IMTS Pavilion: Industrial Automation North America (IANA)
manufacturing system, noted Mohamed Abuali, Forcam USA chief operating officer.
“Manufacturers are looking for ways to use the right automation technology to drive and increase productivity on the shop floor,” Abuali said. “They are looking to implement lean manufacturing and modeling their production virtually, thus enabling the transformation of their traditional factories to digital factories, by creating process transparency, developing real-time dashboards, and visualizing bottlenecks. “More and more manufacturers are adopting digital shop- floor management technologies that can crunch Big Data in real-time,” Abuali added, “and offer 100% Web-based and mobile capability, leverage the cloud, connect to any asset on the shop floor, and provide global performance data for any manufacturing plant [anywhere] in any time zone [anytime], displaying that data in the proper language.” Visitors to the Forcam booth will get a look at the require- ments of the Digital Factory that will be driven by a predictive manufacturing system, Abuali said. “We will demonstrate real- time shop-floor data collection from advanced CNC controllers and PLCs, Big Data visualization and reporting, integration with top-floor business systems [ERP and PLM], and methods for predictive maintenance and health management of equip- ment, to ensure near-zero downtime and worry-free asset productivity,” he said.
University of Cincinnati to give a co-demonstration of Digital Factory meets Predictive Manufacturing.”
IMTS gives visitors a look into the future of manufacturing, and Abuali said he’s expecting to see a continuation of the in- novative trends in additive manufacturing and 3D printing, as well as virtual-reality-augmented productivity solutions. “We also expect to see a widening base of adopters of MTConnect, including new OEMs on board with MTConnect compliance, even for additive manufacturing and virtual reality solutions,” Abuali said. “Forcam is constantly looking for ways to engage with innovators and to adopt new complementary technologies, including the upcoming integrations of our shop-floor management technology with new asset types such as 3D printers and CMMs, as well as enhanced mobile and cloud capabilities, and integrations with virtual reality devices for enhanced visualization and factory transparency.”
Robotic Automation Innovations
Robotic automation with newer collaborative robots will also be well-represented at the IANA pavilion, with new or up- dated robots from companies including Universal Robots USA Inc. (East Setauket, New York, and Odense, Denmark), Re- think Robotics (Boston), and Force Robots LLC (Cleveland). Universal Robots will showcase its UR 5 and UR 10 ro- bots, which are lightweight 5- and 10-kg payload collaborative robots that now sport absolute encoders and adjustable safety features. The six-jointed robotic arms remain unchanged in outward appearance, but have now added true absolute encoders and eight new adjustable safety-rated functions. The UR 5 and UR 10 robots achieve faster startups with the new encoders, with the ability to recognize absolute position right after switching on, which eliminates the need for jogging dur- ing initialization of the arm. The integration of the True Absolute Encoder into the Uni- versal Robot arms enables more easy integration with other machines, said Esben H. Østergaard, Universal Robots CTO, while speeding up startup times.
The Touch Robot from Force Robots LLC performs delicate airfoil machining.
Live technology demonstrations will be held at Forcam’s booth using real CNC controllers via MTConnect, Abuali said, and the company will also demonstrate integration with legacy machines. “Forcam has teamed up with Professor Jay Lee at the Center for Intelligent Maintenance Systems [IMS] at the
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ManufacturingEngineeringMedia.com | August 2014
The Baxter robot line from Rethink Robotics also has under- gone an upgrade with a new software platform, called Intera 3, that is said to double its speed and double its precision. “We’ve told our customers that our robots will get better and better through software,” said Scott Eckert, Rethink Robotics CEO. “If you haven’t seen Baxter lately, you need to take another look, thanks to the innovation delivered by our software platform, Intera.” The software upgrade immediately expands Baxter’s
Photo courtesy Force Robots LLC
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