Industrial Technology

Machine Building

Safe starting points for Industry 4.0

Safe starting points for Industry 4.0

“If I were you, I wouldn’t start from here” is the punchline of a well-known joke about a hapless man asking for directions from a less-than-helpful passer-by. It’s a conundrum that frequently faces production teams with the ambition of automating their workflows to Industry 4.0-ready standards. All too often, fixed legacy infrastructure and buildings create a bewildering barrier to rethinking conventional linear production processes.  However, the growing use of Automated Guided Vehicles and Carts offers the prospect of introducing more flexible materials handling, while dispensing with costly and non-value-added manual handling tasks.

31st July 2020
Bearings for conveyor belt rollers in adverse operating conditions

Bearings for conveyor belt rollers in adverse operating conditions

Roller bearings are some of the most important components of support and tensioning rollers in conveyor belts. To enable conveyor belt rollers to operate in extreme conditions such as transporting sand or rock for mining, NKE has developed single-row deep groove ball bearings with optimised performance and longer service life compared with standard bearings, reducing downtime for the entire conveyor system.

31st July 2020
Less planning effort for material flow solutions

Less planning effort for material flow solutions

With the inclusion of the new stacker crane and transfer cars in its planning software, Interroll has once again expanded the range of applications of the popular Interroll Layouter Tool. With this application, which can be seamlessly integrated into the AutoCAD design program, planners and system integrators can now visualise even complex conveyor systems end-to-end at the click of a mouse and make them available for quotation and ordering processes. By digitalising the necessary process chain, planning times for customers can be dramatically reduced by up to 90%, depending on the initial situation.

31st July 2020
Three-axis handling with tray recirculation system

Three-axis handling with tray recirculation system

mk has designed a fully automated system for a customer who required a palletiser with a connected tray recirculation system. This custom solution uses cost-effective standard components and adapted special functions which allows pallet trucks to be used to feed Euro pallets into the system.

31st July 2020
Vertical mounting helps save space

Vertical mounting helps save space

B&R’s intelligent track system SuperTrak is now available in a vertical-mount variant. This helps to optimise the output per square meter of floor space. If products are only transported on the upper side of the SuperTrak, the weight is not supported magnetically. Instead the load is transferred directly to the rollers. The shuttles have a much higher payload capacity.

31st July 2020
Drives and the digital twin

Drives and the digital twin

What will the digital twin look like in the automation of the future and what role will drive technologies play in this? Dominik Follmann of KEB provides his views.

31st July 2020
Small but mighty

Small but mighty

Do space limitations prevent the small from delivering mighty power? Dave Walsha, commercial development office at ems, shares his insights in powerful miniature motors.

31st July 2020
Helping to characterise analytical sensors

Helping to characterise analytical sensors

When ExpoPharma designed a new Process Analytical Technology (PAT) powder-stream conditioning chute – a full-scale development platform for characterising analytical sensors for use in continuous pharma or similar manufacturing processes – they turned to Mclennan for a standalone Ethernet-based three-axis micropositioning sub-system, complete with planetary gear units, pre-programmed HMI and a temperature controller.

31st July 2020
Multi-point locking ensures uniform sealing, resists unauthorised opening

Multi-point locking ensures uniform sealing, resists unauthorised opening

FDB Panel Fittings has seen that the new DIRAK 90° rod redirect adapter can solve a frequent problem with large doors on electrical or electronic cabinets in industrial applications, by providing five points of closure, or potentially more if required.

31st July 2020
High-speed optocouplers suit military and avionics designs

High-speed optocouplers suit military and avionics designs

Mouser Electronics is now stocking the OLI300, OLS300, OLI500, and OLS500 high-speed optocouplers from Skyworks Solutions. The optocouplers feature 1500 VDC electrical isolation between the input and output, designed for applications such as avionics, biomedical materials, radar, space, surveillance systems, instrumentation, and military communications.

31st July 2020
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