News

Consider the Impact of Industry 4.0 on Safety Instrumented Systems

Greater connectivity raises cyber security and other important issues. Industry 4.0 aims to facilitate the interaction between humans and technology by providing information at all industrial plant levels. Persons or tools can access process sensors or final element information (such as measured... Continue Reading

5 Steps to Protect the Investment in Your Machines

Customers are demanding higher quality and more innovative products at shorter delivery times. To stay relevant in the global marketplace, those wanting a competitive advantage today are switching to new and emerging technologies. Today’s plant floors are increasingly high-tech, from... Continue Reading

Converging Technologies Help Build Smart Manufacturing

In millions of homes, these phrases are heard every day: “Alexa, play ‘I Love Rock n’ Roll’, turn on the lights, what’s the weather outside?” The age of the connected home is here. Many of us are already using smart devices for at least one of our legacy home... Continue Reading

What Machine Learning Looks Like for Maintenance

Pattern identification, behavior prediction, and beyond: Here’s how ML will teach you more about your plant’s assets. Machine learning has been researched for decades, but its use in applying artificial intelligence in industrial plants and asset operations and maintenance is now... Continue Reading

Is ERP Supply Chain Software on the Way Out?

Here is your quick guide to the evolving supply chain software market With the growth of AI, IoT, and data analytics, supply chain management software capabilities are exploding. The large ERP vendors are continually designing and incorporating new capabilities into their suites, but... Continue Reading

International Organization for Standardization

The world’s much anticipated International Standard for occupational health and safety (OH&S) has just been published, and is set to transform workplace practices globally. ISO 45001:2018, Occupational health and safety management systems – requirements with guidance for use,... Continue Reading

Why On-Demand Could Be the Future of Manufacturing

We live in an increasingly on-demand world. If you can remember a time before the Internet, you might also remember renting videos and patronizing record stores. If you’re a gamer, you might vaguely recall purchasing compact discs (or even cartridges or floppy disks) in oversized... Continue Reading

Network Convergence is Key to IIoT Success

To reap the benefits of smart manufacturing relies on the networks which carry data. Scot Wlodarczak argues that this requires a great deal of thought to be given to how to converge all the plant networks into a single, deterministic one. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) offers the... Continue Reading

The Battle of the Bodies: Steel vs. Aluminum in Automotive Production

Since the invention of the automobile, body materials ranging from steel, iron and other metals, to plastics, composites, and even wood have jockeyed for position as the main structural material of the motor vehicle. Recently, aluminum has been popping up in automotive industry news more and more,... Continue Reading

Cyber-Security for Job Shops

Small and medium-size machining job shops can take steps to protect computerized or networked assets such as CNC machines from cyber-attacks. Managers of small and medium-size machining companies often wonder what precautions they can take to protect their computer networks from hackers and... Continue Reading

MTI Weighs in on ASTM Portable Hardness Testing Issue

If you are not aware, there is a lot of debate going on within ASTM, AMEC, and Nadcap regarding the use and viability of portable hardness testers. MTI’s Technical Standards Committee sent the following letter to the leadership of the ASTM E28.06 Sub-Committee leadership sharing MTI’s... Continue Reading

NAM Economic Update

Manufacturers added 31,000 workers in February, and revisions in the December and January data increased employment in the sector by 28,000 in total from previous estimates. As such, the latest jobs numbers confirm that the labor market has tightened significantly, with manufacturers increasing... Continue Reading