All Features
Harald Remmert
William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, once said that what he could measure he could control. Other variations of this saying are, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it,” or, “To measure is to know.” In a highly intricate and delicate industry like utilities, it’s challenging to have reliable…
Rob McAveney
For most discrete manufacturing companies, digital transformation initiatives are underway in some capacity. They’re largely seen as table stakes in today’s economy. Unfortunately, outdated systems and procedures often bring problems that hinder these initiatives.
A lack of consistency among…
Jennifer Chu
Getting blood test results can take anywhere from a day to a week, depending on what a test is targeting. The same goes for tests of water pollution and food contamination. And in most cases, the wait time has to do with time-consuming steps in sample processing and analysis.
Now, MIT engineers…
NIST
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines can clearly view non-bony parts of the body—soft tissue such as the brain, muscles, and ligaments—as well as detect tumors, making it possible to diagnose many diseases and other conditions. However, the powerful magnets in conventional MRI machines make…
NIST
A vacuum chamber is never perfectly empty. A small number of atoms or molecules always remains, and measuring the tiny pressures they exert is critical. For instance, semiconductor manufacturers create microchips in vacuum chambers that must be almost entirely devoid of atomic and molecular…
Elisabeth Kelan
Ever since the Industrial Revolution, people have feared that technology would take away their jobs. While some jobs and tasks have indeed been replaced by machines, others have emerged. However, the success of ChatGPT and other generative artificial intelligence (AI) now has many people wondering…
Gleb Tsipursky
With 74% of U.S. companies transitioning to a permanent hybrid work model, leaders are turning their attention to measuring the success of that model. That’s because there’s a single traditional office-centric model of 9–5, Monday through Friday, in the office, but many ways to do hybrid work.…
Kurt Kleiner, Knowable Magazine
When a Manhattan parking garage collapsed in April 2023, rescuers were reluctant to stay in the damaged building, fearing further danger. So they used a combination of flying drones and a doglike walking robot to inspect the damage, look for survivors, and make sure the site was safe for human…
Emily Newton
Solving problems goes beyond noticing the symptoms and wanting to resolve them. It’s also necessary to perform a root cause analysis, pinpointing the factors likely to have made an issue occur. It’s only then that leaders can create concrete solutions for lasting changes. However, root cause…
Adam Zewe
Engineers are constantly searching for materials with novel, desirable property combinations. For example, an ultrastrong, lightweight material could be used to make airplanes and cars more fuel-efficient, or a material that is porous and biomechanically friendly could be useful for bone implants…
Adam Zewe
Imagine purchasing a robot to perform household tasks. This robot was built and trained in a factory on a certain set of tasks and has never seen the items in your home. When you ask it to pick up a mug from your kitchen table, it might not recognize your mug (perhaps because this mug is painted…
Katarina Cicak
I fled my home country of Bosnia during a civil war in 1992 when I was only a teenager. I eventually landed in California as an 18-year-old with one suitcase and settled in with a host family.
Every time I turned on the news, I saw horrifying pictures of what was going on back home. My home, my…
Lindsey Walker
In the quickly changing industrial landscape, firms continue to place a high premium on safety. Innovative approaches to improving industrial safety have been made possible by technological advancements. One particularly revolutionary option is computerized maintenance management system (CMMS)…
Jennifer Chu
For Mathias Kolle, the wings of a butterfly are a window into a better material world. The insect’s iridescence is a result of “structural color” rather than pigments or dyes: A single wing is layered with hundreds of thousands of microscopic scales that act as tiny reflectors, bouncing light from…
Chanakya Gupta
The food and beverage industry is currently growing at 8.7% and is projected to be worth $8.9 trillion by 2026, according to Research and Markets’ 2022 report on the global food and beverage market. This growth presents opportunities and challenges for manufacturers, many of which must modernize…
NIST
Static force, such as the weight of a person standing motionless on a bathroom scale or the force that an office full of equipment exerts on a high-rise floor, can be easily determined using scales, balances, load cells, and the like because static force doesn’t change over time. It’s…
Del Williams
Along the coasts and in many countries, seawater is widely used for cooling systems at power plants, as well as for some mining and industrial processes. The challenge, however, is that strainers must sufficiently filter out both small particles (e.g., sand, silt, suspended solids) and larger…
Russell Riddiford
Manufacturing has moved on from simple cutting tools; your customers expect you to create high-quality tools from top-end materials with little room for error. The industry is focused now on the end-to-end process, from sourcing the best materials to providing the best customer experience, and that…
Chandrakant Isi
Additive manufacturing (AM) and AI are two of the most exciting fields in technology today. 3D printing has revolutionized manufacturing and design, allowing for the creation of complex objects with ease. Meanwhile, AI tools such as ChatGPT, MidJourney, Stable Diffusion, and Resemble have shown…
Automated Precision Inc.
As industries around the world work to make their process and products not only automated but also autonomous, there has been an explosion in the use of detection and ranging systems during the last 20 years. Detection and ranging systems date back to radar systems that were developed during World…
Etienne Nichols
Amedical device company is expected to deliver innovative, life-changing devices while ensuring compliance and achieving true quality. This task bears loads of responsibility—all of which must be kept and documented within your quality management system (QMS).
A QMS contains everything that…
National Physical Laboratory
Graphene and related 2D materials have the potential to disrupt technologies such as energy storage devices, composites, and electronics through their exceptional material properties. Depending on the material, these can include properties such as high electrical conductivity, high mechanical…
FABTECH
Manufacturers understand that their businesses won’t grow if their workforces don’t grow along with them. That’s why the talent shortage in the metal fabrication industry continues to be a pressing concern—and three-quarters of respondents in the National Association of Manufacturers’ 2023 First…
Chandrakant Isi
The future is here, and it’s taking shape with 4D printing. This emerging technology, also known as shape-morphing systems, adds the dimension of time to 3D printing.
By employing responsive materials that react to external elements like heat, light, moisture, electric current, or pressure, 4D-…
Gleb Tsipursky
As the world slowly recovers from the pandemic, many knowledge workers find themselves at a crossroad. On one hand, the prospect of returning to the office stirs up a cocktail of dread and nostalgia. On the other hand, the threat of AI-driven job elimination looms large. It’s like being caught…
