All Features
Emily Newton
Welding technology has progressed over the years, thanks to innovations that improve accuracy and overall productivity. Some advances have been in welding automation handled by advanced robots. Other breakthroughs rely on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine vision for better defect detection.…
Daniel de Wolff
Most successful entrepreneurs know that simply inventing a smart or disruptive technology isn’t enough to make customers come running. Among other things, business development involves connecting with the right people in the corporate hierarchy. Yet aspiring entrepreneurs often underestimate the…
Mark Hembree
From asking Siri to suggest a nearby restaurant to programming a drone flight on Mars, artificial intelligence (AI) has become a part of everyday life—and its presence and influence will inevitably grow.
What do manufacturers need to know about it?
First of all, it’s already here. Capgemini…
Megan Wallin Kerth
In the wake of manufacturing and chip shortages, some may think that Covid-19 slowed down production on the whole as supply chain issues and remote work presented significant obstacles for manufacturers. However, there were both struggles and some unexpected benefits that arose as professionals…
Katie Rapp
For manufacturers, artificial intelligence (AI) can be a game changer. Greater efficiencies, lower costs, improved quality, and reduced downtime are just some of the potential benefits. This technology isn’t just for large manufacturers. High-value, cost-effective AI solutions are more accessible…
Prasad Akella
We are a full two years into post-pandemic manufacturing life, with the omicron variant the latest cause for concern. It might sound hyperbolic, but I’m pretty sure manufacturing will never be the same as it was in 2019. In some ways, that’s a good thing.
One silver lining of the novel coronavirus…
Ben Bensaou
A manufacturer of the fabric used to reinforce car tires might not seem an obvious source of innovation inspiration. But in just a few years, Kordsa, a part of the Turkish industrial conglomerate Sabancı Group, transformed itself from a price-driven maker of commodity products into a provider of…
Artem Kroupenev
The manufacturing industry was thrown into the spotlight early in the pandemic as consumers rushed to stores, panic-buying everything from canned goods to water bottles. Since then, the industry has had more than its fair share of challenges, including the critical ramp-up of vaccine and…
Jeff Dewar
With membership in ASQ down, ISO 9000 series certifications down, and an unnerving reduction in quality management staff in many companies during the pandemic, today’s quality professionals are justifiably concerned about their future and career choice.
Here’s my take on the future of quality: It…
Georgia Tech News Center
The Georgia Institute of Technology was awarded a grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) as part of its $1 billion Build Back Better Regional Challenge. Georgia Tech is one of 60 entities to be awarded funding to assist communities nationwide in their…
NIST
Sneezes, rain clouds, and ink-jet printers: They all produce or contain liquid droplets so tiny it would take several billion of them to fill a liter bottle.
Measuring the volume, motion, and contents of microscopic droplets is important for studying how airborne viruses spread (including those…
Siemens PLM Software
Siemens Digital Industries Software introduces System NVH Prediction, a new Simcenter software application. It can bring the benefits of a comprehensive digital-twin approach to accurately and easily predict the interior and exterior noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) performance of a vehicle…
Dylan Walsh
Justin Berg has watched Back to the Future at least 25 times. Same with the DVD special features—the voiceovers and backstory and interviews. It’s his favorite movie, and he’s long believed that part of the film’s greatness is attributable to the fact that writer-director Robert Zemeckis oversaw…
Quality Digest
Getting your product into customers’ hands is often an undervalued—and under-engineered—part of your organization’s value chain. If the pandemic’s effect on our supply chains has taught us anything, it’s this: Diligent reevaluation of our modus operandi is a must for success.
When the Covid…
Mary Beth Gallagher
First published Nov. 19, 2021, on MIT News.
In the 1960s, the advent of computer-aided design (CAD) sparked a revolution in design. For his Ph.D. thesis in 1963, MIT professor Ivan Sutherland developed Sketchpad, a game-changing software program that enabled users to draw, move, and resize shapes…
Matt Fieldman
Some are calling it, “The Great Resignation.” Others are calling it “The Great Reshuffle.” After spending the past year as executive director of America Works, I’ve talked with more than 250 manufacturing workforce development professionals throughout the MEP National Network and our partners.…
Lauren Hinkel
First published Dec. 6, 2021, on MIT News.
While standing in a kitchen, you push some metal bowls across the counter into the sink with a clang, and drape a towel over the back of a chair. In another room, it sounds like some precariously stacked wooden blocks fell over, and there’s an epic toy car…
Kurt Matzler
In 1938, MIT student Claude Shannon solved one of the most complex problems of circuit design. Working on an early analog computer, he realized that an idea from an undergraduate philosophy course could solve the problem. Applying Boolean algebra, Shannon laid the foundation of all electronic…
Andrea Luangrath
Consumers who see a product on sale being virtually touched are more engaged and willing to pay more than if the item is displayed on its own, according to a recent research paper I co-authored.
Behavioral economists have previously shown that people value objects more highly if they own them, a…
Roxanne Oclarino
Artificial intelligence (AI) promises that organizations will be 40-percent more efficient by 2035, unlocking an estimated $14 trillion in new economic value to global GDP by 2030, according to PwC. This makes it the biggest commercial opportunity in today’s fast-changing business climate, all…
Nicholas Dagalakis
The RoboCrane—now hard at work at the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear cleanup sites—is a good example of a successfully commercialized technology invented at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). I’ll try to tell that story here.
During the early 1980s, the manufacturing of…
Adam Zewe
First published Oct. 15, 2021, on MIT News.
The growing popularity of 3D printing for manufacturing all sorts of items, from customized medical devices to affordable homes, has created more demand for new 3D printing materials designed for very specific uses.
To cut down on the time it takes to…
Emily Newton
Risks are inherent in the construction industry, and they come in various types. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) reports that more than one in three deaths happen in this sector because of falls. The data also show that companies with fewer than 20 workers had more…
Georgia Tech News Center
Untitled Document
In the last few years, a class of materials called antiferroelectrics has been increasingly studied for its potential applications in modern computer memory devices. Research has shown that antiferroelectric-based memories might have greater energy efficiency and faster read and…
Chip Bell
One of my favorite Halloween memories was decorating the annual giant pumpkin with my son when he was young. As a toddler, he was primarily an observer as he watched me sculpt the face of the pumpkin with a scrimp knife. However, his commitment to the pumpkin-carving process ramped up dramatically…
