Delta buys Unicom to advance smart factories
Christine Chou, The China Post: Delta Electronics, a provider of power management solutions, will acquire a 100 percent stake in industrial software provider Unicom (ç¾½å† ) for NT$351 million (US$10.9 million).
In a bid to speed up its smart manufacturing operations, Delta Electronics' board of directors agreed on Friday to acquire Unicom - merging the leading Computer-Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) software provider into a wholly-owned subsidiary of Delta.
Unicom, which specializes in Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), has been providing solutions to streamline factory management and equipment monitoring for almost 20 years.
Delta Electronics chief executive officer Cheng Ping said with the arrival of the internet of things, manufacturers must move towards smart production to adapt to changing market demands.
The development of core technologies and systems for smart manufacturing requires cross-disciplinary cooperation to speed up the transition and seize market opportunities, Cheng said. Cont'd...
Siemens to buy Mentor Graphics amid push to digitize factories
By Christopher Alessi and Natascha Divac, Dow Jones Newswires: Siemens AG’s planned acquisition of automation and industrial software provider Mentor Graphics Corp. is the German giant’s latest play to stay competitive in the race to digitize heavy industry.
Siemens on Monday offered $37.25 a share in cash, equivalent to a 21 percent premium on Mentor’s closing share price on Friday, giving the U.S. company an equity value of around $4 billion.Wilsonville, Ore.-based Mentor, which has agreed to the acquisition, sells software and hardware design-automation tools for the development and testing of advanced electronic systems. The company has a field office in Longmont. Mentor’s shares gained 18.3 percent to $36.30 in recent Nasdaq trading on Monday.
“It’s a perfect portfolio fit to further expand our digital leadership and set the pace in the industry,” Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser said. Cont'd...
Samsung SDS releases AI-based smart factory system
Yoon Sung-won for KoreaTimes: Samsung SDS has launched its artificial intelligence (AI)-based smart factory system service Nexplant, the company said Wednesday.
The system integration service affiliate of Samsung Group highlighted that the new service will help clients maximize production efficiency as the AI system analyzes manufacturing problems in real time.
"Before the domestic release of the service, we have already drawn high interest from manufacturing businesses in overseas countries including the United States and India," Lee Jae-cheol, smart factory business director and senior vice president of Samsung SDS, said in a statement. "We will expedite business expansion on the global stage."
In developing the Nexplant system, Samsung SDS said it has tapped into its expertise in manufacturing process optimization systems that it has accumulated during the last three decades while providing them to plants run by other Samsung affiliates. Cont'd...
Smart Factory Hackathon: Talented data-science specialists develop solutions for the factory of the future
Press Release via AutomotiveWorld: “Data drives our production – you innovate from our data” is the motto of the Smart Factory Hackathon, which was held at the Audi Forum Ingolstadt from October 19 to 21. Talented young data-science specialists from the fields of IT, mathematics and engineering developed innovative software solutions for the factory of the future, based on genuine but anonymized data sets from Audi’s production. On Friday afternoon, the winners of the IT competition were awarded their prizes: The “Happy Unicorns” team won first prize with its idea on the subject of container management.
The Smart Factory Hackathon is a programmers’ marathon in which participants work out digital solutions and prototypes for genuine application cases over a period of 24 hours. For the competition, more than 20 departments from the pre-series center, toolmaking, paint shop, assembly and logistics had provided anonymized data sets with which the teams had to work. The results were assessed by a jury of four Audi experts and the startup consultant Thorsten Weber from “UnternehmerTUM,” the center for innovation and startups at the Technical University of Munich. The teams then presented their ideas to an audience. The winners were decided equally by the jury assessment and the audience’s votes. Cont'd...
5 key trends in the global smart factory market
Abhishek Budholiya for Embedded Computing Design: Smart factories are being touted as the future of manufacturing. Continuous advancement in machine intelligence is expected to bring about a fourth industrial revolution, expected to offer a wide range of benefits, including greater efficiency, flexibility, and safety.
The global smart factory market was valued at nearly $52 billion in 2014 and is expected to expand at over 13 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in the next ten tears. Let’s take a look at some key insights on the global smart factory market.
First, smart factories are gaining traction in the automotive and transportation sector. Tightening profit margins and stringent guidelines have made automotive manufacturing a highly competitive market. Cont'd...
Blockchain plus 3D printing equals 'smart manufacturing' and Ethereum you can touch
Ian Allison for International Business Times: Genesis of Things is a new "smart manufacturing" company which leverages intellectual horsepower from members of the Ethereum community.
This young company, established and launched just a few weeks before DevCon2 in Shanghai, has produced a tangible proof of concept in the form of a set of 3D printed titanium cufflinks inscribed with a QR code and bearing the insignia of the Ethereum logo.
Genesis of Things combines 3D printing, blockchain and IoT in a virtuous, futuristic flow that re-imagines manufacturing processes. The company is in stealth right now and more details about how it operates and possible use cases will be released going forward.
It should be repeated that the cufflinks pictured are a proof of concept; this is not a commercial product but rather a limited edition to show the potential of the technology. Cont'd...
Fujitsu to sell 'smart' factory systems in China
Nikkei Asian Review: Japan's Fujitsu will partner with Chinese group Shanghai Yidian to sell factory management systems in China, where the government is promoting such technology as a way to cope with a shrinking labor force and improve manufacturing quality.
These systems fall into the realm of "internet of things" -- networks of machines, such as factory robots or appliances, that can collect and share data.
The municipal-government-run Shanghai Yidian group comprises nearly 150 companies making electronic components, lighting and other products. Some of the group's factories have already adopted Fujitsu software that allows managers to monitor equipment in real time. These systems track energy usage as well as any problems the machines encounter. Cont'd...
Faurecia Unveils $64 Million Digital Factory that Showcases the Future of Manufacturing
Columbus, Indiana-based emissions control technologies plant represents company's digital transformation.
Adidas Shows Off First Shoe Made In Its German Smart Factory
Designed to provide the ultimate fit, the adidas Futurecraft M.F.G. shoe represents the first high performance footwear to come out of the adidas SPEEDFACTORY in Germany, heralding a new era in footwear crafting while providing greater precision, unique design opportunities and high performance. Welcome to the future.
Adidas, meanwhile, plans to open its second Speedfactory next year in the Atlanta area.
New modular AM 'smart factory' from Concept Laser decouples pre-production and production
Benedict for 3Ders.org: German metal 3D printing specialist Concept Laser has unveiled its new "smart factory" approach to additive manufacturing. The idea behind the Industry 4.0 "smart factory" is to decouple process stages, allowing tasks to be carried out in parallel and physically separate from one another.
The AM Factory of Tomorrow, Concept Lasers modular additive manufacturing factory-building kit, has been designed to allow manufacturers to seamlessly incorporate additive manufacturing technologies into existing production lines or to develop new and efficient AM production spaces. The Lichtenfels-based company has now revealed new aspects of its advanced manufacturing concept, detailing how a move from the sequential to the parallel could maximize production speed, cost-efficiency, and scalability. Cont'd...
Peugeot Teams Up With 3D Printing Startup for Parts and Possibly Full Cars
Daniel Bentley for Fortune: French carmaker PSA said on Thursday a partnership with a U.S. 3D printing startup would lead to cheaper production of whole vehicle structures as well as parts for its models.
The maker of Peugeot, Citroen and DS cars said it had agreed with Los Angeles-based Divergent 3D to develop metal printing processes for PSA production lines.
Carlos Tavares, PSA’s chief executive, said this could “dramatically scale down the size and scope of our manufacturing footprint” and yield lighter, more profitable vehicles. The carmaker did not quantify any impact on production jobs.
Industries from aerospace to healthcare use 3D printing for the production of metal and plastic components, while elaborate assemblies with moving parts often prove more difficult. Ford is among other carmakers exploring the technology. Cont'd...
Why manufacturing will make or break the future of energy
Lauren Hepler for GreenBiz: From solar panels a decade ago to energy storage today, the history of clean tech is littered with capital-intensive concepts poised to radically alter the relationship between industrialized society and the environment.
But why do these widely heralded breakthroughs always seem to limp along so slowly when it comes to actually hitting the market? The dreaded "valley of death" between conception and commercialization is one increasingly recognized explanation, dooming novel technologies to relegation in never-ending pilot projects as follow-on investment lags.
For Mark Johnson, the Department of Energy's resident innovation expert, the real problem often boils down to production. That is, not just inventing a new energy-centric technologies, but making sure those new tools can be reliably made in a cost-effective manner. Cont'd...
New technologies reshape production lines
LINSEY MILLER & CHRISTOF WEHNER OF ARTESYN EMBEDDED TECHNOLOGIES, originally Published on Embedded Computing Design: Whether people call it Industry 4.0, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), or networked production, they are all talking about coming changing paradigms in the industrial network.
Today there are several single-task workstations, manned by humans or robots, which are connected to a higher-level enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. However, that hierarchy is on the cusp of changing massively in the near future to accommodate newer, more intelligent technologies spanning multiple segments of the production line. Cont'd...
How to prepare a business for an Industry 4.0 network
Joe Bombagi for Business Review Europe: The first industrial revolution was based on the use of steam to power machines. The second centred on the use of electricity to supply energy to assembly lines. The third came about with the use of electronics and IT to further automate production.
But all of that is in the past. We are now in the midst of the fourth industrial revolution, known as Industry 4.0, in which the Internet of Things (IoT) is set to overhaul not only business, but also every aspect of modern life. From cars, washing machines, and even clothing, to heart monitors and dams, anything and everything will soon be connected.
As a result, the Industry 4.0 phenomenon is expected to revolutionise all areas within the manufacturing space, connecting all the elements that take part in the production process within the industrial environment: machines, products, systems, and people. The IoT will make today’s organisations more competitive by enabling them to further automate manufacturing processes, and collect and analyse data which they can then use to tailor their products to specific client needs. Cont'd...
Do the benefits of robotics outweigh the heavy demands on infrastructure?
Ben Rossi for Information Age: Robotics has already been deployed in manufacturing to great effect for over a decade, performing delicate and precise tasks with greater accuracy than humans.
But now cutting-edge robots and other smart machines are set to join forces with the rapidly expanding Internet of Things, which Gartner estimates will total 25 billion devices by 2020.
In healthcare, robotic services are already operating pharmacy dispensers and robotic trolleys are now deployed in a growing number of hospitals. In hospitality, robots deliver services such as drinks dispensing and automated trolley deliveries.
Robots have even made their way into education, where they are being deployed successfully as a tutor, tool or peer in learning activities.
But what impact will this large-scale adoption of robotics have on existing networks as they encounter inevitable further strain? Cont'd...
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