Leah Pickett

The proverb “time is money” applies to almost every profession today, but especially to manufacturing, and certainly to CNC machining. Lights-out facilities are becoming more prevalent, and the importance of active controls with automated feedback is growing, too.

Ballbar technology that auto-diagnoses machine tool performance has been a cornerstone of precision machining operations for more than two decades. In 2009, Renishaw introduced the QC20-W wireless ballbar system; and today, companies that one might not think of as using ballbars are now utilizing the technology in new and exciting ways.

While fairly new to the metrology world, multisensor machines are becoming increasingly popular on shop floors for their unparalleled versatility.

2017 was a transformative year for the materials testing industry. 

Generation Z, a demographic cohort comprised of people born from the mid 1990s to the early 2000s, is the first generation to have no memory of life before cell phones, laptops and widespread use of the Internet. 

While enterprise resource planning (ERP) software has existed as a manufacturing tool for nearly five decades, digital manufacturing has taken a giant leap forward over the past several years with companies increasingly adopting Software as a Service (SaaS) or Cloud ERP models. 

According to the 2017 World Robotics Report, conducted by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), more than 1.7 million new industrial robots will be installed in factories around the world by 2020. 

General Electric (GE), founded 125 years ago by Thomas Edison and others, has succeeded in part because of the company’s willingness to take risks and embrace new technology. The most recent example of this mindset is a new startup called Fuse.

To be Lean, in process improvement speak, is to maximize customer value by eliminating waste. This means that an organization can create more value for customers with fewer resources if they can understand customer value and focus key processes to continually improve.