Show Info

IMTS 2012 - Emerging Technology Center

What is the Emerging Technology Center?

The Emerging Technology Center, or ETC, made its debut at IMTS 2004 as a place to educate, inform and excite the manufacturing community about ground-breaking innovations specific to the industry. The ETC has become the "must visit" at IMTS and is renowned around the globe for showcasing state of the art and disruptive technologies that will impact manufacturing in the years to come.

At IMTS 2012, the ETC will feature four technologies: Collaborative Manufacturing, Additive Engineering, MTConnect Applications, and MTInsight.

Collaborative Manufacturing

In one of the most exciting and energizing displays ever featured in the ETC, the Collaborative Manufacturing section will feature a live, on-site car build done by Local Motors, an open-source automaker that collaborates with a community of engineers, designers, and car enthusiasts to produce its vehicles. Open source will become a key part of manufacturing much as it has in the computer industry.

Find out about the Design Our Car Competition

Visit the site: http://www.Local-Motors.com

Additive Engineering

Additive Engineering has been gaining attention as an avenue for "home-grown" manufacturing due to the advent of low cost, open source 3-D printers – desktop-sized machines that can be used to build custom prototypes quickly and affordably as well as open source CAD/CAM software. But don't be fooled into thinking this technology is only for prototypes or the home market, as we are seeing clear examples in the manufacturing community. Example of this range from everything from motorcycle parts to high-heeled shoes.

MTConnect Applications

MTConnect is an open and royalty free communications standard that is revolutionizing manufacturing by providing plug-n-play communications and interconnectivity between manufacturing equipment and devices. MTConnect adoption has been growing at a tremendous rate as a number of manufacturers have been incorporating it into their equipment increases daily, the creation of MTConnect enabled applications as well as more creative uses and benefits of MTConnect are being discovered frequently as its use becomes widespread. In November 2011, the world's first [MC]2 MTConnect Connecting Manufacturing Conference was held to rave reviews. At the ETC in 2008 we introduced the world to MTConnect. In 2010 we showcased plug-n-play interoperability between manufacturing equipment and applications at the ETC. In 2012 we will be highlighting applications of all types that will increase productivity for manufacturing. All of these applications will have the ability to speak to MTConnect enabled devices and systems.

Visit the site: http://www.MTConnect.org

MTInsight

MTInsight is a game-changing business intelligence tool specialized to the manufacturing industry. With a growing cache of apps, MTInsight has the potential to bring manufacturing business leaders data and insight never before possible. ETC visitors can try out the MTInsight demo and learn more about the important data it has to offer. MTInsight can be thought of as the shop owner or plant manager's virtual business intelligence department to provide information on market data and where new business can be found. MTInsight runs in the cloud which means it has virtually unlimited scaling and is very secure. This is an absolute "must see" at IMTS in the ETC.

Visit the site: http:www.MTInsight.org