All Features
Etienne Nichols
I have a bold opinion: The corrective and preventive action (CAPA) process is the second-most important component of your quality management system (QMS). (If you want to know what I think is No. 1, shoot me an email.) As you build medical devices, a well-defined CAPA program provides a framework…
Michael Oullette
(Siemens: Munich) -- Siemens has launched a new Intralogistics vertical to bring material-handling thought leadership, hardware automation, software, and service solutions to its U.S. customers.
The company leverages its broad technology to address digital transformation, cybersecurity, safety,…
Gleb Tsipursky
A recent study at the University of Birmingham, which surveyed 597 managers, has shed light on how managers’ attitudes toward the hybrid work model have changed as a result of the pandemic. Surprisingly, the findings reveal an increasingly positive outlook on the benefits of remote and flexible…
Bryan Christiansen
People often use the terms maintenance and reliability interchangeably. However, they are two separate concepts. Although there is some overlap, their scope and focus are quite different.
Understanding those differences, as well as how each concept affects the other, is a necessary step for…
(SymphonyAI Industrial, Woburn, MA) -- SymphonyAI Industrial, a SymphonyAI division, announced that European industrial and medical gases company Nippon Gases has signed a long-term agreement to extend its use of APM 360 to improve asset performance supporting plant operations and output across its…
NIST
(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- The feedstock used to additively manufacture, or 3D-print, metal parts is often a fine powder of metallic particles. The traits of these powders play a key role in determining the quality of printed parts, but many questions stand about how to optimize them.
What powder…
Megan Wallin-Kerth
“The best is the enemy of good,” wrote French historian and philosopher Voltaire. Today that quote seems more appropriate than ever. A longitudinal meta-analysis study from 1989 to 2016 looking at data from more than 41,000 students across the U.S., U.K., and Canada revealed that perfectionism has…
Bruce Hamilton
There’s a certain irony in the recent attention paid to the application of robots on the shop floor. On a couple occasions in the past year, I’ve heard manufacturing colleagues talk about the benefits of deploying robots to handle material conveyance. “Better,” they say, “to redeploy humans to…
Shawn Wasserman
MathWorks, creators of MATLAB and Simulink, and the embedded software safety and security company Green Hills Software have announced new features in Simulink that help engineers produce safety-related applications for Infineon’s AURIX TC4x family of automotive microcontrollers. Specifically,…
(IDS: Obersulm, Germany) -- In quality assurance, it’s often necessary to reliably detect deviations from the norm. Industrial cameras have a key role in this, capturing images of products and analyzing them for defects. If the error cases aren’t known in advance or are too diverse, however, rule-…
(Schreiner PrinTrust: Shanghai) – Schreiner PrinTrust, a developer of customized radio frequency identification (RFID) solutions and security labels for system and service providers with a focus on identification and authentication, is supplying RFID-enabled films for seventhings, a German software…
(Critical Manufacturing: Maia, Portugal) -- At Hannover Messe, Critical Manufacturing will be highlighting how its manufacturing execution system (MES) empowers manufacturers with advanced capabilities to drive innovation, increase connectivity, and promote digital transformation with out-of-the-…
Brian Brooks
Producing high-quality products is crucial for any business. But designing quality into the product from the start is the only significant way a business can improve its product margins. When you use detection methods and find a nonconformance, you’ve already invested in that nonconforming product…
Paul Laughlin
Continuing our thinking about ways for data leaders to save money during a recession, this article drills into saving on your data usage. Following my last post reminiscing on the lessons I learned during past recessions, the early environmentalist slogan “reduce, reuse, recycle” has stayed in my…
(Digital Twin Consortium: Boston) -- The Digital Twin Consortium (DTC) has announced the publication of a white paper, “Decarbonizing the Built World: A Call to Action.” It outlines how building owners and their community of stakeholders can reduce carbon emissions using performance-based digital…
Michael Oullette
(Desktop Metal: Burlington, MA) -- Desktop Metal has announced three new metals for use in its binder jet 3D printers, partnering with three separate organizations to test and verify the results.
Copper alloy C18150 was developed and provided by Sandvik Osprey, a unit of Sandvik Additive…
Donald J. Wheeler
As the foundations of modern science were being laid, the need for a model for the uncertainty in a measurement became apparent. Here we look at the development of the theory of measurement error and discover its consequences.
The problem may be expressed as follows: Repeated measurements of one…
Grant Ramaley
As of 2023, more than 27,000 medical device QMS certificates have been issued worldwide, providing confidence in medical devices. From cardiac stents to simple dental tools used to correct teeth, the healthcare systems of the world have come to rely on ISO 13485 to provide critical support to world…
(Omnex: Ann Arbor, MI) -- Omnex has announced its latest webinars, “Net zero and carbon neutrality standards are now for your environmental management systems” and “Best practices in systems engineering for Automotive SPICE.”
Webinar title: “Net zero and carbon neutrality standards are now for…
(Teledyne e2v: Grenoble, France) -- Teledyne e2v, a part of Teledyne Technologies, has released Optimom 1.5M, the latest member of its Optimom family, a new range of turnkey optical modules that can be instantly integrated into vision systems.
Optimom 1.5M is a complete board-level vision…
Jennifer V. Miller
Being a leader is tough enough, but it’s downright demoralizing if you feel like you’re swimming upstream against the currents of a toxic workplace. If you want to stand apart and make a positive difference at work, it might seem like you’re living in this weird, misshapen house where some of the…
Jennifer Lauren Lee
There’s a mystery happening in some satellites facing the sun, and scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) are on the case. The team has been trying to figure out what is clouding up and compromising the…
(Rockwell Automation: Milwaukee) -- Rockwell Automation, one of the world’s largest companies dedicated to industrial automation and digital transformation, has published the results of its 8th annual “State of Smart Manufacturing Study.” The global study surveyed more than 1,350 manufacturers…
(Metrologic: Montbonnot-Saint-Martin, France) -- Two decades after their first partnership, Renishaw and Metrologic Group are strengthening their collaboration by signing a new strategic agreement to meet current challenges faced by the manufacturing industry. Customers will benefit from Renishaw’s…
Harry Hertz
The factors affecting employee engagement have changed dramatically during the last few years. Considering off-site employees returning to the work site, baby boomers retiring in growing numbers, and the increasingly younger workforce, I was interested in exploring what the key drivers of employee…
