Industry 4.0 and the digital manufacturing revolution are all about collecting - and, more importantly, acting on - data gathered from the assembly process in real time.

Traditionally, multiple pieces of equipment have been required to process a stone slab. Separate machines that cut, drill or finish the slab surface have been used by stone-processing companies worldwide for centuries.

There are many ways to crimp or flare a lip on a cylindrical part. For example, it can be done with a press or an orbital forming machine. However, the problem with those processes, particularly the former, is that they require a good deal of force.

In all industries, it's important to achieve alignment between the design of a product and production processes as early as possible. In the medical device sector, whether it's a dialysis machine, a knee implant, a stethoscope or a syringe, the design transfer process plays a critical role in addressing cost and quality issues.

Two of the biggest trends in the auto industry today are flexible production systems and electric power. And while at first glance they may seem to have little in common, the truth is that the underlying technologies needed to implement both are, in many cases, identical.

There are plenty of "dumb" systems out there which can press parts together. Pneumatics and hydraulics have been used to do just this for longer than most of us have been alive. Human operators, while not dumb, present problems of their own.

Half the cost, twice the technology. Fully electric assembly cell with built-in monitoring.

As the speed of innovation in the automotive industry quickens, assemblers at Rhenus SML in Genk, Belgium, do all they can to keep pace. Rhenus workers painfully learned the importance of this five years ago when Ford Motor Co. shut down its Genk plant, which sat adjacent to Rhenus's facility.

Automated assembly lines have been the backbone of the automotive industry for decades. Robots are widely used to rivet and weld car bodies. But, in the aerospace sector, automation is more elusive when it comes to building fuselages and wings for commercial aircraft.

In September, Toyota announced that it will invest $391 million in its truck assembly plant in San Antonio. Hyundai announced that it is investing nearly $300 million in its factory in Montgomery, AL. Brake manufacturer Bendix Spicer began construction on a $65 million expansion of its assembly plant Bowling Green, KY. And, automotive supplier Hirotec Group said it will invest $48 million to build a new assembly plant in Fayetteville, TN.