Flexibility and rapid production are two of the main demands placed on panel building and switchgear manufacturing today. The Spanish company “Vidal Automatización y Control” had also been facing up to these challenges and was looking for ways to increase the efficiency of the processes along its value chain.
In this issue of Industry Insights with Owen we discuss factory automation solutions and concerns with Richard Krawczyk, Account Manager of Factory Automation in Canada for Pepperl+Fuchs. Earlier this summer I met with Richard in Southern Ontario to tour the Pepperl+Fuchs mobile exhibit, and after some interesting discussion we wanted to be sure we shared some of the interesting points of conversation and the depth of knowledge Richard has acquired with our readers.
Foundational to The Connected Enterprise are the “connections”, that is, the data cable wiring, or the physical network infrastructure. More than obvious, right? Yet why do we oftentimes see that it is handled and managed separately from the balance of the project as to be out-of-scope? Or bolted on at the end as after-thought. Perhaps some consider it to be either unimportant, simplistic, or menial.
Harting Canada held their annual trade media luncheon in Toronto this past month to provide insight into the company’s direction moving into the next fiscal year. The event provided Panel Builder & Systems Integrator a fantastic opportunity to sit down with Carl Maalouf, the Canadian Director of Sales for Harting Canada, as well as Territory Sales Manager, Peter Hanna.
Omar Abdelzaher is Systems Integration Project Manager with an impressive resume thus far in the industry. Currently, he leads the Robotics & Automation – Systems Integration team, a new venture for Vineland Research and Innovation Centre.
In cooperation with the OPC Foundation, AIM-D launched a new communication standard for AutoID devices in 2016. At the last SPC IPC Drives in Nuremberg, it became clear that this standard is being embraced by many device manufacturers across the entire AutoID spectrum. What’s more, customer demand for OPC UA as the communication standard in the industry is also consistently rising.
Cole Technologies, Inc, located in Columbus, Indiana, are a certified Universal Robots system integrator supplying automation systems specializing in pick and place, deburring, and plastic part trimming applications. One recent project involved the deflashing of molded parts where a more accurate robot path was deemed necessary.
Omron are committed to developing advanced technologies that maximize our customers’ potential for innovation. They invest 7% annually in research and development so that we can design and build products in-house that work together at maximum efficiency.
Control panels present a major opportunity for manufacturers to improve operational efficiency, boost flexibility, reduce engineering costs and save valuable floor space. With this in mind, Omron has developed a unique set of guidelines, known as “Value Design for Panels,” that can help manufacturers create better control panels.
Collaborative robots, or cobots, have been creating a buzz in the automation world in recent years. Many believe there’s just one solution for a collaborative robot system – that being a specialized non-industrial robot. The good news is there’s actually a variety of options to achieve a collaborative system.
What difference does one percent make? While the incremental change might not seem like much, a one percent improvement for an industrial producer can contribute a million dollars to the bottom line.
Canada continues to be an excellent performer for HARTING, recording double digit revenue growth on a regular basis including the year to date.
Food and pharmaceutical makers can better protect the integrity of their products using new hygienic industrial control hardware from Rockwell Automation. The new Allen-Bradley Kinetix VPH hygienic servo motors and a new stainless-steel version of the Allen-Bradley PanelView Plus 7 graphic terminal both help minimize contamination during production and ease compliance.
Ossid, a Battleboro, NC-based tray packaging equipment manufacturer and a ProMach company, was started back in the 1970s as a small fabrication shop that refurbished older wrapping machines before developing what would become the first Ossid 500 inline overwrapper. This product caught the attention of ProMach in 1999, which then acquired the company. Since then Ossid has been expanding its machine offerings while leveraging technology.
If you ignore the short circuit current rating (SCCR) of an industrial panel it might just go away anyway. By go away I mean that the panel might just self-destruct. If the available current or energy that reaches the panel in the event of a short circuit in the panel exceeds the levels that the panel can safely interrupt or contain, that energy has to go somewhere. It is the unpredictability of what will happen first that makes an insufficient SCCR so dangerous. Maybe the circuit breaker will explode while trying to open or maybe not open at all because the internals have welded shut? What happens then? Maybe the energy will find a path to ground and a shock hazard is created.
In today’s fast-paced manufacturing world, you must be at peak productivity to compete, and the only way to do that is by integrating automated solutions. The biggest players in your industry benefit from automation, so why shouldn’t your business benefit, too?
This project is funded [in part] by the Government of Canada.
Ce projet est financé [en partie] par le gouvernement du Canada.
