2020 February

Advanced Materials Push the Envelope in Aerospace Assembly

Aerospace engineers face numerous lightweighting challenges

February 3, 2020

Materials are important in every industry. But, they're critical to aerospace manufacturers. If companies select the wrong material for a particular application, it can have catastrophic consequences.

New Technology for Automatic Screwdriving

Collaborative robots are among the latest products for automatic screwdriving

John Sprovieri

February 5, 2020

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.

What’s New With Pneumatic Actuators

Available in many configurations, pneumatic actuators remain essential workhorses of machine motion and increasingly are being made adaptable to the IIoT plant floor

Jim Camillo

February 6, 2020

Keeping an assembly process simple is always a smart approach to manufacturing any product. And one of the simplest ways to implement linear or rotary motion into an assembly process is with a pneumatic actuator.

Hot-Gas Welding of Plastic Parts

A new noncontact joining method uses hot nitrogen flowing through custom-built nozzles to soften the weld area

John Sprovieri

February 4, 2020

The shop floor was hopping in mid-January at Dukane Corp.'s headquarters in St. Charles, IL, 35 miles west of Chicago. Technicians were busy assembling, tooling and testing a variety of machines, including the latest product in the company's arsenal of plastics assembly technologies: a hot-gas welding system.

Measurement Tools Help Joe Gibbs Racing Achieve Peak Performance

Jim Camillo

February 13, 2020

Rarely does a person win multiple championships in one sport. Even rarer does a person win multiple championships in multiple sports. But, Joe Gibbs has achieved this feat; first as a head coach in the National Football League, and now as the owner of a NASCAR stock car racing team.

Manufacturers Master Data Management With MDM Software

Jim Camillo

February 12, 2020

Obtaining and interpreting the right data is essential to the success of any company, regardless of the industry it serves and the size of its business.

Bentley Motors Drives its Future Car Design With 3D Printing

Jim Camillo

February 11, 2020

Planning for the future is necessary for every manufacturer. Sometimes it involves making plans for the next year or two, or maybe the next five or 10. But, looking 20 years into the future? That's reserved for select companies, like luxury-car manufacturer Bentley Motors Ltd.

BMW Detects Defective Parts Quicker With Simple Vision System

Jim Camillo

February 10, 2020

Maintaining maximum throughput while ensuring maximum production quality is a difficult goal for any manufacturing plant. But, assemblers and managers at the BMW Group parent plant in Munich, Germany, are committed to making this goal a daily and achievable one.

Three Ways to Become More Profitable—and Famous

Get recognized for reshoring!

Harry Moser

February 7, 2020

Have you or your customers successfully reshored? Would you like to steer a successful reshoring project? In 2018, more than 1,300 companies announced they were shifting jobs to the U.S. from offshore. Why not ride the reshoring wave yourself, generate more business... and get 15 minutes of fame? Here are three ways to do just that.

Surgical Tool Prototypes Developed With Additive Manufacturing

Zoe Leduc

February 6, 2020

Shukla Medical, a subsidiary of aerospace manufacturer S.S. White Technologies, designs and manufactures universal orthopedic implant removal tools such as the Xtract-All Spine Universal Spinal Implant Removal System. Their products are used by surgeons to preserve the patient's bone while removing old implants.

Automated System Installs Electric Vehicle Power Trains

Five Things: Electric Vehicle Assembly

John Sprovieri

February 5, 2020

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

System Automatically Sorts, Separates Busbars

John Sprovieri

February 4, 2020

A&H Meyer, a manufacturer of cable management systems for furniture, approached RNA Automation Ltd. to design a flexible automation system to sort, separate and feed busbars. The company wanted a system that could handle 12 different lengths of flat and crimped busbars with minimal changeover time.