The need to inexpensively supply increasing quantities of fiber optics components, while maintaining high reliability and yield, is pushing manufacturers toward automated assembly.
One of the most popular product identification technologies is the two-dimensional Data Matrix code. This article covers the technologies for placing these codes directly on parts and for reading them.
The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM, Washington) predicts a slow but steady recovery in manufacturing in the fourth quarter, even though companies continue to be plagued by the high dollar, and rising energy and health care costs.
This field report explains how Boeing's Long Beach plant adapted lean manufacturing principles to revamp an entire assembly process from start to finish. The company's plan to build 717s on a continuously moving assembly line could revolutionize the way aircraft are manufactured.
Minnesota Wire and Cable (Eau Claire, WI), a manufacturer of wires and specialty cables, used to strip a particular industrial retractable cord by hand.
Parts fixtures don't actually do anything, like weld a joint, yet they're the first part of an automated assembly system that gets made. They represent a small part of the overall system cost, but if they fail, even the best-designed machine will produce junk. In truth, "start with the part," the axiom of automated assembly, could easily be "start with the fixtures.
Orbital and radial forming haven't changed much mechanically since they were invented in 1962. But, that's not to say the two technologies haven't changed at all. Over the past few years, both have benefited significantly from the same sensing technologies that have given assemblers so much control over ultrasonic welding, press-fitting and other force-dependent processes.
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