Consumers spend some $1 billion to buy 2 billion lightbulbs each year in the U.S. That’s more than 6 million every day. High-speed automated assembly is the only way to meet that kind of volume.

With so many ways to formulate plastic to get just the right combination of color, texture, strength and durability, it’s easy to forget how the parts will be assembled. However, if the parts will be assembled with screws, overlooking such parameters as thread style, driver speed and boss design could spell disaster on the assembly line.

There are many way ways to linearly move an object from point A to point B on an assembly line. But, not all of them are designed to optimize speed, accuracy and repeatability while performing the task.

In basketball, the most flexible player is often the smallest person on the team. Small robots play a similar role in manufacturing.

For any plastic-injection-molding tooling company, nothing is more important than making sure its molds allow for consistent, quick and clean demolding of just-made parts. So anything that helps the company achieve this crucial goal is worth pursuing.

Thermoelectric coolers are great for day trips, tailgating, boating or even overnight camping trips. Instead of ice, these coolers rely on a thin, flat electronic assembly called a Peltier device.

Flexible feeders are great at helping manufacturers accommodate product variants on the assembly line. After the feeder presents parts to a vision-guided robot, one or more cameras take images of the parts, and vision software tells the robot which parts are pickable and which are not. The robot then retrieves the parts for kitting or assembly.

An overly complex assembly process can become the downfall of what would otherwise be a successful project.

Nissan has invested $305 million in its factory in Tochigi, Japan, to develop new technologies for assembling electric vehicles.

Threaded fasteners are, by far, the most common method of assembling parts. According to ASSEMBLY magazine's annual Capital Equipment Spending Survey, screwdriving is performed at 58 percent of U.S. assembly plants, making it more popular than welding, pressing, adhesive bonding or riveting.