Industry 4.0 / IIoT

Increasing competition and the demand for more complex products in shorter time frames is putting manufacturers under pressure. In order for production to keep up with demand, manufacturers need to modernise. Here, Stewart Goulding, Managing Director at EMS, explains three ways powerful micromotors and drives are advancing the manufacturing industry.

Hydropower is an extremely old source of energy, tracing its usage back to the watermills that were relied on by ancient civilisations. Here, Marek Lukaszczyk, European and Middle East Marketing Manager at WEG, explains how plant managers can make today’s hydropower smarter, more efficient, and reap financial and carbon savings by embracing energy efficient products and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technology.

According to the TUC, the average rail commute in the UK takes an average of 2 hours and 11 minutes, each day. Also add to the equation that, in 2018, more than one third of trains failed to arrive at stations on time due to technical faults, and you’re left with one very miserable commuter. Chris Johnson, Managing Director of SMB Bearings, considers the future adoption of smart bearings and their impact on Industry 4.0 and the UK.

Mouser Electronics and Molex have joined forces up to offer design engineers a new resource site devoted to the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).

Bentley Systems has announced that its Acceleration Fund has launched The Cohesive Companies, a wholly owned subsidiary, anchored by the acquisition of Atlanta-based Cohesive Solutions. The new business venture will include the services team from Bentley’s AssetWise business and the offerings of Bentley, Cohesive, and IBM’s Maximo to support the digital twin transformation of infrastructure owner-operators.

Robots aren’t always given a favourable representation in pop culture. In Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), homicidal supercomputer HAL 9000 demonstrates how a robot could conspire against its human colleagues. Thankfully, industrial robots aren’t quite as menacing. Here, Nigel Smith, Managing Director of TM Robotics, gives advice to manufacturers to make their first robotic investment.

Researchers at the University of Strathclyde’s Advanced Forming Research Centre (AFRC), a technology centre within the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS), have collaborated with industrial partners to devise a digital whisky cask filling process that could save Scotland’s £5.5bn whisky industry millions of pounds each year in inventory costs.

Over the past year, Schneider Electric has embarked on a large-scale Industry 4.0 implementation across its worldwide operations to pave the way for digital transformation. Named the ‘Smart Factory’ project, the company is strategically deploying technologies and the benefits of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) to drive process optimisation.

Mitsubishi Electric is expanding its MELFA CR series for cost entry-level robots users by adding a new slim, long reach 8kg load capacity articulated arm model. The RV-8CRL is suitable for anyone interested in economical machines for low-to-medium complexity applications, allowing them to effectively choose between SCARA and six-axis solutions at a similar price point.

A collaborative digital technology project between Siemens and Hosokawa Micron Limited (HML) has helped its customers improve productivity by 15% and reduce energy costs by 10%. The project - Hosokawa Gen4 - introduced Siemens’ MindSphere IoT operating system to HML’s manufacturing facility in Runcorn, Cheshire. Using the digital technology platform HML, a global leader in powder processing equipment, was able to integrate assets across the factory to remotely monitor the performance of equipment and plan.