Smart Machines & Factories

Today's plant automation systems provide transparent monitoring of system status, plus tools such as condition monitoring or predictive maintenance – all help to reduce unscheduled downtime. However, what about brownfield installations with legacy equipment? Hartmut Pütz* and Thomas Lantermann** report.

At the recent B&R Innovations Day: Enabling the Adaptive Machine, held at the Williams F1 headquarters in Oxford, Sam Tinsley, managing director of Cutting Edge Services - supplier of food processing machinery, services and consumables - highlighted how the company is working with B&R to add incremental automation solutions in an under-invested and low-tech industry such as butchery, in order to raise productivity and address labour shortages for the industry. Smart Machines & Factories’ Aaron Blutstein reports.

In December 2018 eight GAMBICA Industrial Automation members gathered around a table in Leicester to discuss IT, cyber security, cloud computing and of course automation and what it all means for Smart Manufacturing. The aim of the that conversation was to cut through the marketing hype and buzzwords that surround the subject and, in this special three-part serialisation in Smart Machines & Factories create an unbiased and pragmatic guide to getting started on your smart manufacturing journey. Victoria Montag – sector head for Industrial Automation, GAMBICA, continues the special three-part GAMBICA serialisation with part two of the King Power Stadium discussions on digitisation.

2019 marks the 40th anniversary of Rittal Ltd in the UK. The company started its operations in Rotherham in July 1979, providing  distribution, sales and marketing support for its customers.

Industry 4.0 is not only revolutionising the way manufacturers operate. It is also transforming how Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems work and what we can expect from them.

Manufacturers have been urged to unlock the value in their production data and learn from the historical knowledge embedded in their organisations. Smart Machines & Factories reports.

Ford relies on Desktop 3D printing to produce a variety of assembly tools, jigs and fixtures. The large variety of filaments with specific material properties offers many options. Ultimaker's open filament system enables material producers to provide industrial-grade materials with different properties. Smart Machines & Factories reports.

Nicholas Meyer, product manager, handheld communicators at Emerson Automation Solutions, explains why the writing is on the wall for traditional pen and paper-based data collection.

Victoria Montag – sector head for Industrial Automation, GAMBICA, begins the special three-part GAMBICA serialisation of the King Power Stadium discussions on digitisation.

A recent demonstration showing 5G Digital Twin technology by Ericsson and Comau at Hannover Messe, underlines the importance of 5G in industrial automation use. Smart Machines & Factories reports.

Ypsomed and Harting haved collaborated on the development of Industry 4.0 digital control systems for retrofitting to plastic injection moulding machines. Smart Machines & Factories reports.

Paul Croft, director of 3DGBIRE and Ultimaker GB and founder of CREATE Education Project explains, 2019 will be the year organisations of every size begin to drive new value from 3D printing.

Tim Bednall, sales & marketing manager for Wood Automation & Control’s Systems Division, highlights the depth of expertise and talent that UK manufacturers can draw upon to ease the path to automation and, in turn, greater productivity.

A series of major cyber-attacks on manufacturing enterprises has highlighted the extreme and growing risks that such attacks pose. Contributing editor Tony Sacks has been reading a new report that looks at how the interconnected nature of smart factories makes them particularly vulnerable – especially because many manufacturers still rely on outdated versions of Windows, which are no longer receiving security updates.