Manufacturers love established assembly line technologies not only because they produce expected results. But, also because they occasionally provide an unexpected benefit.

Some automotive enthusiasts get their fix by building a car themselves. Others thoroughly enjoy watching the pros do it; i.e., assemblers on the production line.

Whether the product being manufactured is a mobile phone or an aircraft seat, the assembly processes will likely require some combination of manual and automated transfer operations.

Factories of the future will feature advanced technology, such as additive manufacturing, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, data analytics and digital twins. While many manufacturers are still ramping up their Industry 4.0 initiatives, several assembly plants are already at the forefront. They are embracing the Fourth Industrial Revolution and reaping the benefits.

More than 20,000 manufacturing professionals saw the newest robots, vision systems and motion control technologies during the 2019 Automate show and conference, which was held April 8-11 at McCormick Place in Chicago.

Lights-out automation has been a dream of engineers for more than 200 years. The goal is to push a button and let machines work unattended.

Denmark is famous for being the home of Hamlet, The Little Mermaid and Lego. The nation is also well-known for its thriving robotics industry, thanks in no small part to Universal Robots A/S.

Traditionally, it's not unusual to see people wear goggles and other types of safety glasses in factories. But, a new class of wearable devices is becoming increasingly popular on assembly lines.

For many years, pet food manufacturers have used machine vision software to verify the presence of unique characters, codes, colors and graphic shapes on packaging for dog and cat food. Today, however, these companies can complement this process by also verifying the presence of a dog or cat image on the packaging using deep learning vision software.

Robots and other automation technologies have greatly increased productivity in today's factories. However, they still have one major limitation: They require people to tell them what to do.