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: Â 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...
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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...
IISc building India's 1st smart factory in Bengaluru
Chethan Kumar for The Times of India: India's first smart factory — moving from automation to autonomy — where machines speak with each other, is being set up in Bengaluru.
A smart factory, armed with data exchange in manufacturing and the Internet of Things (IoT) is the future and experts are calling it revolution Industry 4.0. Reports peg the smart factory industry to touch $215 billion by by 2025 and there has been no major economy in the world that is not embracing it.
And, India's very own smart factory, the first one, is making progress at the Indian Institute of Science's (IISc) Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing (CPDM) with a seed funding from The Boeing Company.
CPDM Chairman Amaresh Chakrabarti, who spoke exclusively to TOI about the project, said: "Yes, it will actually be manufacturing things here. But it will be a scaled down version, we won't have the numbers of an actual factory." As for the funding, he said: "I can only say Boeing is giving us enough to implement the project. I cannot discuss details. But the project is revolutionary. Indian factories now have automation, we've made some progress there, but here, we are talking about a facility that is autonomous, thinking and working on its own." Cont'd...
Industrial digitisation on fast track
The New Indian Express: In a move to build the digital enterprise, the digitisation in industrial sector is set to grow to 65 percent in the next five years as it is a priority of most CEOs in the industry, according to a PwC report.
According to PwC Industry 4.0 report, more than half of the industrial companies in India are using data analytics and over 90 per cent expect data to impact their decision-making in five years.
Globally, digitisation is expected to rise to 72 per cent from 33 per cent, the report noted.
It is also noted that around 39 percent of the companies plan to invest more than 8 percent of their annual revenues in digital programmes in the next five years. Cont'd...
Where do you get the I/O for the IIoT?
Nick Butler, National Instruments for ControlDesign: Data is the heart of all Internet of Things systems, including systems deployed into industrial environments.
When we talk about making the aging electrical grid smarter or the factory of the future more efficient, what we’re really after are insights that can make our equipment and infrastructure smarter and more efficient. And to deliver these incredibly valuable insights, which will result in millions of dollars in savings, uptime or operational efficiency, we need data. Lots of it. We also need complex, computationally intensive algorithms that scour the data to find trends, patterns and anomalies (Figure 1).
While these algorithms and analysis routines are a very important piece of the IIoT puzzle, the best data scientists in the world cannot predict equipment failures without enormous amounts of data. Cont'd...
10 Ways Machine Learning Is Revolutionizing Manufacturing
Louis Columbus for Forbes: Every manufacturer has the potential to integrate machine learning into their operations and become more competitive by gaining predictive insights into production.
Machine learning’s core technologies align well with the complex problems manufacturers face daily. From striving to keep supply chains operating efficiently to producing customized, built- to-order products on time, machine learning algorithms have the potential to bring greater predictive accuracy to every phase of production. Many of the algorithms being developed are iterative, designed to learn continually and seek optimized outcomes. These algorithms iterate in milliseconds, enabling manufacturers to seek optimized outcomes in minutes versus months.
The ten ways machine learning is revolutionizing manufacturing include the following:
How Big Area Additive Manufacturing is Enabling Automotive Microfactories
Ian Wright for Engineering.com: Make no mistake, 3D printing is changing manufacturing.
Although it may take years before we see the full impact of bringing this technology from rapid prototyping to full-scale production, there are already hints of big things to come.
Take Local Motors’ recent purchase of two Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM) systems from Cincinnati Incorporated (CI) as an example. The former company designs, builds and sells custom vehicles out of its US-based microfactories. The latter is a century-old manufacturer of metal fabrication tools and, more recently, BAAM. Cont'd...
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