Automation & Controls

The industrial internet of things would work better if computing tasks came down from the cloud.

Shop Operations: Safety the key to humans and robots working together.

HEIDENHAIN's newest digital readout (DRO) is now available to the market and promises to provide machinists with significant advantages and even more reliable tools to better utilize their manually operated machine tools (with up to four axes) than ever before. Called the ND 7013 model, this new DRO replaces the ever-popular ND 780 and offers an improved user interface and user-friendly touch screen, among other improvements.

As the cover indicates, the February issue will include a focus on automation. In addition to Contributing Editor Kip Hanson's cover story about automating CNC lathes, I wrote about the productivity gains Camcraft Inc. is realizing after installing a Makino Machining Complex (MMC2) flexible manufacturing system.

The advantages and benefits of the industrial internet of things all start with communication. In industrial applications a simple event increases the advantages as it goes wireless.

Robots don't take away jobs.nWhen companies lose to their competition, that's when workers lose jobs.nThere seems to be this idea: If the robots hadn't shown up, the jobs would have stayed. But nothing could be further from reality.nHere's the truth: We aren't using enough robots.

The growing use of work robots and the deployment of artificial intelligence have been most disruptive in just those areas of the country that provided President Trump with crucial margins of support in 2016.

Odense, Denmark, December 5, 2018: When Linatex, a Danish supplier of technical plastics and rubber for industrial applications, bought a UR5 robot arm from Universal Robots (UR) to automate CNC machine tending in December 2008, they did something unthinkable.

Lower costs and ease of use make laser marking systems a more viable option today, experts say.

Look-Ahead: Robotic system finds and records defects in finished parts.

In cases where the cutting tool must be moved towards the workpiece, insufficient or not many practical solutions are readily available. This gap is being closed by the SUHNER robot machine tool program. One option is to bring the workpiece towards a standard stationary SUHNER machining unit. Today, SUHNER offers the possibility to adapt and guide the tool by the robot.