All Features
Michelle LaBrosse
February—the days are starting to get longer, the snowstorms are (hopefully) subsiding, and Valentine’s Day has come and gone. All over the country, you can find different opinions about Valentine’s Day. Some people are excited at the prospect of lavishing their loved one with adoration and…
Jon Miller
There is an expression in Japanese, “Dust accumulates to form a mountain.” (Chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru.) While this may not be geologically correct, it carries a deep truth that lean practitioners will recognize through experience. Taken positively, this is the essential spirit of kaizen…
Jacques Hoffmann
In parts one, two, and three of this “Leak Testing 101” series, we discussed three methods of dry-air leak testing—pressure decay, differential pressure decay, and mass-flow leak testing—including the pitfalls and hidden costs inherent in two-step pressure testing methods and the higher accuracy…
PPT VISION Inc.
(PPT Vision: Bloomington, MN) -- PPT VISION introduces 26 new IMPACT M-Series color cameras with dedicated color IMPACT software tools for sorting, monitoring, and identifying color objects. The IMPACT M-Series Embedded Vision System is one of the fastest and most robust factory automation…
NIST
(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- President Obama’s fiscal year (FY) 2012 budget submitted to Congress for the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) proposes a funding level of $1.001 billion, an 8.9-percent increase over the president’s FY 2011 budget request…
Association For Manufacturing Technology AMT
(AMT: McLean, VA) -- December U.S. manufacturing technology consumption totaled $446.76 million, according to The Association For Manufacturing Technology (AMT) and the American Machine Tool Distributors’ Association (AMTDA). This total, as reported by companies participating in the U. S.…
Juran
(Juran Institute: Southbury, CT) -- Juran is combining two of their valuable tools and giving everyone the opportunity to purchase them at a special price. The Juran Performance Bundle combines Juran’s Improvement Problem-Solving Process & Tools e-learning program with the Quality…
Cognex Corp.
(Cognex Corp.: Natick, MA) -- Cognex Corp. announces the launch of VisionPro 7.0 machine vision software. VisionPro 7.0 introduces Inspection Designer, a new concept to simplify development and field maintenance of inspection applications. VisionPro 7.0 also adds 1DMax, a best-in-class barcode…
Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence
(Hexagon Metrology: Cobham, Surrey, U.K.) -- The race is on for who will manufacture 1,000 mirrors for the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). Cranfield University in the United Kingdom, with the aid of high-accuracy measurement systems from Hexagon Metrology, has begun work on…
Rapidform Inc.
(INUS Technology Inc.: Seoul, South Korea) -- INUS Technology Inc. recently announced the release of Rapidform XOV2 Service Pack 2, which brings major improvements to the application’s reporting and 3-D scan measurement capabilities. Rapidform XOV takes data from any 3-D scanner and enables…
InnovMetric Software
(InnovMetric Software: Quebec City) -- InnovMetric recently reached a significant milestone in the deployment of its universal 3-D metrology software platform, PolyWorks, in the automotive industry. Five major Japanese, American, and German automotive OEMs now daily use more than 100 software…
Geomagic
(Geomagic: Research Triangle Park, NC) -- Geomagic announced a new agreement with 3D3 Solutions as a reseller of the company’s powerful 3-D scan data processing software. 3D3 Solutions is a developer of 3-D scanning and visualization technologies.
3D3 Solutions develops 3-D white-light…
DongleLockbox Co.
(DongleLockBox Co.: Rancho Santa Margarita, CA) -- DongleLockbox Co. announced the release of a new protective device that helps secure USB software dongles (software keys) from theft, loss, and damage.
The product, which has a list price of $99, is designed for use with a single USB software…
Automated Precision Inc.
(Automated Precision Inc.: Rockville, MD) -- Automated Precision Inc. (API) recently announced the appointment of Joe Bioty as chief operating officer of the technology- leading manufacturer of 3-D laser-based measurement tools. Bioty has been associated with high-technology…
FARO
(FARO Technologies Inc.: Lake Mary, FL) -- FARO Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: FARO), the world’s leading provider of portable measurement and imaging solutions, celebrates 30 years in business in 2011. With three decades of innovation and helping its customers’ products and processes be the best in…
(Metrologic Group: Wixom, MI) -- Over the last 15 years, Metrolog, the 3-D control software product from the Metrologic Group, has emerged as the benchmark industrial application for any kind of 3-D measurements. Recently, the 10,000th Metrolog license was installed for a Metrologic Group client…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
One of the laments we hear quite frequently in the manufacturing sector is the lack of skilled employees available in the hiring pool. In the age of high-definition video games, social networking, and phones that have more capability than your five-year-old laptop, it's no wonder that manufacturing…
I have long admired and respected Toyota. I have been to its factories, published and written books and articles about its revolutionary production system, known many of its brilliant people, and taught its methods to thousands of students. Like many of Toyota's admirers, I was shocked and saddened…
(Chrysler Group LLC: Auburn Hills, MI) -- In January 2010, an ATOS IIe white-light scanning system at Chrysler Group's Scientific Test Labs, Aero/Thermal, was looking a bit like PIXAR's Wall-E and badly in need of an update. The technology was at the end of its usable life-cycle. At every point in…
Society of Manufacturing Engineers
(Society of Manufacturing Engineers: Dearborn, MI) -- Manufacturing professionals who attend the 2011 Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) Annual Conference will have a tough time selecting which manufacturing “candy” most appeals to them. The conference, Manufacturing Velocity, to be held in…
In business there’s a saying: Time is money. The more time it takes for something to get done, the more money is wasted. Companies that can figure out a way to compress the time it takes for something to happen can realize significant cost savings and also get their products into the market faster…
GBMP
(GBMP: Boston, MA) -- The Shingo Prize announced this week that the GBMP Lean Training DVD "Toast Value Stream Mapping" will be honored with The Shingo Prize Research and Professional Publication Award at its annual conference in March.
The Shingo Prize is recognized as the premier award for…
Bill Kalmar
Fifty years ago President John Kennedy delivered one of the most memorable inauguration speeches since President Lincoln. Kennedy’s words still resonate after all these years when he stated, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” After the Lincoln address…
AAM Group
(AAM Group: Australia) -- The most evolved and comprehensive mobile laser scanning system in the world is now available from AAM. The Optech Lynx M1 Mobile Mapper represents the next generation in rapid collection of survey-grade 3-D data.
The Lynx M1 Mobile Mapper alters the expectations of…
Siemens PLM Software
(Siemens PLM Software: Plano, TX) -- NX product design software, from Siemens PLM Software, now supports high-definition 3-D (HD3D) and visual reporting. These capabilities make critical product information much more useful by visually delivering PLM data as part of the product model, enabling…
