Grant Gerke

Digital Managing Editor

The grinding machine contains one encoder per motor, with one motor per robot axis and absolute inductive rotary encoders with 18-bit resolution for the robot's axis drives.

Machine Tooling System Unveils Dramatic Productivity Increase

A new machine tooling system for Strausak’s U-Grind machines uses an integrated robotic arm with pinpoint encoding technology to increase production capabilities.

Global Pharmaceutical Optimizes Electronic Batch Records

With the pharmaceutical industry pushing for ever greater plant optimization, a major pharma manufacturer updated its batch processing platform and improved its electronic batch record process.

The inspection system includes a UR10 cobot and a Keyence CA-HX200C LumiTrax vision system.

Automotive Supplier Calls on Cobot for Critical Inspection

Comprehensive Logistics, a contract manufacturer for the automotive industry, implements an innovative vision-guided robot to meet high production volumes for powertrain and sub-assembly products.

Roughneck uses PLC analog cards and Profinet to provide operational data from its delivery systems to data vans at the well sites.

Reliable Remote Monitoring Keeps Well Sites Productive

Roughneck Equipment, which provides chemical delivery equipment to oil and gas fracturing operations, uses Profinet to make it easier to keep utilization rates high.

More from Grant Gerke

Apple Rubber was the first O-ring and sealant provider to create an ISO 10000 class 7 cleanroom with fully integrated manufacturing.

Turning Compliance Into Growth

With a heavy emphasis on improved material yields and increased audits, an O-ring and seal manufacturer scaled operations with a comprehensive ERP system and MES to manage increased data visibility demands from customers.

Daimler’s truck assembly plant includes 1,500 ft chassis assembly lines with more than 125 workstations on each.

Data Foundation Helps Daimler Trucks Improve OEE

The maker of large-duty trucks like Freightliner and Western Star brands overhauled downtime issues on its long assembly lines with the implementation of SCADA and MES platforms.

In addition to implementing a new DCS platform from Rockwell Automation, the City of Lima’s wastewater treatment plant rebuilt physical components, such as the headworks system that diverts water at the beginning of the sanitation process.

DCS Streamlines Monitoring, Costs and Training at Wastewater Plant

After Lima, Ohio, migrated its wastewater plant to a distributed control system, the city increased its water capacity, met updated regulations, improved training and reduced costs with real-time monitoring capabilities.

The Nava brewery has annual production capacity today of nearly 30 million hectoliters. The new segmented network design increases production uptime.

Improved Network Enables Higher-Volume Beer Production

When international beer maker Constellation Brands acquired Grupo Modelo’s Nava Brewery, it updated the industrial network to provide better production and supply chain visibility.

Inovatech Automation is known for its modular automation station system (MASS) platform that uses assembly-aid fixtures to improve machine design flexibility and lower capital costs.

Flexible PLC and HMI Help Streamline Manufacturing Time and Costs

Inovatech Automation’s selection of a human-machine interface and control system from Pro-face America helped simplify programming for its custom workstations.

Mining Company Crushes Operational Roadblocks

Ciner Resources, which produces natural soda ash from mined trona ore, has implemented an advanced modeling system that rates material in real time.

Nestlé Wagner has added rugged tablets to increase accurate, real-time production data for its enterprise platforms at its pizza plant in Germany.

Rugged Tablet Helps Digitize Pizza Production

In line with its continuous improvement initiatives and drive for digital workflows, Nestlé Wagner enlisted a rugged tablet to standardize data processes for production management at its pizza plant in Germany.

Advanced Materials Drive Maserati to Robotics

Advanced Materials Drive Maserati to Robotics

Maserati joins the lightweighting party with aluminum doors on its Levante crossover—providing a good application for the use of flexible automation.

Unique Relay Delivers Uptime for Refiners

A simple auto-start relay enabled a major oil refinery operator to increase uptime by avoiding a manual restart of hundreds of pump motors after undervoltage occurrences.