IMTS Insider
The IMTS Insider is your one-stop destination for updates about the show, as well as information on business solutions, manufacturing technology advances, marketing & sales tips, professional development, and industry events. Check your inbox each month for the latest edition!
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Generative Design Keeps Manufacturability in Mind
Category: Manufacturing Technology • Jul 29, 2021
Can generative design do more than just offer geometric form solutions? See how it can help engineers earlier in the workflow explore a wider cross-set of potential solutions and introduce manufacturability early in the engineering process.
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Could Bans on PIP (3:1) Affect You?
Category: Manufacturing Technology • Jul 26, 2021
Do you, your customers, or supply chain use products that contain the chemical substance phenol, isopropylated, phosphate (3:1) (PIP (3:1))? Often found in components used in electronics, robotics, and manufacturing equipment for flame retardant purposes, PIP (3:1) processing and distribution will be prohibited in the USA by Sept. 4, 2021, unless the EPA extends the compliance date. Use AMT’s expert insight to understand and manage regulatory requirements.
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Manufacturing Tech Ed Centers - Coming to a College Near You
Category: Manufacturing Technology • Jul 22, 2021
Success begets success. As communities experience the positive impact of advanced manufacturing businesses and the jobs they create, they allocate more funds to enhance local manufacturing technology education centers with new facilities and equipment. From Illinois to North Carolina, here’s the scoop on four new centers underway.
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Market Disruptor Protolabs Innovates in Low Volume Manufacturing
Category: Manufacturing Technology • Jul 7, 2021
Market disruptor Protolabs built its business by focusing on both speed and low volume in producing parts for customers. They saw that prototype and low volume-custom parts manufacturing was an underserved market and set out to meet this market need. We overview the company’s success and drill down into some of the details of its business model.
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Nanotechnology and Nanomaterials Invisibly Creeping into Industry
Category: Manufacturing Technology • Jul 2, 2021
Just when you thought you’d seen it all, you find out that nanomaterials are everywhere, including industrial manufacturing. What are they? How does nanotechnology work? Why is it valuable? Learn the basics about this growing field at the intersection of the physical, chemical, and biological worlds – but too small to see! Some measure less than 100 billionths of a meter.
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Why You Should Care About Deep Reinforcement Learning
Category: Manufacturing Technology • Jul 1, 2021
OSARO has pioneered the use of AI software in industrial systems to expand the range of applications for robotics. The company helps automate the process of accurately seeing, picking, and placing objects. Learn what’s possible and how smart robots make it happen.
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Digital Twin: What, Where, & Why
Category: Manufacturing Technology • Jun 30, 2021
Here’s the lowdown on how a virtual representation uses simulation and machine learning to help you gain insight into the performance and potential problems of a manufacturing process – enabling products to be digitally designed and tested before being physically produced.
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Portable 3D Scanners Take the Floor
Category: Manufacturing Technology • Jun 29, 2021
3D scanning technology is shop-floor ready. Portable 3D scanners ensure good parts before they go out, or, even better, before they reach end of production.
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Velo3D Frees AM from Support Structures
Category: Manufacturing Technology • Jun 29, 2021
Learn how Velo3D created disruption in the AM market by bringing together innovations in software, hardware, and process control to create the industry’s first “SupportFree” manufacturing solution for 3D metal printing. Its award-winning approach enables unlimited design innovation by reducing the need for support structures in AM.
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Inspection Inside and Out: CT Scanning for Metal Parts
Category: Manufacturing Technology • Jun 25, 2021
Quality assurance of AM-produced metal parts may be the greatest obstacle affecting the speed of their adoption. Powders, print processes, and final parts are subject to a level of variability in terms of chemical and mechanical quality that cannot be tolerated in a production environment. Review the key quality issues and learn how non-destructive Computed Tomography (CT) scanning is used to address them.
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The Expanding Role of Cobots in Manufacturing
Category: Manufacturing Technology • Jun 21, 2021
The market for collaborative robots, aka cobots, in manufacturing is growing rapidly. Advances in sensors, artificial intelligence, machine vision, and light detection and ranging (LiDAR), among other technologies, are making cobots easier to program, less expensive to deploy, and increasingly flexible in the types of tasks they can safely perform. This article overviews the main features and benefits of these flexible manufacturing tools.
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Understanding Digital Twins & How Standards Can Enable Them
Category: Manufacturing Technology • Jun 21, 2021
In his presentation “Manufacturing Digital Twins: Understanding Digital Twins and How Standards Can Enable Them,” Jan de Nijs, LM Fellow for Enterprise Digital Production, Lockheed Martin, reviews the formal definition of the digital twin according to the ISO 23247 standard and explains why it is important to ask oneself what it is one wants to accomplish with a digital twin (DT) when defining it. He illustrates these points with several DT use cases and closes with an overview of the importance of industry standards to the DT.
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A Brief History of Automation Technology - 1
Category: Manufacturing Technology • May 26, 2021
Automation technology used in industry has evolved from conveyor belts used since the late 19th century to automated material handling (AMH) systems that provide multiple types of movement and functionality to robotic arms, which continue to grow in use as prices come down and advanced end-of-arm tooling (EOAT) and sensors expand their functionality and intelligence.
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End of Arm Tooling for Robotic Arms - 2
Category: Manufacturing Technology • May 26, 2021
Recent advancements in end of arm tooling (EOAT) have made robotic arms increasingly useful throughout manufacturing. In this article, we review three of the most important types of EOAT: grippers, vision technology and sensors, and how they expand the functionality of robotic arms.
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Evolution of Robotics - 3
Category: Manufacturing Technology • May 26, 2021
The two categories of robots used in manufacturing are industrial grade robots and collaborative robots (cobots); adaptive robots were only introduced in 2019. This article looks at how each new generation of robots is more flexible and intelligent than its predecessor.
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Autonomous Mobile Robots - 4
Category: Manufacturing Technology • May 26, 2021
From automated to autonomous, mobile robots have significantly evolved in the past decade due to advancements in sensors and big data processing. Autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) are slowly replacing automated guided vehicles (AGVs) in manufacturing and logistics operations due to their greater functionality and flexibility as well as their lower upfront investment cost. We examine their key differences in this article.
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Programming Robots - 5
Category: Manufacturing Technology • May 26, 2021
Programming is key to any robotic system because it is how instructions are communicated to the robot to make it function and carry out tasks. We review the three most common programming methods for industry robots: Teach pendants, offline programming or simulation, and lead through demonstration.
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Lights-Out Manufacturing or Processes? - 6
Category: Manufacturing Technology • May 26, 2021
Lights-out manufacturing is receiving a lot of press due to its promise of complete automation. The thinking is that if some automation is good, complete automation is even better! However, for most manufacturers, it is more realistic to think in terms of lights-out processes rather than all-encompassing lights-out manufacturing. In this article, we explore the challenges of lights-out manufacturing.
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Commercial Off-the-Shelf Software for Robotics - 7
Category: Manufacturing Technology • May 26, 2021
In the past year, several new commercial off-the-shelf robotics applications have come to market to make programming and deploying cobots and robots much easier and faster, and they are designed for workers with very little to no programming experience. We take a look at four recent sets of software tools to provide a flavor of what’s out on the market right now.
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A Year for Action
Category: Manufacturing Technology • Mar 23, 2021
Move from pandemic reactions to concrete actions and build a disruption-proof business. Use insights from Deloitte’s postelection poll of more than 350 U.S. executives in the energy, resources, and industrial sectors to guide your next steps.
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