Industrial Technology

Wireless monitoring: Kanban without cards

Few Kanban systems are completely free from errors and weak spots: the processing of Kanban cards can be delayed; cards can sometimes be mislaid leading to very little transparency in the operation. The introduction of scanners provides only partial relief to some of these issues, not least of all because often staff will forget to scan leading to incorrect bookings being made and shelves being incorrectly replenished.

21st November 2017

Interlocking spiral retaining rings

Rotor Clip engineers have showcased their abilities to create custom parts and tools by introducing an interlocking spiral retaining ring. Utilising a standard DCR non-interlocking spiral ring, Rotor Clip was able to engineer a custom tooling process to produce a new DCR-LS interlocking spiral retaining ring.

21st November 2017

High performance spring meets aerospace challenge

A spring for a safety critical aerospace non-return valve presented new challenges to the design and production team at William Hughes. The application required a large spring which had to be manufactured in a specialist aerospace certified material – which has a high spring index making it difficult to form. In addition, the unusual specification called for one end of the spring to be fusion welded using stainless steel filler rod.

21st November 2017

New wire forms and constant force springs

Constant Force Springs from Lee Spring offer an excellent mechanism for applications where a constant load is required. Some of the many applications of constant force springs are in counterbalances, door closers, cable retractors, hose retrievers, tool head returns, cabinet and furniture components, gym equipment, hair dryers, toys, electric motors, appliances, space vehicles, and other long-motion functions.

21st November 2017

Ensuring technical cleanliness in screw assembly processes

How do you prevent particle contamination in sensitive assembly processes? Robert Bachmeier of Deprag offers some advice.

21st November 2017

Joining mixes of different materials

As the automotive industry focuses its design on light weight hybrid materials including carbon fibre, it challenges the joining technologies with these advancements. To meet these industry challenges, Gesipa has strengthened its capabilities with its latest innovation; flow drilling rivet (FDR) technology and SoftGrip blind rivet nut for sensitive and lightweight applications.

21st November 2017

Moulded-in aluminium threaded inserts

Spirol is pleased to introduce a high performance line of moulded-in inserts for plastics manufactured from aluminium. The robust design of the Series 60 blind-end and Series 61 through-hole Inserts consists of axial grooves to maximise torque resistance, balanced with radial undercuts to achieve high-pull out force. These moulded-in inserts are designed to be placed in the mould cavity prior to plastic injection, and offer exceptional performance due to unrestricted plastic flow into the retention features on the outside diameter of the inserts. These lightweight inserts for plastics are manufactured from 2024 grade aluminium which provides the best combination of strength, corrosion resistance, machineability and cost.

21st November 2017

Hybrid adhesive technology webinar

All common structural adhesive technologies have their strengths and weaknesses. Instant adhesives, for example, provide fast fixture but limited durability. If strength is important then epoxies and acrylics are great but the compromise is generally slow fixture speed and potential flammability. And polyurethanes, excellent for strength and fatigue resistance but many don’t adhere to metals without a primer.

26th October 2017

Get ready for Industry 4.0 with the Rexroth IoT Gateway

The IoT Gateway is a system of coordinated hardware and software components which networks new and existing machines cost-efficiently, optimising production processes and product quality. It also provides a fast and flexible connection of machines to Industry 4.0.

18th October 2017

Industrial IoT for brownfields

As a comprehensive performance indicator, overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) can play an important role in making manufacturing assets more productive. Difficulties gathering the data needed to calculate OEE, however, have often prevented it from being used to improve older brownfield systems. Now, there is a solution that lets you easily tap into the operating data of digitally isolated equipment and benefit from automated acquisition, harmonisation and analysis – including real-time OEE monitoring.

18th October 2017