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Predictive Maintenance and its Role in Improving Efficiency

Keeping fleet, machinery, and other assets working efficiently is a common challenge among equipment manufacturers; engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) companies; and power and process plant owners and operators. All the more complicated is simultaneously reducing costs of maintenance... Continue Reading

Keys to Attracting Talent in a Full Economy

In October, the unemployment rate reached a 49-year low of 3.7%. This is great news for job candidates: With less competition for positions, candidates can afford to be pickier about roles and culture and to ask for better benefits. But what about employers? “Failure to attract and retain... Continue Reading

Manufacturing Capacity Utilization Rises to Best Reading in Four Years

Manufacturing production rebounded strongly in December after some softness in the prior three months, jumping 1.1% for the month. Over the past 12 months, manufacturing production has risen 3.2%. More importantly, manufacturing capacity utilization soared from 75.8% in November to 76.5%... Continue Reading

Finding the Right Glove: Key Factors

What are some of the underlying reasons why hand injuries are still so common?Responding is Uzma Altaf, senior marketing specialist and social media strategist, Protective Industrial Products Inc., Latham, NY. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 2.8 million nonfatal workplace... Continue Reading

The Challenges of Implementing Condition-Based Maintenance

CBM can increase system reliability and productivity, and decrease maintenance costs. That means high ROI — which is appealing to every manufacturer. The machine condition-monitoring market is expected to grow from $2.38 billion this year to $3.5 billion by 2024, according to... Continue Reading

Critical Challenges Faced by Quality Departments and Recommended Actions

Each organization’s challenges may stack up differently based on considerations like industry sector, product/service type, customer base and culture. Figure 1. An interrelationship digraph in a matrix format was created to rate the relative importance of the priority quality challenges. ... Continue Reading

Shifting Safety to a Profit Center

Cost avoidance, better networks make better financial sense. Even though industrial manufacturing companies are realizing greater efficiencies due to the implementation of new Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technologies, they are still under immense pressure to improve productivity and... Continue Reading

3D-Printing to Save the Aviation Industry

Montreal - Air travel will become more affordable and more environmentally friendly with 3D printing technology in the near future. The airplanes of American, Boeing, and European Airbus already have a few components produced with 3D printing. Although 3D printing technology becomes more and more... Continue Reading

Future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Maintenance and Service

Are you an artificial intelligence (AI) optimist or pessimist? Today, AI is often thought of as either the end of the world as we know it; when robots will take all of our jobs; or the answer to all our problems, when AI is the ultimate solution to save the planet. It’s ironic that such a... Continue Reading

Condition Monitoring Meets Obsolescence Management

Unplanned downtime is the single largest cause of lost production time for manufacturers in processing — that is food and beverage, pharmaceutical, chemical, and oil and gas production. Production stoppages in these sectors can be attributed to several causes, perhaps a lack of ingredients... Continue Reading

The Road to Lightweighting: The Tech & Materials Leading the Way

Lightweighting isn’t new to the auto industry, but it’s finally mature enough to make a significant impact on manufacturers, drivers, and the whole planet. Even if you’re not a car aficionado, you can see why the Chevy Corvette C2—aka the Stingray—is re­vered... Continue Reading

Your Operational Lean Objectives

Oakland University professor of Lean studies Robert Van Til, Ph.D., teaches you to apply continuous improvement concepts into your shop operations. One of the most common misconceptions about Lean manufacturing techniques is that they only apply to large-scale operations. Lean is the continuous... Continue Reading