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The world of today is ripe with opportunities as well as problems to solve. Fortunately, we are now more equipped than ever before to address them, thanks to new technological tools that are changing the face of the supply chain. In the current state of political tensions and rising tariffs, digitized IPs and on-demand manufacturing through 3D printing could offer interesting new pathways to dealing with commerce. Similarly, IIoT technologies are being employed massively thro

The entire supply chain is being redefined by transformative technologies, turning on their heads old notions of manufacturing and shipping. Change is coming from multiple angles, all aimed towards a single, common goal: making the warehouse obsolete. The main reason is to address a greater need for production agility, being locked down by large inventories of items that are expensive to maintain and risk getting surpassed before even being used. The future is geared towards

We are strong advocates of the power of data and the opportunities extend well beyond the industrial setting. Everything around us is being uplifted through the aggregation and analysis of data to get insights that would otherwise pass unnoticed or be difficult to grasp. And that is the key: making the data understandable and actionable. IIoT networks submerge businesses’ data centers with information and, to make it work to their advantage, new technologies like AR and VR ar

There are various reasons to be excited about edge computing. It proposes a localized way to deal with data analysis, making individual nodes independent of a central hub. This offers greater levels of security, isolating data to where it needs to be processed, as well as quicker responsiveness, obtaining actionable insights without the need for data transfer. There are still a few roadblocks to sort before the technology becomes fully applicable to all industrial settings. M

The increasingly connected systems in place at the factory floors are enabling safer workplaces. The most straightforward approach here is to don workers with sensors that can detect hazardous environment parameters like air quality and temperature or even automatically alert someone if they are injured. In most cases, however, it’s about bypassing the need for human workers to do dangerous tasks. Technologies like predictive analytics can do tremendous work in alerting super

The best technology and infrastructure won’t do if what’s missing is a properly skilled team to make it work and translate into actionable insights. IIOT is more than a great marketing pitch, there are enormous benefits for companies willing to make the investment: increased operational monitoring and insights, predictive analytics and much more. However, it is an ever-changing field, with no lack of dangers and optimizations to be made along the way. As such, it is hard to f

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is taking hold on many industrial settings, and yet we are still far from reaping its true benefits. There are multiple reasons for this, and they have to do with the technical limitations of dealing with a large number of sensors and data, how to interpret it correctly and efficiently and how to create a reliable mesh network to tie it all together. AI may look promising for data handling and predictive systems. However, there are man

Innovation isn’t always a straightforward process. Sometimes to even begin to diagnose the problems we need a new perspective on the system as a whole, and that might mean researching curious tangents. Take flying taxis as an example: in our quest to one day see them whizzing over us, we never considered the systemic bottleneck of the manufacturing of high-tech materials like carbon fibers. Insights like this happen when we look beyond sheer innovation, thinking holistically

Many would say that with the GE Fuel Nozzle, the 1000 additive parts in the Airbus 350 and now the GE ATP engine, additive has already arrived in aviation. But this week we witnessed an event greater acceleration: At Hill Air Force Base, engineers are already validating and installing replacement parts for their $150 million F-22 aircrafts, printed to the highest standards and with greatly enhanced lead times and life-cycles. If you couple the capabilities of 3D printing with

Automation is a buzzword that’s more often than not associated with negative press. After all, it is eroding the job market for an increasing number of manual jobs. How is the human going to cope with a rising automated workplace? The picture doesn’t seem that straighforward though. The question in itself is in doubt when studies show that the shift is adding new jobs for the skilled workforce, alongside a rise in wages. Furthermore, automation is tackling those jobs that are

Funds like Atomico are already forming a portfolio of startups poised to disrupt many verticals through IIoT, robotics and AI, and they are showing excitement for the future as well. There is tremendous value to be created through digital startups, many of which take on daunting challenges. The aptly named Automation Everywhere wants to bring, you guessed it, automation to any mundane human task, both physically and digitally, and has just raised $1.8 billion valuation. Simil

The IIoT is an acronym that’s being touted around industrial settings for years now. As it stands for Industrial Internet of Things, its goal is similar to what common household IoT devices try to achieve: smart control and monitoring of operations, at any scale and complexity. Approaching the subject can look daunting and many companies think the technical effort is out of reach without any practical benefit. That’s because we’re not making benefits clear enough to the opera

Upgrading to better standards and technologies is becoming easier than ever thanks to their decentralized and scalable nature, giving the opportunity to improve by gradual implementation and testing. There are many avenues of experimentation to consider. IIoT applications can be implemented as small, self-contained units, providing their own power and relaying sensible information where the most valuable data is to be found with a very small investment. Incorporating AM capab

Cooperation aims to integrate real-time production data from SLM Solutions machines into Authentise’s 3Diax software platform Integration enables SLM Solutions customers to evaluate real-time production data to automate process flows Capability to analyze real-time production data especially important in series manufacturing Lübeck, 09 November 2017 – SLM Solutions Group AG (“SLM Solutions”), a leading supplier of metal-based additive manufacturing technology, has recently si

Uber’s current challenges in London and elsewhere show how governments and legislation can change the path of technology. Industry 4.0 is no different. The technological trends that characterize the current industrial world have yet to be fully understood, both in terms of sheer research and in its spot within the law. Many issues are arising due to the intricately different nature of these technologies which pose new conundrums with regards to intellectual property (IP), ope

This week we are going to take a look at what automation is doing to our current socio-economical global landscape. It has pervaded the news with its most face-value effect of taking over manual human jobs, which it undoubtedly is: what the public is missing is a clear overview of the far-reaching effects. For example, automation will be able to provide a cushion for the ageing demographic of those countries who are dragging the economic growth. Presently, automation technolo

Every business, in manufacturing and otherwise, is coming face to face to the reality of present day interconnected capabilities. The Industrial Internet of Things is often described as the next logical step of the industrial world: after hardware automation comes smart, data-driven, connected way of doing things. The possibilities are astounding and, for many businesses, daunting to achieve, fearful as they are of investing time and money in systems and practices they don’t

Automation is an unstoppable force for change within pretty much every advanced human industry. It has already been reported that it’s having an impact on low-skilled jobs. Nonetheless, there are many other implications to automation are tremendous. The ability to gather data from distant, and often dangerous, environments without human intervention is no small feat, as is the uplifted capability to simulate and analyze factories’ digital twins in order to obtain predictive i

Ever since the first applications in the Ford automotive pipeline, industrial automation has taken giant steps in assuring a both voluminous and efficient production process. Nonetheless, the centralized framework on which it has thrived does no longer provide an optimal economy for today’s hyper-connected society and infrastructure. Highly automated systems are being put in place to intelligently tackle manufacturing issues, capable of addressing objectives in a decentralize

AM has matured into a fully fledged industrial manufacturing technology. As its materials, processes and applications broaden the jump to full-scale implementation is getting more and more a feasible possibility. The potential to disrupt various industries is being recognized by nations all over the globe: South Korea is one such nation at the forefront of innovation and it has decided to invest 41.2 billion won (Approx. $37 million USD) to foster the development of AM as a k