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Bryan Betts is the Manufacturing editor.
The innovative use of non-visual feedback techniques is enabling blind people to drive a car, and could have important lessons for other technologies that must interface with humans, reports E&T.
E&T learns how the US helicopter maker's ACE operating system enables it to keep effective control of an extremely complex manufacturing process, supplying military and civilian customers around the world.
When production lines are under pressure, time needed for process improvements is one of the first casualties. But, as E&T discovers, there are ways to avoid postponing necessary downtime.
“Tea, Earl Grey, hot.” If only life in manufacturing were as simple as it is in the milieu of ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’, where matter converters called replicators handle all the basics and provide near-exact copies of inanimate items on demand.
This innovative manufacturer found that the real block to selling its hot idea was not the skills gap, but a shortage of cold cash, reports E&T.
Collaborating with a university can bring great value, but manufacturers also need to be aware of the potential pitfalls, says E&T.
With wind energy moving in to the mainstream, turbine manufacturers are striving to increase productivity and quality while driving down costs. E&T visited several Vestas facilities in Scandinavia to assess their improvement efforts.
More than a century after their discovery, new uses are still being found for X-rays, with manufacturing being one of the latest sectors to adopt the technology, says E&T.
Rocket engines and fuel cells were two technologies that got a boost from the NASA Moon programme. E&T talks to the engineers who were there.
Takt time is a key element of lean manufacturing. E&T looks at how it evolved through World War Two Germany and Japan to become a cornerstone of today’s Toyota Production System.
Field service management software, rented over the Web on a monthly subscription, could provide complete management of a company’s service department without the need to install servers and applications, developer FleetMatics has claimed.