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“May you live in interesting times” … A suitably ironic saying that describes the burst of demand following the Covid pandemic. Prior to the shutdown, the global industrial supply chain was a well-oiled machine. Demand was predictable, and capacities were aligned to meet those demands. The pandemic impacted both the clarity of demand and the...

According to one recent study, the global production of plastics hit an enormous 368 million metric tons in 2019 alone. It was an incredible year for the industry, to be sure – but the COVID-19 pandemic soon had other plans. Flash forward just a few months and work stoppages and supply chain blockages made things extraordinarily...

Also commonly referred to as “Cobots” for short, collaborative robots are intended for direct human robot interaction within a shared space, or where humans and robots are in close proximity. Having said that, they’re far more versatile than a traditional industrial robot – meaning that they can handle a variety of advanced tasks ranging from...

Everyone knew that in the future, manufacturing organizations of all types would be dealing with increasingly urgent workforce and labor shortages. It’s just that few people likely could have predicted that “the future” would have come along quite as quickly as it did. According to one recent study, nearly 1/4th of the current manufacturing workforce...

The first industrial robot was the Unimate, installed in 1961 in a GM plant in Trenton, NJ to assist a hot die-casting machine in assembly. Since then the robotics industry has changed the shape of manufacturing, most prevalent within the automotive industry, but continually growing into new industries and markets. We installed our first FANUC America...

In the early days of the robotics industry, many assumed that the future was clear: robots would one day replace human employees in environments like factory floors, bringing with them a new era of profitability and productivity for even the smallest companies. Over the years, however, it’s become clear that this was never really the goal. Robotics isn’t about...

Robot Programming Standards We are exposed to the benefits of Standards in everyday life. Consider traffic signals, how would we navigate the roads without everyone understanding the colors of a traffic light ...

While it’s absolutely true that there are many industrial robot manufacturers operating today, there are four major organizations that stand head and shoulders above the rest. FANUC, YASKAWA, KUKA and ABB each bring something wholly unique to the table that is absolutely worth a closer look. FANUC By far one of the most prominent robot...

As the name suggests, “machine vision” is a term referring to a computer’s ability to “see” – at least in a technical sense. Devices equipped with machine vision capabilities deploy one or more video cameras and the recorded data goes directly to either a computer or a robotic controller. Based on that information, the computer...