Operations
3D printing has matured from a speculative sci-fi fantasy into a practical tool. Plastic is the most commonly used material for 3D printing, but research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is helping expand 3D printing into a new area—ceramics. Small details matter when…
Ask anyone who’s bought a handheld 3D scanner with optical tracking system in the last few years about what sold them, and you’ll hear about speed. More points per second. Larger scanning areas. Faster data capture.
Those improvements matter. But when you look at the entire…
The vision system scanned the part and logged a pass. The SPC chart stayed inside its control limits. The line kept moving.
Three weeks later, the customer complaint arrived. The defect had been there the whole time, sitting just inside the algorithm’s confidence threshold, close…
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) projects are among the most significant technology investments an organization will ever make. They support everything from finance and procurement to inventory management, customer service, and workforce planning. Organizations rightly spend months selecting…
In manufacturing, some of the most important financial gains never appear as an obvious line item.
A machine doesn’t stop. A batch doesn’t need to be quarantined. A customer doesn’t complain—no defective product has reached them. A warranty claim never arrives. A quality manager…
False rejects quietly impede manufacturing efficiency, yet most quality teams treat them as an acceptable cost. This article examines why they persist, what makes them hard to eliminate with conventional systems, and how AI-based visual inspection is helping plants address the root cause.
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