One of the easiest ways for manufacturers to transform their operations with IIoT capability is to use IO-Link. This internationally accepted platform allows sensors to go beyond a simple ON/OFF reading and communication details about default detection, condition monitoring, and component indemnification, and more throughout the system.
NSK is a global manufacturer of ball and roller bearings, precision linear motion and integrated automation solutions, and automotive components and steering systems. Their linear components are found in everything from high-load industrial applications to surgical robotics. Mechatronics Canada recently had the opportunity to sit down with Jon Lorello, Linear and Mechatronics Specialist at NSK Corporation, to ask him about the basics of bearings. We gained better understanding of bearings – and the awareness that NSK is more than just a bearing manufacturer. They are subject matter experts in motion and control for virtually any industry.
The world is changing. Every day. In many ways. The fourth industrial revolution, Industry 4.0, has fundamentally changed the way we live, work, and relate to our world. Three terms from Industry 4.0 warrant further attention: the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT). But what do they mean, and perhaps, more importantly, what do they mean to industry? Mechatronic Canada had the opportunity to ask Ozge Karadag, the AIoT Corporate Influencer and Data Analyst at Bosch Rexroth about the AIoT. This article helps to demystify these concepts and explores their applications in use today.
One of Omron’s main focuses with respect to sensor innovation is to incorporate more “intelligence” – that is to say, more ways to gather meaningful data – into their latest sensor lines. Smarter sensors mean better insights into what’s really going on at the machine level, and these insights lead to better decision-making and less downtime. Setup, predictive maintenance, and reconfiguration are all great ways to use IO-Link. In this blog , Omron takes a look at what IO-Link is and how you can use this powerful protocol in your applications.
It seems like IT leaders everywhere want the flexibility to run workloads wherever it makes the most sense; in an on-premises data center, public clouds, edge environments, and increasingly, in multi-tenant data centers (MTDCs). Whether it’s to provide an optimized user experience for remote workers, or to take advantage of cutting-edge technologies, or to meet regional regulatory and compliance mandates, or simply to reduce management costs, MTDCs have become a critical part of highly distributed architectures. Panduit outlines three steps providers can take to get on the path to significant savings.
What will the factory of the future look like? This is the question that many professionals in the automation and manufacturing industries are seeking to answer. While most proposed descriptions are lofty yet lacking in concrete details, there are also many attempts to extrapolate from cutting-edge technologies that already exist. What we need to do is connect the grandiose vision with the minutiae, and its sweeping (and yet unrealized) capabilities with today’s real-world applications that sit right on the boundary between practical and experimental. Omron’s “three I’s of automation” – integrated, intelligent, and interactive – offer us a way to do this.
The Customer Experience Centre. Four thousand four hundred square meters of sensationally detailed architecture, designed to ensure a superior customer and employee experience. The CEC showcases Endress+Hauser’s best-in-class instrumentation. It has a full-service calibration laboratory capable of handling the entire spectrum of flow, temperature, pressure, and level instrumentation – unmatched by any in the country. The crowning jewel is the state-of-the-art Process Training Unit (PTU), which features on-line instrumentation and controls where people can get hands-on experience with operation, diagnostics, and troubleshooting found in real-life process plants.
Mechatronics Canada had the opportunity to talk with Eric Rice, Product Market Manager – Electric Automation at Festo. In this article, he walks us through some of the latest features of the SBS vision sensors and their common applications. Features like improved resolution, more powerful software tools, easier integration, and greater flexibility, all of which are optimized to meet your machine vision requirements and your application.
As development progresses and the benefits for the process industry become clearer, interest in and demand for the Ethernet Advanced Physical Layer, or Ethernet-APL for short, are growing. The debate about this innovative technology is becoming increasingly intense, so that more and more users from all over the world are approaching our experts with questions. You will find the most important answers here–and thus seven good reasons why this technology should not be missing in your plant.
EnDat is a digital, bidirectional interface for encoders developed by Heidenhain. It can transmit position values from incremental and absolute encoders as well as transmit or update information stored in the encoder. There are several versions of EnDat and it can be confusing to tell them apart. STOBER breaks down the difference between EnDat 2.1 and 2.2.
We have never talked about industrial automation as much as we have in 2022. Yet, despite the chatter, most manufacturing plants in North America have little to no automation. There’s a simple reason why the vast majority of manufacturers cannot profitably automate their production—because automation technology was developed (and priced) for high-throughput manufacturing.
Without a doubt, digitalization is setting high standards for efficiency and throughput in production. The right tools and tech can enable advanced predictive maintenance, bottleneck prevention and optimization. Omron discusses how digitalization is bridging the gap between legacy systems and Industry 4.0.
Within the next decade approximately 2.7 million “Baby Boomers” (b. 1946-1964) will retire, thereby ensuring that tens of thousands of skilled, well-paid positions will become available without a ready supply of American workers to fill them. Statistics paint an especially gloomy picture for the manufacturing sector, a widening of the skills gap, and a possible dilution of existing training programs.
ABB recently hosted “Billions of Better Decisions – Empowering the Workforce with the Industrial Internet of Things”, a panel discussion focused on the convergence of digitalization and sustainability and the critical role of the industrial IoT. This article highlights what these experts address as the mega trends of digitalization and sustainability and how leaders can use the industrial IoT to make better decisions and tackle the threat of the climate crisis.
The industrial applications of cobots are vast, and these smart machines have capabilities that virtually every manufacturing plant or production line can make use of. A cobot arm handles dull, dirty or dangerous jobs on behalf of their human colleagues and minimizes downtime by boosting round-the clock-capacity, if that is what the business needs.
The development of user-friendly technology continues to spark greater confidence among business leaders for the implementation of robotic automation. Highly flexible and capable of optimizing production, more affordable easy-to-program collaborative robots – or “cobots” – are quickly becoming the “go to” for a variety of tasks, including arc welding.