Many view Memorial Day as a summer kick-off, but the holiday is meant to honor and remember those who lost their lives while serving in the U.S. Armed Forces. However, the somber purpose of the observance shouldn’t prevent you from enjoying your time with friends and family at cookouts, picnics, campouts, or trips to the… Read more »
We want our manufacturing machinery to last forever. The longer it stays in service, the better the ROI. It would be a dream come true if you could purchase a single machine and have it last forever. You wouldn’t worry about when or how you would replace it because you wouldn’t have to. It’s fun… Read more »
Humanoid robots are all the rage. Not in real life, necessarily. The most popular actual working humanoid robot, Pepper, is no longer being produced. But a few humanoid robots are in service here and there, and others are making headlines on a regular basis. Some humanoid robots are as convincingly human looking as dolls or… Read more »
Deep Robotics is at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, showing off its new Lite3, which in the video below is identified as a “robot dog.” We disagree. We know all about robot dogs. Lite3 looks much more like a robot cat. See how it crouches down with a baleful glare? Note its… Read more »
Bill Gates proposed a tax on industrial robots years ago. Bill DeBlasio proposed the idea again a few years later. The suggestion is coming up again, this time in an article from the Brookings Institution. Is this a bad idea that keeps being brought up and dismissed, or a good idea that hasn’t yet taken… Read more »
Labor shortages are getting more attention lately than possible job destruction, but Statista is looking ahead. They’ve identified the jobs that are most threatened with extinction — or at least serious job loss. For manufacturing, that’s miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators — and of course all the office and customer service staff. These are predictions from… Read more »
Indramat motion control systems are amazingly long-lived and reliable. Many are still in commission, decades after installation. But there comes a time when even Indramat machinery needs service or support. The what? Do you repair it or replace it? There’s no one-size-fits-all answer, and the best course of action depends on your specific situation. Here… Read more »
Indramat was a major motion control company in the 20th century. It was acquired by Rexroth to supply electrical industrial motion control systems to go along with its hydraulic systems. Rexroth is now part of Bosch Rexroth. Indramat produced servo drives which were perfect for high-precision positioning and speed control applications. In fact, those drives… Read more »
Spot, the quadrupedal robot from Boston Dynamics, has had lots of jobs, from police officer to astronaut. In fact, it’s hard to think of anyone else with that level of versatility, besides Barbie dolls. But Barbie has, u until now, had one big advantage: fancy, sparkly clothes. So just in case you’ve ever thought that… Read more »
Does automation always lead to lower costs and greater productivity? Well, obviously, yes. A machine that can assemble 395 paper cups per minute is going to save a lot of money if we install it in our paper cup factory, no question. Even if we keep all out artisanal handcrafts of paper cups and put… Read more »