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Ford Working With 3M, GE, UAW to Speed Production of Respirators and Ventilators

March 24, 2020

DEARBORN, MI – Ford Motor Co. is lending its manufacturing and engineering expertise to quickly expand production of medical equipment and supplies.

Automakers Close North American Factories Due to COVID-19

March 19, 2020

DETROIT, MI —Ford, General Motors, Fiat Chrysler, Honda, and Toyota said they would shut down all factories in the region, citing concerns for employees who work in close quarters building automobiles.

Electronic Work Instructions Come of Age

New software tools help engineers enforce production processes

Austin Weber

March 6, 2020

Nobody's perfect. Even the best trained, most experienced assemblers can make mistakes on the line, especially in high-mix production environments. Fortunately, a variety of software products are available to help prevent assembly errors.

Common Mistakes When Dispensing and Curing Light- Curing Adhesives

Avoid these common mistakes when dispensing and curing light-curing adhesives

Zoe Leduc

March 5, 2020

Light-curing adhesives, also referred to as UV-cure adhesives, offer many advantages for automated assembly. The speed at which the adhesives are cured, the ability to fit into an automated process, and the strength of the bond are reasons why manufacturers may choose light-curing adhesives over other adhesive options.

Flexible Feeding Systems

A new generation of flexible feeders are helping manufacturers cope with high-mix assembly

Jim Camillo

March 4, 2020

Flexible feeders are great at helping manufacturers accommodate product variants on the assembly line. After the feeder presents parts to a vision-guided robot, one or more cameras take images of the parts, and vision software tells the robot which parts are pickable and which are not. The robot then retrieves the parts for kitting or assembly.

Electric Vehicle Startups Ramp Up Production

Not since the early 20th century has the U.S. automotive industry seen so many startups

John Sprovieri

March 3, 2020

The Budweiser Clydesdales have been an advertising icon since April 7, 1933, when the first hitch of eight horses trotted away from the Anheuser-Busch brewery in St. Louis with a wagon-load of beer to celebrate the end of Prohibition.

What’s New With Pneumatic Actuators

Available in many configurations, pneumatic actuators remain essential workhorses of machine motion and increasingly are being made adaptable to the IIoT plant floor

Jim Camillo

February 6, 2020

Keeping an assembly process simple is always a smart approach to manufacturing any product. And one of the simplest ways to implement linear or rotary motion into an assembly process is with a pneumatic actuator.

New Technology for Automatic Screwdriving

Collaborative robots are among the latest products for automatic screwdriving

John Sprovieri

February 5, 2020

Threaded fasteners are, by far, the most common method of assembling parts. According to ASSEMBLY magazine's annual Capital Equipment Spending Survey, screwdriving is performed at 58 percent of U.S. assembly plants, making it more popular than welding, pressing, adhesive bonding or riveting.

Hot-Gas Welding of Plastic Parts

A new noncontact joining method uses hot nitrogen flowing through custom-built nozzles to soften the weld area

John Sprovieri

February 4, 2020

The shop floor was hopping in mid-January at Dukane Corp.'s headquarters in St. Charles, IL, 35 miles west of Chicago. Technicians were busy assembling, tooling and testing a variety of machines, including the latest product in the company's arsenal of plastics assembly technologies: a hot-gas welding system.

Advanced Materials Push the Envelope in Aerospace Assembly

Aerospace engineers face numerous lightweighting challenges

Austin Weber

February 3, 2020

Materials are important in every industry. But, they're critical to aerospace manufacturers. If companies select the wrong material for a particular application, it can have catastrophic consequences.