Posts by Christina Fazzari
Fanuc America Establishes Scholarship Fund with SME Education Foundation
Fanuc America, a supplier of industrial automation and robotics, has established the Fanuc Automation Endowed Scholarship Fund in collaboration with the SME Education Foundation. This initiative, which is reportedly the largest automation scholarship in SME Education Foundation history, will foster the next generation of skilled professionals in advanced manufacturing and automation. The SME Education Foundation…
Read MoreKamishibai Boards in Lean Manufacturing. How Do They Work?
We strive to make operations better and optimized, surrounded by constant change. So, how do we keep up and also ensure effective and successful ops? This is where Kamishibai boards revolutionize the game. These boards got their start long ago in Japanese storytelling. Now they have changed to help factories. Kamishibai boards combine keeping it…
Read MoreCobots Take on Manufacturing Challenges
Downsides or cautions noted by Garksi typically deal with misapplication of cobots. “When people see a cobot they think, anyone can set this up, I don’t need a robot specialist or machine builder,” he said. “There is a perception that you don’t need a qualified staff to set up cobots because they use tablet-like pendants…
Read MoreNvidia Announces Cloud Sensor for Autonomous Operations
A set of soon-to-be-available microservices from Nvidia, known as Omniverse Cloud Sensor RTX, will reportedly be able to provide physically accurate sensor simulation to accelerate the development of fully autonomous machines of any kind. According to Nvidia, developers using Omniverse Cloud Sensor RTX can test sensor perception and associated artificial intelligence (AI) software at scale…
Read More3 Ways Manufacturers Can Derive Value from AI
Amid all the hype surrounding the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI), it’s crucial to acknowledge a core truth: Not all AI is created equal. The functionality and efficiency of AI systems heavily depend on the quality of data they are fed. Without high-quality, well-structured data, the promise of AI in industrial settings remains unfulfilled. If…
Read MoreAdditive Manufactured Grippers Transform Robotics
By shedding unnecessary weight from robot grippers, Siemens is helping robots operate more efficiently. Not only does this drive immediate energy savings, but it also fosters a culture of innovation, allowing grippers to embrace the latest design advancements for enhanced performance and functionality. At the heart of this revolution are advanced design tools and additive…
Read MoreWaste in All of Industry
Everyone is familiar with Taiichi Ohno’s seven wastes in manufacturing processes. But let’s zoom out from the seven wastes that exist in one specific company to the seven wastes that exist in all of U.S. industry — or for whatever country you care to consider because the situation will be the same as that described…
Read MoreResilient Operations: The Ability to Bounce Back
Heineken’s example To show the power of digitalization, Balasubramanian pointed to a digitalization project at Heineken, which produces 188 million hectoliters of beer annually at 165 breweries in more than 70 countries. Its longstanding paper-based system had proven to be inadequate for managing the vast supply chain and equipment needed to ensure a steady supply…
Read MoreGenba Scientists and Scientific Thinking
Scientific thinking has become very popular within the Lean community since the publication of Toyota Kata in 2009. If something is popular in the business world, it often means that it is recognized as conceptually easy to grasp, easy to do, easy to talk about, or all three. When something becomes popular, it is likely…
Read MoreHow Snowflake Merges IT and OT Data
David Greenfield, Automation World: A decade ago, when you would talk to manufacturers about moving their operations data to the cloud, it was not in their plans. It was very much like 20 years ago, when most manufacturers were wary of Ethernet use of on the plant floor. Given the manufacturing industry’s move toward the…
Read More