Despite the well-documented advantages of digital transformation and smart factories, it can be overwhelming to know where to begin. Cultivating a green patch in your brownfield can be a good way to start. A green patch is bigger than a pilot project, because it is a full-scale production system, but it is a small investment than a greenfield. Typically, the project scope would be one line or cell. We talked with John Kowal, Director of Business Development at B&R Industrial Automation, a global supplier of advanced machine control solutions, about adaptive machines and how to cultivate a green patch within a brown field.
Read More →How Robotics Will Drive the American Manufacturing Renaissance: An Interview with Jay Douglass, COO, The Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute
Jay Douglass is COO of The Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM) Institute. ARM’s mission is to secure our national interests home and abroad by asserting U.S. leadership in advanced manufacturing, democratizing advanced manufacturing and creating and sustaining valuable, new jobs. Previously Jay worked at the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. His focus was on developing business opportunities for technology development and technology transfer with commercial organizations. He most recently managed the SEI’s business in Europe. Jay has worked with a wide variety of software development and quality technologies. We are thrilled to have Jay join us at the American Manufacturing Summit. In addition to being Chair of our Process Strategy Stream, Jay will host a Lunch and Learn on “Fostering the Growth of National Manufacturing through Novel Robotic Technologies,” and participate in a panel discussing “The Next 10 Years, 3.4 Million Jobs Available: Avoid the Skills Shortage and Attract Top Talent.” “ARM believes that the United States is in the early states of a significant manufacturing renaissance. Our nation’s ability to leverage new technologies, such as robotics, combined with the desire to provide a better quality of life for all Americans, is driving this renaissance.”
Read More →Transforming Health & Safety with Mobile Technology
What got us to where we are today will not get us to where we want to be tomorrow. Decades of awareness building, training, and record keeping on Occupational Health and Safety – spearheaded by private and public enterprises and prodded along by governments – have got us to where we are today. These efforts have moved us incrementally along a path over the past four decades from literally dozens of deaths per day in the US alone, to a quarter of this number today.
Read More →The FDA’s New Approach to Digital Health
Recognizing that their traditional approach to moderate and higher-risk, hardware-based medical devices is not well suited for the more rapid and iterative design, development, and validation phases used for software products, the FDA has created a new Digital Health Innovation Action Plan. One important piece of this plan is the “Software Pre-Certification (Pre-Cert) Pilot Program”. This pilot program, which began on September 1, 2017, is a voluntary program that will enable the FDA to develop a tailored approach toward regulating digital health technologies by looking first at the software developer and/or digital health technology developer, rather than the product. The purpose of this is to streamline the regulatory process for companies with a history of developing and testing quality products. Once pre-certified, that developer would be empowered to make software iterations and changes as needed. The nine participants that have been selected for the Software Pre-Cert Pilot Program are Apple, Fitbit, Johnson & Johnson, Pear Therapeutics, Phosphorous, Roche, Samsung, Tidepool, and Verily. According to the FDA, these participants were chosen as they “represent a wide range of companies and technology in the digital health sector, including small startups and large companies, high- and low-risk medical device software products, medical product manufacturers and software developers.”
Read More →Additive Manufacturing in the Aerospace Industry
“With 3D printing, the old rules of how we design things are out the window,” said Terry Woychowski, VP, NA Test Operations at LINK in his talk on “The Brilliant Machine Age” at the American Automotive Summit. “You can now create a component exactly how you want it, without excess material.” The result is lighter, more cost-effective parts. The opportunities this presents are endless. We have previously covered additive manufacturing in the automotive industry, but the aerospace industry is another place we are seeing the effects of this new technology today. Despite the tremendous opportunities additive manufacturing presents, it is still a time-consuming process, and therefore best suited for high-end components used in low-volume products, such as aircraft. According to a recent study by ABI Research, due to the sheer size of the American aerospace industry and its defense budget, the U.S. aerospace and defense industries will drive much of the growth in additive manufacturing over the next ten years, producing additive manufactured parts and products with a value of US$17.8 billion in 2026.
Read More →3 Technologies that are Rapidly Changing the Supply Chain Landscape
At Generis’ 2017 American Supply Chain Summit, Dave Malenfant, Director of the Center for Supply Chain Innovation at Texas Christian University, shared with us the three most disruptive technologies that are changing the supply chain industry today: 3D printing, drones, and driverless trucks.
Read More →Averna’s Q&A Ebook: How the Internet of Things is Transforming the Medical Device Industry
The ‘Internet of Things’ is transforming the medical world, allowing more patients to be looked after using real time data. Combining Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities with current technology is allowing for a faster, more resourceful and satisfying experience for both patients and employees. With the Internet of Things(IoT) reinventing the technological landscape so rapidly, companies are struggling to keep up with the latest innovations. Companies must now test the wireless capabilities of all their medical devices to ensure their products feature seamless connectivity. With more tests being conducted and the rise of IoT, competing companies have introduced robots to automate processes in order to reduce costs. Robotic-driven production has become more economical, as robots can perform routine tasks without fatigue at a faster pace. So, how can OEMs in the medical world stay ahead of their competition with all this technological development? One way is to work with a company that excels at Design for Test (DFT) and design for manufacturing (DFM). Companies can also capture and analyze up-to-date test data. For more ways to stay ahead of the competition despite the constant changes in technology and for a deeper understanding of IoT and its impact on the medical device industry, read Averna’s Q&A Ebook here. Averna is a worldwide Test & Quality leader. Their talented team includes hundreds of engineers, system architects, developers, project managers and other professionals, as well as a network of partners such as National Instruments, Keysight Technologies …
Read More →Qt QML vs HTML5
The Qt Company‘s latest whitepaper “Qt QML vs HTML5,” explores the results of a test where “one man takes 160 hours to create a demo application of an embedded system using Qt & QML and the same number of hours to create the very equivalent application using HTML5. Discover how he compares the two technologies and shared the findings during the evaluation in terms of – Development comparison between HTML5 vs Qt – Development experience – Performance results – Software management and sustainability.” Download the white paper here. ›
Read More →The Cognition Cockpit Platform as Saas Whitepaper
Cognition Corporation‘s “The Cognition Cockpit Platform as Saas‘” white paper identifies “key features of enterprise-level SaaS solutions and how the Cockpit platform implements them. The white paper reviews the benefits of Cockpit SaaS for product development teams, including: – Low cost and flexible payment options – Cloud security measures that meet or exceed SSAE 16 and electronic signature controls that comply with 21 CFR Part 11 – Capabilities for remote team management.” For more information on their white paper, click here.
Read More →Verification Stations for 10 Different Advanced Medical Devices
“The Challenge: Are there any devices more life-critical than those used by our doctors and nurses? You want to be absolutely sure that each one will work exactly as designed, 100% of the time. That’s why there is so much oversight on the industry. Every player needs to get it right.” Averna and Spacelabs Healthcare has collaborated to create a verification station that can test 10 different medical devices. Their case study explores the results and benefits of this project. For more information, click here.
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