Ever since the industrial revolution gave us the assembly
line, manufacturing has sought to improve it.
Conveyance, progressive assembly, interchangeable parts, and repeatable
processes are all pieces of the modern manufacturing puzzle that were pioneered
then and priceless now. The digital
revolution, lean manufacturing, and automation are among the latest advances
that make modern manufacturing possible, and are the latest places of
engineering research and improvements in our time.
One of the biggest recent advances in automation is the
availability of multi-axis robotics. For
a variety of applications, multi-axis systems offer a dramatically increased
range of motion and flexibility, which can in turn potentially increase the
number of processes that can be automated; this may dramatically increase the
efficiency of a production line. 6-axis
machines are fairly common for many operations including pick-and-place,
welding, finishing, and other robotic “arm” manipulations. Another common instance is in CNC machines,
where, without rearranging the orientation of the part, multiple processes can
be performed on the work piece, eliminating time-consuming secondary
processes.
Often, these systems are controlled by servomotors, for
efficient automation of each process in the system. As sensors and automation control interfaces
like SERCOS continue to progress, you can count on IIS to be on the cutting
edge of the latest iterations of innovation in advanced manufacturing. Check back here at our blog to get our
perspectives, and tweet @MichaelHupf1 to get in touch on Twitter – we’d love to
hear what you have to say.
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