With Thanksgiving in our rear-view mirror and the collective shift toward the end of the year on the horizon, it’s time for businesses to finalize their plans and schedules around the December holiday season. This part of the year is especially important for manufacturing businesses that need to conduct business as usual, despite holiday interruptions….
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Lubrication is an essential maintenance task for any mechanical system. Like anything else, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for proper lubrication. In fact, there are many ways to improperly lubricate machinery and few approaches that get it right. Maintenance techs need to follow a structured methodology and best practices specific to each piece of machinery. If…
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What kind of space planning or space management protocols do you have set up in your manufacturing facility? If the answer is none or that you don’t know, don’t worry. The ideas of manufacturing space planning and management are relatively new ones for many manufacturing businesses, but they’re important ones that your company should understand…
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Though often used interchangeably by laymen, reliability and availability have two very different meanings in the context of factory maintenance. Confusing the two can mean confusing important data about machine operations and — even worse — overlooking the efficacy of a maintenance approach. The reason for confusion between the terms has to do with semantics….
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In a study of automation and the human presence in Industry 4.0, industrial analytics firm Drishti Technologies estimates that human workers continue to perform roughly 72% of all industrial maintenance tasks. This data comes from a survey of more than 100 factory leaders. The study claims that while technology innovations continue to unlock potential within…
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Imagine this: A piece of machinery that is at the heart of your business’s operations has unexpectedly just broken down. Some companies may react simply by trying to repair or replace the equipment as quickly as possible. Inevitably, though, it will take some time. Meanwhile, your operations have come to a screeching halt. Fixing the…
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Companies are always looking for ways to cut costs while improving efficiency in production. Aside from common practices such as cross-training, routine maintenance and optimized schedules, one tactic manufacturers have begun exploring is replacing metal components with plastic alternatives. The rise of additive manufacturing is making it easier to fabricate incredibly specific plastic components faster…
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One of the most frustrating situations for repair professionals is identifying a maintenance task but not having the inventoried parts necessary to execute it. This is the manufacturing equivalent of going to the gas station to fill up your car but leaving your wallet at home. Not only is the situation frustrating, your machinery still…
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Manufacturing trade shows are critical to continued success in the manufacturing industry. New developments are happening in manufacturing at a rapid pace and will continue to do so in 2019. Manufacturing conferences allow you to find out what is happening at the cutting edge of your industry. What you learn at some of the 2019…
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Everything within the manufacturing environment is a battle between efficiency and waste. It doesn’t take a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt to understand that less waste means better efficiency! However, it does take core knowledge of lean principles to understand how to reduce waste in order to facilitate efficiency. Maintenance is the clearest example of…
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