choices for efficiency, productivity, mobility and data visualization through an Augmented MES experience.
 
The new Augmented Reality (AR) module is at the center of the new release, and advances the Industry 4.0 roadmap further beyond the Factory Digital Twin and Connect IoT equipment and automation modules. AR breaks new ground by providing manufacturing employees with a new and engaging immersive experience, using data from throughout the MES. It can offer operators with everything they need, including process information, production steps, materials and work instructions.
 
Users can easily access and view full traceability records, product specifications and order details as well as equipment information such as in-process lots, overall equipment efficiency (OEE), mean time to repair (MTTR), cycle times, maintenance schedules, repair instructions, and much more. It can even help restrict counterfeit components. The user basically points the AR device, such as a tablet, smartphone or AR glasses at the product or machine, and the module will offer needed real-time information superimposed on a live camera image of the production operation, equipment or product.
 
Francisco Almada Lobo, Critical Manufacturing CEO commented: 'Until now, Augmented Reality has been involved with very limited manufacturing scenarios, such as gear maintenance. Our new AR module goes way beyond that, providing manufacturers with unlimited possibilities to seize productivity and efficiency gains, and for the first time utilize comprehensive data from across the entire MES. Also, with CM's new AR module, there is a relatively low investment, as readily available tablets and smartphones can be used as an alternative to more expensive AR headsets and glasses.'
 
Another major focus of the V7 release is the Experiments Management module, which yields engineers with a way to identify and implement strategy and product improvements through a controlled, closed-loop process. They can perform Design of Experiments (DoE) with numerous input variables, reducing time spent on this activity, and then seamlessly and transparently execute and monitor experiments side-by-side on the shop floor. This augments companies' approach to continuous improvement, which will be needed as their journey to smart manufacturing progresses. The potential this module offers to increase understanding and knowledge of the effect of process variables translates into improved quality and reliability of processes and products. Experiments Management has the potential to lower both development and production costs as well as help speed new product introductions (NPI).
 
The new Weigh and Dispense module has been made to help manufacturers, particularly in the MedTech industry, achieve complete and strict adherence to safety regulations and recipes. It offers tight control of both manual and automated weighing, dispensing and filling operations with automated label printing. All measurements are recorded in the automated electronic Batch Record (eBR) for total traceability and straightforward production of regulatory compliance documentation to GxP / FDA requirements.
 
Weigh and Dispense integrates with electronic scales and dispensing machinery and is fully incorporated within the Critical Manufacturing MES for full end-to-end process and history. Its use ensures exact data collection, with the removal of manual methods and paper records, as many digital transformation programs envision. Alongside ensuring valid data and batch formulation, the module also offers details to the operator of product handling requirements such as glasses, gloves or masks. Overall, this module offers MedTech manufacturers ways to increase product safety, quality and consistency while boosting productivity.
 
Last but not least, the BI Cards module gives strong performance visibility with quick and easy creation and sharing of customized KPI views and production dashboards. System users can speedily create appealing displays with easy-to-use widgets and, because the module is fully integrated with the MES, information is updated in real-time. The module erases the need for advanced IT skills or expensive, customised software, instead giving appointed users who best understand the steps the power to create the displays they need.
 
Summary
Critical Manufacturing MES V7 adds exciting, futuristic and valuable features to a software application that is becoming increasingly recognized, selected and preferred worldwide for its Industry 4.0-ready, highly adaptable and user-friendly design.
 
Francisco Almada Lobo concludes 'CM V7 is a very important release that completes our already broad and fully inter-operable footprint. The bottom line is that more complex operations can be greatly simplified with ultimate control, flexibility and speed. The use cases for our Augmented Reality technology are only limited by the imagination, we call it Augmented MES.'



This article is originally posted on Tronserve.com

Rehovot, Israel, June 18th 2019 - XJet Ltd. invites visitors to stand 2-209 at Rapid.Tech + FabCon 3.D, 25 - 27 June in Erfurt, Germany, to witness the impressive and exclusive applications made possible by its NanoParticle Jetting™ (NPJ) technology in metal and ceramic AM. Applications being featured include a 5G antenna application and a medical device targeted at treating breast cancer. XJet will showcase what this unparalleled technology brings to the additive manufacturing industry while also displaying its unique soluble support material removal live.
 
'Visitors are invited onto the XJet stand to experience removing XJet's soluble support material with their own hands - to truly witness the ease of this plan,' comments XJet CEO Dror Danai. 'Rapid.Tech offers us with the platform for Europeans to get ‘hands-on' with the process and hear how NPJ enables applications that were simply not possible earlier. XJet is eliminating the barriers previously associated with ceramic and metal AM, giving designers a new realm of freedom.'
XJet is creating new applications possible thanks to the technology's ability to correctly make ultra-fine features, smooth surfaces and complex geometries. North American start-up, Marvel Medtech, is one company planning to capitalize on those benefits. Medtech will install an XJet Carmel 1400 AM System later this summer to produce a ceramic cryotherapy probe - a key component within a new robotic intervention guidance setup for MRIs, fashioned to freeze and destroy the most damaging tiny breast cancer tumors and prevent them from growing.
University of Delaware (UDEL) has mounted an XJet AM System for a very different application; to develop cutting-edge antenna technology called ‘Passive Beam Steering' for, amongst other applications, the 5G network. Like Medtech, UDEL's application needs to be prepared in ceramic, however traditional ceramic manufacturing ways could not build the small internal channels and complex geometry without damaging the part. Using nano particles and soluble support material, XJet provides the only ceramic AM technology capable of providing the fine details and smooth surfaces expected.
Visitors to Rapid.Tech + FabCon can hear more about these applications at the show. See XJet on stand 2-209 at Messe Erfurt GmbH, from June 25 - 27. Members of the XJet executive teams are around at the show and meetings can be pre-booked via the XJet website.



This article is originally posted on Tronserve.com

During the last 12 to 24 months, it seems as though topics like autonomous driving and ELD mandates have loaded the news headlines for the fleet transportation industry. And deservedly so, they're no doubt topical, pressing issues. Even so, in running your fleet day-to-day, understanding the evolution of maintenance and repair (M&R) issues goes on to be right up there in level of importance.