Product life cycles are getting shorter. For example, 20 percent of consumers replace their televisions every four to five years; another 5 percent replace their sets every one to three years. Smartphones are even worse. On average, consumers replace their phones about every 2.5 years.

Saving a penny per part or a millisecond of cycle time might not matter to some manufacturers. But machine builder Eclipse Automation knows that even small gains can offer huge competitive advantages for its customers. Greater flexibility and uptime through predictive maintenance are also crucial.

Manufacturers looking to take their operations to the next level often look to automation and robotics to make it happen. This is understandable, for such technology can cost-effectively increase throughput, optimize assembly and testing processes, improve product quality and decrease labor costs.

A manufacturer never achieves success completely on its own. Every company, to some extent, needs help from equipment suppliers, machine builders and integrators.

Every process change made by a manufacturer brings with it one or more unique challenges. Consider, for example, the challenges involved when switching from manual or pneumatic presses to servo models for low-force-pressing applications.

With our newly developed LATC series of precision indexing conveyors, we can achieve and guarantee a +/- 0.04 mm accuracy across the entire system. Similar to the LFA, the LATC is manufactured with an inner structure manufactured from aluminum extrusion and very high-grade aluminum links.

Valves are a key component of heating, air-conditioning and refrigeration equipment. For example, in systems that use water as a medium for heating and cooling, balancing valves regulate the flow of hot or cold water to the various terminals in the system. In air-conditioning and refrigeration systems, expansion valves control the flow of refrigerant between the compressor, condenser and evaporator.

In 1951, at the height of the Cold War, the U.S. Army Chemical Corps and Ordnance Corps initiated a program to develop a new rocket that could deliver chemical weapons over a large area. The result was the M55 rocket, which was equipped with a unitary warhead filled with sarin or VX—highly toxic nerve agents. The rocket was rushed into production, and tens of thousands were produced from 1959 to 1965.

Meyer Burger Technology AG, a manufacturer of solar modules based in Thun, Switzerland, is planning to build its first U.S. assembly plant.