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Special Delivery: How Collaboration Has Overcome Global Supply Chain Issues at Universal Robots

The strain placed on global supply chains this year continues to make headline news, from semiconductor shortages to labour and equipment availability, all exacerbated by geopolitical uncertainty. One cobot is typically comprised of around 600 different parts, sourced from more than 100 separate suppliers.

 

 

 

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Support for a Sustainable Circular Economy: Recycling Robot Tackles Electrical Waste

Because of mercury and other gases, as well as sharp-edged parts, it’s dangerous for people to dismantle LCD screens and monitors. To handle the process and eliminate the hazards, the Irish technology company Votechnik developed an automated application with a KUKA KR QUANTEC industrial robot at its core.

 

 

 

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Three Strategies for Immediately Improving Order Picking with Robotics

 

Together, shipping, receiving, and storage count for less than half of all warehouse activity costs. The lion’ share of expenses – a whopping 55% – is bound up in order picking. Breaking down the various activities associated with order picking, Omron finds that over 60% of time is spent walking, with writing, searching, and picking tasks comprising the other 40%. Omron’s Logistics Strategic Account Manager Yaqing Sun recently discussed some strategies for using autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) for this purpose at Automate 2022 in June.

 

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Automation Is the Ultimate Space-Saver, Even In Shipping Wine Corks

Corks are so light they float, but when shipped in bulk to wineries around the world, they tend to be big space-takers. In order to save energy and CO₂ emissions during transport, Portugal’s ESI (Engenharia, Soluções e Inovação) has developed a system for packaging corks that reduces packaging volume by 30% and dispenses with plastic bagging. 

 

 

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Seven Remote Access Problems That You Can Solve with Omron’s New IoT Gateway

As machines become more connected, the need to service equipment remotely is escalating. Production is often running 24/7 and manufacturers expect immediate action from machine specialists. Not having a remote solution creates challenges like high travel costs, whereas some remote solutions cause a loss of data control and increase vulnerability.

 

 

 

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Student Summit to Feature the ‘Manufacturing Technology Classroom of the Future’ at IMTS 2022

The Smartforce Student Summit will be held at IMTS – The International Manufacturing Technology Show, Sept. 12-17, at McCormick Place in Chicago. Produced by the Smartforce Development team of AMT – The Association For Manufacturing Technology, which owns and operates IMTS, the Student Summit brings together students from all over.

 

 

 

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Littelfuse Paper Examines Electrical Shock Hazards and Prevention Through Design with GFCIs

Littelfuse, Inc., has released the technical paper “Prevention Through Design with Special-Purpose Ground-Fault Circuit Interrupters (GFCIs)” describing the hazards of electrical shock and the best prevention methods and products that help keep workers safe from serious injuries and death caused by electrical shock.

 

 

 

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EFC’s Business Sections: Positive Action on T0251 Enclosure IP Ratings – Canadian Electrical Code

A proposal to amend the Canadian Electrical Code Part I for Ingress Protection (IP) Ratings for enclosures treated as equal in acceptance to CSA Type ratings has been voted down with the support of EFC members as well as CE Code committee members and sent back to the Sub-committee for further discussion and review.

 

 

 

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Four Ways Omron’s New Factory Drive Recorder Helps You Determine Root Causes That Could Otherwise Remain a Mystery

If a product is scratched by a robot but nobody was there to see it, how do you know what exactly happened? Intermittent problems in manufacturing lines (such as die casting) can cause millions of lost $$$ when repair workers are forced to troubleshoot without any idea of what may have caused the problem or when the problem will occur again.