Contract to Automate Manufacturing Can Get You What You Need
Before you sign the contract with a solution provider to automate your manufacturing you need to come up with a list of things that should be included in the contract so that you get best result from signing it. Over [...]
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Automation PLC Is The Heart of Manufacturing
The automation PLC that you pick to be the heart of your manufacturing line must have the attributes that will positively contribute to your production. As you already know things change in production over time, so you will need to [...]
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Automation Knowledge Can Make a Manufacturing Automation Project Successful
Before you start the process of planning your new manufacturing automation project, you need to do something else first. That is gain some automation knowledge of what this thing called automation can do for your business. You need to find [...]
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Grow Your Manufacturing Layout from Product to Process
When you are first starting out with your manufacturing operation you will probably have a limited amount of demand for your products. You will need to grow the demand by making customers aware of your products. Since there will be [...]
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Small Manufacturers Can Benefit from Industrial Automation
As a small manufacturer you should be aware of the benefits that you can get from industrial automation. What is industrial automation? It can be defined several ways, but the one that makes sense for a small manufacturer is the [...]
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Robotics and Automation Are Different, But Join Forces to Contribute
If you look at robotics and automation you will realize that these are totally different. Robotics is machinery, hardware, devices, and equipment. It is the result of engineering design and technology. Robotics is the physical parts that make up the [...]
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Automation Performance Helps You Pick the Right Robotic
When you have decided to add automation to your manufacturing operation you will need some type of measuring to decide which robotic will best fit into the requirements that you have for automation. Perhaps your starting point should be to [...]
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You Do Manufacturing and Let the Solution Provider Design Your Automation
As a manufacturer of products you may have a need of automating your operation to make the work that is done in your plant more efficient and to reduce operating costs. Do not make the mistake of taking on the [...]
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Detailed Definition Can Be Key to Proper Automated Vision System Selection
When you are thinking about adding some vision capability to your automated production it is important to do some in-depth definition of what is expected of vision before you are able to select the “best” system for you. The more [...]
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Avoid Automation Layout Mistakes With Layout Design Tools
Before charging headlong into the layout of your facility to upgrade it to the latest automation for manufacturing, it is a good idea to use some software facility layout tools that can help you avoid design mistakes. You will probably [...]
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Process Layout Gives Best Efficiency to Small Manufacturers
The process layout on the production floor can boost the efficiency of manufacturing for a small manufacturer. This layout is very good for effective handling of small batch product creation. A job shop is a perfect example of the type [...]
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Process Layout Expedites Work for Small Manufacturers
The process layout for work areas in a small manufacturer is a great way for material movements to be optimized when production is done on small batches of products. Each work area of the plant floor is assigned for functions [...]
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Small Robotics Make It Easy For Small Manufacturers to Compete
Small robotics have all the bells and whistles that the big robots do. That is what is making it easy for smaller manufacturers to compete with any other company that makes the same products that they do. The SCARA, Caresian, [...]
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Pick and Place Automation Can Be Fine Tuned
Pick and place automation is a very speedy way to move objects during your manufacturing process. The way to get the ultimate product and part movement in your production line is to use a single controller to coordinate device movements. [...]
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Keep Your Small Manufaturing Operation Competitive with Manufacturing Automation
You are a small manufacturer, but that is only the size of your business, it has nothing to do with the capability of your operation. If you apply the resources that are now available to your company, it will be [...]
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RFID Keeps Sharp Eye on Inventory for Manufacturing Automation
RFID or radio frequency identification has improved inventory management for manufacturing automation. In years gone by RFID has been used for the security checks made for vehicles entering and exiting plants. The device would work with a “reader” to determine [...]
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Pick and Place Automation Is Even More Capable
Pick and place automation has always been a very capable help in completing manufacturing of products. The earlier versions of this type of device scenario had a single pick and place robotic attached to a single controller. In a lot [...]
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Automation Functions Add Support and Benefits to Manufacturing
Automation does not happen on its own. It does not operate on its own, even through it may shoulder a lot of the responsibility for making your plan run smoothly. Such a complicated group of tasks called automation requires that [...]
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Assembly Automation Contributes to Manufacturing Efficiency
Assembly automation can contribute the most to any manufacturing operation. Improvements to manufacturing by assembly automation are usually done under the very specific requirements that are set up by companies for stringent high production rates, quality product creation, and low [...]
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Protect Your Pharmacy With Automation Equipment
You should take the initiative and protect your pharmacy with a system of automation equipment. You probably have already heard about some of the major errors that have occurred in pharmacies where prescriptions are filled manually. Those are the pharmacies [...]
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You Don’t Have to Build an Automated Production System All At Once
Some manufacturers feel that in order to have an effective automated production system they must totally plan and implement the entire system at once. This is just not true. It might be the best step for you to move toward [...]
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Programmable Automation Controller Does More Than Programmable Logic Controller
The programmable automation controller and the programmable logic controller both work in the same area, that is automation. They both are similar in that they are both programmable, but I guess that is where the similarity starts to diverge. The [...]
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Manufacturing Automation Is Moving Up Into The Clouds
I have talked with several people in the industry over the last few days about cloud automation controlling automation in manufacturing operations, something that is called cloud manufacturing. It seems that most of them do not think that manufacturing automation [...]
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Robotic Automation Systems Have Basic Parts
Robotic automation systems are made up of basic parts. These parts are the manipulator, the controller, the power supply, and the tool that is does the work. All robotics have these basic parts in some form or another. The power [...]
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OCR and OCV Really Help When You Need to See In Production
OCR (optical character recognition) and OCV (optical character verification) are excellent tools for seeing in production where you may not be able to physically get to. This is especially true when there is the need for verifying the lot numbers [...]
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Terminal Automation Systems Has Taken the Work Out of Working At a Terminal
There is a lot of terminal automation that is done at many different kinds of terminals. You have pipeline terminals, product shipping terminals, freight terminals, and others that are unnamed. All of these have gone through a lot of changes [...]
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What Is This Stuff About Getting Manufacturing Out of Clouds?
Well, it is true! But it is not stated quite that way. Manufacturing does not come out of clouds, but automation control can come out of the cloud. What does that mean? As we were told some time ago, there [...]
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Automated Palletizing Will Help You Keep Your Profits
A lot of manufacturers do not think about how much palletizing of products for shipping and distribution can contribute to profits. After all putting stuff on pallets does not add any value to the products that are put there. It [...]
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Make Your Manufacturing The Best of Automated Production Systems
You can build your automation as the demand for your products builds. If you are not currently manufacturing products that are anticipated to be in demand shortly, you can start a move toward the automation of the production of those [...]
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You Have a Lot to Gain by Planning for Automation and Robotics
Do not make the mistake of attempting to build automation and robotics into your the production of your business without first doing some very detailed planning to make it happen in a way that will make your business prosper. In [...]
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Fly High in Robotics and Automation with Value Stream Mapping
Value stream mapping is your guide to the heights that you can get in robotics and automation. This visual tool can save you so much grief when get ready to install robotics and automation in your manufacturing operation. Two benefits [...]
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Compromise Can Cut These Mistakes from Your Automated Packaging?
You understand the manufacturing automation that you use to produce products for your customers is not the same as the automated packaging that you use to put those products you produce into some form for shipping and sales. Actually these [...]
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Who Else Wants Advanced Automation
You already know that you are going to have to do some thinking first about what will be best for your company, then you will need to do some strategic planning to get the correct start on advanced automation for [...]
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Don’t Let Obstacles Smash Your Plans for an Automation System
Forward thinking and long range planning with accurate execution of plans is the best way to deter any obstacles that could pop up and dis-rail thoughts that you might have of creating an automation system for your business. Having a [...]
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Are You Burning Important Customers Due to Lack of Automation Projects?
Some manufacturers just do not realize that the production rate at which they are currently making products for market may be just keeping their doors open. With some research and the asking of a few questions it might be easy [...]
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You Bleed Away Profits Without Automated Material Handling
Automated material handling is one of the things that efficient manufacturing cannot live without. It can definitely gash your profits if you don’t have it by making it harder to get raw materials and products moved through production. Sometime you [...]
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Be the Hero by Justifying Then Proving the Investment in Integrated Automation
It is a necessary task to determine what are the costs that are associated with a capital expense before that expense is incurred. In the case of integrated automation it may be even more important to estimate all the costs [...]
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Dominant Your Manufacturing with Automation Control
The pace has quickened and there are a lot of tasks that all seem to need to be done at once. That is the state of manufacturing automation. With the speed that is required now, there is also that just [...]
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Company Culture Impacts Acquisition of New Automation Technology
The attitudes and feelings of the employee population of a company will have a direct bearing on the ability of a company to be successful in acquiring new automation technology. Usually the company that is less rigid in the definition [...]
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Manfacturing Automation Requires the Best Automation Controller
Have you ever heard of anyone getting a brain transplant? I guess not. But there some cases when a brain transplant would fix a lot of things. The place where it could do the most good would be to do [...]
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Automated Guided Vehicle Makes Material Handling Efficient
Having just one automated guided vehicle in a manufacturing operation can increase the efficiency of material handling that is required. Usually when a system that includes the automated guided vehicle is added to the material handling of a manufacturing plant, [...]
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Flexible Manufacturing Automation Yields the Best Automation Scenario
Flexible manufacturing automation can give a company the best of what is offered by automation to create optimum manufacturing. Manufacturing automation is on a continuum, with production lines that have connected work cells at one end and independent work cells [...]
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Flexible Automation is Supported by Human Operators
Even though technology has gotten rid of a lot of the manual tasks that human operators have done in manufacturing operations in the past, there are still tasks that humans do that machines probably will not replace. Flexible automation has [...]
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Production Automation Integrators Create Automation Benefits for Manufacturers
It is important for manufacturers to be able to access the statistical data that can be collected after production automation has been implemented in product manufacturing. Most of the time the internal staff of a company does not have the [...]
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Robotic Automation Solutions Have Human-Like Parts
The tasks that humans have had to do in the past in the manufacturing of products has given technology a blueprint for creating robotic automation solutions. A work cell that has been upgraded to robotic automation has parts that are [...]
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Automated Manufacturing Needs An Automated Assembly Process
There is a lot of variation in the types of automated assembly. But no matter the type of automated assembly, it is a process that is required as part of automated manufacturing. Automated assembly has great benefits that will contribute [...]
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Design Products for Automated Assembly
There are no “rules” that tell you how to design products for automated assembly, but there are some guidelines that will help to cut production costs and boost production rates when products are being assembled by automation. It is important [...]
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Fit Assembly Line Automation Into Your Manufacturing
Assembly line automation is much more complex than automation of drilling or welding or other single task operations. Assembly line automation involves the completion of several tasks, while other automation can be much more simplistic. Assembly line automation can include [...]
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Manufacturing Should Include Assembly Automation
The manufacture of products is moving very steadily from manual processes toward automated processes. Assembly automation is an important part of the new technologies that are making manufacturing cheaper and much more reliable. Assembly automation is not as straightforward to [...]
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Consistency is Kept in Production with Production Automation Sensors
Reviewing the consistency of production automation is one of the tasks done by production automation sensors. Operators must be kept aware of what is happening on the production line even though the line is running unattended. There are different types [...]