Industrial Sustainability: Moving Sustainability Forward In Manufacturing

whitePaper | September 4, 2022

It’s the clarion call of today’s marketplace and the prime directive for executives in any business that designs or produces physical goods, no matter how simple or sophisticated. Fortunately, every product can be improved and made at less cost. But how quickly a company can satisfy such demands – before, say, its competitors do, or the market moves on to something new – is largely a function of the product-development cycle. Shorten that cycle, and you can improve the numbers across the board, from customer satisfaction to market share to profitability. However, one seemingly intractable barrier to faster product development lies within the traditional design process. That process starts with identifying a need in the market or within one’s organization; it ends with the manufacture of a finished product, whether a massive, complex assembly or one tiny part. In between are multiple iterations of designs and tests: engineers sketch out a solution, prototype and test it (or run a computerized simulation), and then go back to the design to address any shortcomings. But trade-offs complicate matters each time the cycle repeats: make a part lighter and it’s likely to become weaker, make it stronger and it will probably cost more, and so on. A workable, if not optimal, solution can usually be found. However, finding it often takes longer than the product-development timeline or budget will allow.

whitePaper | March 29, 2023

Smart factories have various areas of strengths and weaknesses, just as people do. Strengths bring the opportunity for positive differentiation, whilst weaknesses offer challenges to address in order to deliver consistently on expectation. Many people like to measure their IQ to see how they compare in terms of being “Smart”— so why should we not do the same for the data-driven Smart assembly factory? This helps reveal both strengths and weaknesses, builds the roadmap for improvement and development, increases visibility of unique values, and eliminates risk derived from bottlenecks and inefficiencies. It is time to put our Smart, data-driven manufacturing operation to the test, ensuring preparedness as the industry transforms toward the elusive Industry 4.0.

whitePaper | June 1, 2022

Robots. Artificial Intelligence. Complex algorithms that take decisions for you before you even knew they needed to be taken. Machines that ‘talk’ to each other and take action about the goods they are producing. Vehicles that drive themselves, and alert you to the fact that they are about to break down before they actually do so.

whitePaper | July 14, 2020

Make no mistake, Manufacturing 4.0 technologies have played a vital role in manufacturers’ ability to remain agile amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Manufacturers responding to Hitachi Vantara’s Industry Insights: Manufacturing Operations During the COVID-19 Crisis survey indicated that digitalization was already a part of their long-term strategy prior to the outbreak and it is exactly those implementations that have helped them maximize output and maintain quality during the COVID-19 crisis.

whitePaper | January 9, 2023

Silicone rubber has many applications, from hearing aids to handles and grips on consumer goods. This report provides an overview of 3D printed tooling for silicone part production, including two part injection molds, overmolds, compression molds, and eggshell molds. These methods can be employed for the prototyping of soft silicone products, small-batch production of customer beta units, or production of custom end-use goods. A step-by-step guide is provided for producing a silicone keychain with an encapsulated Apple AirTag, employing mold design best practices from several Formlabs product design customers. We also present information about successful material workflows from Formlabs users, including silicone-resin compatibility and recommended mold releases for both tin and platinum cure silicones.

whitePaper | November 1, 2022

Industry 4.0—also referred to as smart manufacturing, connected manufacturing, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), and other monikers—has revolutionized the way companies manufacture, enhance, and distribute products through the use of new technologies. However, not all sectors and markets are evolving at the same pace. To help both manufacturing providers and industry leaders understand the landscape, ABI Research’s Industrial & Manufacturing Markets Research provides insights, perspectives, and data related to digital maturity within individual markets and across the industry landscape. Our research illuminates drivers and inhibitors that are shaping adoption of digital technologies across market maturity, practitioners’ investment priorities, and best practices for deploying the technologies. We keep abreast of key trends, including increasing demand for electric vehicles and semiconductor chips, the adoption of machine learning and automation, and a reliance on digital twins.