How many days have you gone without an accident in your plant? Safety, especially in manufacturing plant settings, offers many benefits. In addition to protecting employees, plant safety helps improve manufacturers’ bottom lines. Accidents and fatalities have many costs: Increased workers’ compensation premiums Fines Legal liability costs Increased employee health insurance premiums Negative publicity, which…
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As science advances so does manufacturing. There have been new developments in prosthetic manufacturing that are giving wounded veterans, accident victims and those born with disabilities a new chance at being able to run and walk. 3D printing has emerged as a leader in manufacturing with precision and new technology allowing doctors and surgeons to map areas…
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Manufacturing used to be solely about machines making things from raw materials. Then it became about specializing parts of the process and automating it. In today’s manufacturing landscape, the status quo from generations past won’t cut it. Companies need to adapt and adopt whenever possible, and that means investing in and using innovative technology. If…
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Automatic controllers have been in use in some form or another for many years. Things are a little different today, but the basic concept has remained the same: Provide feedback among moving parts. Modern industrial controller systems Today’s controllers fall into several forms. Programmable logic controllers (PLCs) began as simple relay systems but have evolved…
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It’s 2am on Saturday night and your production line has been running flawlessly and you are just ahead of schedule. Just as you are making your rounds you get a call on the radio that a variable speed drive faulted out, and the main line is down and can’t run without it. Thinking to yourself sounds like…
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Conflict is the last thing you want on your shop floor. But with many different personalities and competing agendas, conflict is inevitable. However — with the proper tools — you can defuse most situations before they get out of hand. Conflict sources Which comes first in your plant: safety or production? Obviously, safety does; a…
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Component parts become obsolete. You can’t avoid it. Diminishing natural resources, technological developments, and changing market demands make obsolescence inevitable. But that doesn’t help plant and floor managers. If the parts are essential, obsolescence can be disastrous. They’ll have to scramble to find replacements somewhere. They could search for cross-use parts that fit to succeed…
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The Allen-Bradley 5500 is an EtherNet/IP Servo Drive that gives you the ability to change configurations for any of the drives on your network without having to change wiring. The Allen-Bradley Kinetix 6000 is a Multi-Axis Servo Drive that was designed to make operation simple and easy. These servo drives connect and operate with ControlLogix Controllers…
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Self-driving, completely driverless cars aren’t just a thing of the future – they’re already here. Advances in the technology allowing cars to maneuver streets without human involvement are in testing and development and could be offered to consumers as early as 2018. The crux – both regulation and ancillary industries like insurance need to keep…
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A breakdown in communication at a manufacturing facility can cause extreme turnaround time and great expense. Who is in charge and how does equipment get purchased? Is it the maintenance team’s responsibility or the purchasing department’s responsibility to ensure that the facility will continue to operate in the best environment possible? Who is to blame…
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