Archive for November 2024
Behind the Slowdown in Robot Orders
Given all the interest in robots we’ve been seeing over the past decade, a recent report from the Association for Advancing Automation (A3) noting a decline in the North American robotics market didn’t come as too much of a surprise. The A3 report showed a decline in both units ordered and revenues, with unit orders…
Read MoreWho Does Kaizen?
One core aspect of lean manufacturing is continuous improvement, or kaizen in Japanese. This concept emphasizes ongoing, incremental enhancements to processes, products, and services. Yet, there are commonly differences between how Toyota does kaizen and how the rest of the world does kaizen. These mostly relate to who does most of the kaizen activities. In…
Read MoreA Common Mistake in Doing Lean: Skipping the Details!
Lean manufacturing is a great set of philosophies and tools to improve your production system, or for that matter any kind of operational system. Yet, many supposed lean implementations fail. One of the various reasons for failure of a lean project is a lack of attention to detail. Let me explain: Production Systems Are Highly…
Read MoreMitsubishi Introduces a New Robot in its Low-Cost Series
New to Mitsubishi Electric’s RV-CR series of lower cost robots is the IP65-rated Melfa RV-12CRL six-axis robot, which features a 1,504 mm reach and 12 kg payload capacity. This extended reach allows the robot to access hard-to-reach areas in applications such as machine tending. The RV-12CRL houses its cables and air hoses internally to boost…
Read MoreRebuilding Manufacturing in France | Radu Demetrescoux
Radu Demetrescoux has been a manufacturing consultant for 25 years and recently authored a Lean Toolbox (in French) with actionable details on 64 tools. He has seen the French manufacturing sector losing half its factories and is working to rebuild it. This is how he explains what happened and the way forward. It includes an…
Read MoreJMC Ford Factory Adopts Comau Flexible Assembly System
Comau has designed and deployed a 100% automated body-in-white (BIW) manufacturing system for JMC Ford to produce high-end pickup trucks at its Xiaolan plant in China’s Jiangxi province. The system can reportedly process an annual capacity of 125,000 units. Comau’s BIW welding system was installed to improve welding accuracy and stability to ensure the final…
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