The value IIoT brings to industrial and manufacturing enterprises

whitePaper | July 30, 2020

After the COVID-19 pandemic abruptly ground the world to a halt in the first few months of 2020, it created both new challenges for the manufacturing industry and exacerbated those that had existed for some time. According to an article by McKinsey & Company analysts,1 the future we expected by 2020 hasn’t quite come to pass. Rather than a significant shift towards more automation and a smaller workforce, the opposite is true, due in part to the pandemic.

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 25, 2022

Manufacturers are demanding ever-greater precision, accuracy, and reliability from industrial automation. Fortunately, sensors, robot arms, grippers, and the software to connect and guide them have become increasingly capable. In response to the labor and supply chain challenges of the past few years, as well as the demands for personalization and rapid fulfillment, many factories and other facilities are looking to adopt robots or add them to their operations. In this Special Focus Issue, we look at how AI and machine learning are enabling more precise picking, among other applications.

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 | July 6, 2020

In a recent global survey of approximately 200 manufacturers, participants revealed a desire to realize the alluring promise of smart manufacturing. Their success hinges on three factors: their ability to identify what will improve the business and articulate the desired outcomes, select transformative technology to optimize company processes, and implement that technology to fully realize the anticipated value. This study from Plex Systems, developed with the support of LNS Research, explores common manufacturing challenges alongside evolving technology solutions, with an eye toward creating a blueprint that helps companies successfully navigate and achieve business transformation.

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.