Traditionally, robots have worked alone inside safety cages or fences. But, more applications on assembly lines today require humans and machines to work in close proximity.
Experience, foresight and a reliable enterprise resource planning (ERP) system are the keys to cutting expenses throughout the wire harness assembly process.
In the marketing world, a pair of scissors is all that's needed to cut expenses. But, in the real world of business, scissors are the last thing company executives need near them during the stressful process of deciding where to reduce costs.
Rulebooks are multifaceted things. On the one hand, they are intentionally restrictive to ensure the proper order of performing one or more activities. On the other hand, they eventually evolve to address new and better ways of doing something.
Steel has been, is now, and will continue to be the predominant material for vehicle structures and body parts, such as doors, hoods, liftgates and fenders. But, other materials, such as aluminum, magnesium, plastics and composites, are becoming increasingly important.
Validation causes more headaches for medical device manufacturers than almost any other stage of the production process. For companies certified to ISO 13485, validation is always a costly and time-consuming undertaking, regardless of whether a new process is being set up or an existing process is being transferred.
The volatility and uncertainty resulting from trade wars and the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with increased consumer demand for faster delivery, customization and responsiveness, is helping to promote reshoring and foreign direct investment (FDI) in the United States. Reshoring and FDI are both motivated by the same logic: the agility and financial advantages that companies achieve by producing near their customers.
Building a piano is partly assembly and mostly art. Ever so meticulously, the hundreds or thousands of parts that go into each piano are either made by hand or produced on state-of-the-art CNC machines to a tight tolerance.
Wave washers, also known as wave springs or coiled wave springs, are used to absorb stress due to axial compressive loads, acting as a cushion. The waves of the wave washer provide three-, four- or six-point contact that results in greater load bearing capacity and a medium range of deflection.
First-pass yield is an important manufacturing metric. It measures the effectiveness of a process and provides an indication of how well we are eliminating waste.
If there's a silver lining to the COVID pandemic, it might be that it encourages U.S. manufacturers to consider reshoring. Last year's shortages of personal protective equipment, ventilators, pharmaceutical ingredients and other medical products opened a lot of eyes in board rooms and in Washington.