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The key to selecting a quality-friendly ERP system is to understand where ERP came from, where it’s at today, and where the market’s going in the decades ahead.

They’re as common as dandelions in the spring, and as universal as a Swiss army knife. Sometimes they gather dust, condemned to a dark corner, other times they’re polished to a mirror finish from intensive everyday use. We’re talking, of course, about universal testing machines (UTMs).

Let’s see a show of hands. Does everyone here know what modular tooling/fixturing is by now? If yes, are you an advocate yet? If no, why not? Still think it’s not good enough? Just Tinker Toy, Erector Set or Legos? Well, think again.

There was a time when choosing a gaging solution for shaft-type parts was a relatively straightforward task. High-volume parts received a custom-built gage and everything else received a manual or automatic “snap-on” or ring gage of some sort. 

If you aren’t excited about manufacturing today, you might need to visit Mississippi. There you’ll find the PACCAR Engine Company (PEC) plant, where process improvement has been a constant since its launch in June 2010.

Integration of IT systems is a requirement in almost any business these days. System integration itself is beneficial in several ways.

The term reverse engineering can be applied to a wide range of technologies, including disassembling computer code, genetic modification, and many more. For engineering applications, it is more usually thought of as the conversion of physical parts into digital models.

What started as a project to investigate the accuracy and reproducibility of reverse engineering a product using computed tomography (CT) and additive manufacturing with 3D printing technology has helped to establish some guidelines and processes for the future of high-quality “3D copying.”

Environment testing equipment is integral to the management of manufacturing shop floors, though it doesn’t get talked about much. 

There are major technology disruptions afoot in the world of conventional portable metrology. For the better part a decade, 6DoF laser tracking has been the standard go-to technology for metrologists in the large-scale manufacturing sectors.