 |
|
Welcome to Advanced Manufacturing magazine's e-newsletter! "A must-read for decision-makers who manage, source and implement manufacturing technologies. Canada's #1 source for advanced manufacturing technology news, analysis and products." e-Newsletter Today's e-newsletter is sponsored by:
Everybody has bought into the concept of lean manufacturing, right? Seems like a no-brainer for Canadian manufacturers to adopt some form of lean to compete globally. But according to a recent survey, a third of manufacturers don't have any plans to incorporate lean into their operations. The Aberdeen Group conducted its survey, entitled Lean Adoption: What are Canadian Manufacturers not doing?, and found that while 42 per cent of Canadian manufacturers are early in the lean journey (less than five years), a whopping 35 per cent have no activity completed or planned. This compares to only 18 per cent for the “general population” which includes mostly companies from the U.S., but also some from Europe and Asia. Surveys need to be digested with a grain of salt, but these results seem to indicate that a large portion of our manufacturers are ignoring a readily-available tool to help their bottom line. Lean is a philosophy that espouses continuous improvement, the simplification and standardization of business processes and the elimination of all forms of waste. It's a way of thinking that companies overlook at their peril. The reasons Canadian manufacturers lag behind the rest of the world in adoption of lean vary from the cost of implementing lean to the shortage of people with the required skills, but in the end the reality is that the journey towards lean for many Canadian manufacturers has yet to begin and we need to get them on that path as soon as possible. John Tenpenny, editor Please feel free to drop me a line: Today's e-newsletter is sponsored by:
Manufacturing organizations are seeing both competition and opportunities from around the world. The competitive global challenges are great and yet we're still persevering. Among the key to success factors are productivity breakthroughs and a culture of innovation. What are the key challenges Canadian manufactures face? Siemens in collaboration with Richard Ivey School of Business, Advanced Manufacturing, and The Access Group would like to invite you to join the conversation on May 16th from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. in London, Ont. This free half day peer-to-peer executive roundtable discussion will highlight: • What role outsourcing plays in manufacturing? For more information, visit: accessgroup.com. Today's e-newsletter is sponsored by: 
Canadian team prepares for WorldSkills Competition At an informal gathering at Festo Canada’s headquarters in Mississauga, Robotino — an advanced mobile robot system — was handed over to the Canadian Robotics team. They will represent Canada in the WorldSkills Competition in Shizuoka, Japan this November that will feature 35 technical contests, including mechatronics. For the first time, seven countries will be participating in robotics. “Robotics has been in the planning stages for a few years now and was triggered by excellent work by Bob Tone, a highly motivated and dedicated Toronto teacher who has been running the Ontario and Canadian Robotics Skills Competitions” says Kalemba. Tone, along with team members Andrew Kramer and Chris Rintjemar, who won the 2006 Canadian Skills Robotics Competition and their coach, Chad Whittington, will spend the next six months working with Robotino to prepare for Japan. Kramer and Rintjemar are graduates of Grimsby Secondary School, and attend Niagara College and the University of Waterloo respectively. Robotino is a mobile robot system with omnidirectional drive developed for educational purposes and may be moved forwards, backwards and sideways in all directions, as well as turn on the spot, by means of three wheels. It allows students to integrate and use an extensive range of technology such as electrical drive technology, sensors, control technology, image processing and programming techniques. Numerous sensors, a camera and a high-performance controller give the system the intelligence it needs and when programmed correctly, can freely perform the tasks required of it.
SKF celebrates its 100th anniversary When SKF was established on February 16, 1907, it was with an offer not only of a revolutionary new bearing, but also of the technical support and service to get the most value from it. One hundred years later, providing service is as essential to SKF as the product itself. But when Swedish engineer and founder of SKF, Sven Wingquist, invented the self-aligning ball bearing in 1907, service was far from a matter of course. At that time, most of the suppliers of mechanical components just sold their products. Then it was up to the customer to learn — often through trial and error — how to put it to use. Wingquist, on the other hand, knew that being in the forefront of technology, having a keen knowledge of customer needs, as well as offering technical support and service, would pay off in the long run. To begin its second century, SKF announced it will soon bring to market a new family of “green” bearings, which it says reduce energy consumption by at least 30 per cent compared to standard ISO products. This new bearing family comprises the two bearing types that are most widely used in the world: deep-groove ball bearings and tapered-roller bearings. According to SKF, manufacturing of the new bearings will start in the second half of 2007. Today's e-newsletter is sponsored by:
CAD users challenged to design with vision The message from CEO John McEleney was simple: No idea is out of the realm of possibility. Speaking to an audience of more than 3,500 design engineers at SolidWorks World, the 3D CAD vendor’s users’ group and conference held recently in New Orleans, McEleney referred to the concept as “the absurdly ideal”. He then proceeded to demonstrate using Saw Stop — designed using SolidWorks — a product designed to answer the question: Can we make a saw that only cuts wood — not fingers? When a Saw Stop blade touches a finger (or something else that conducts electrical current), the current drops and engages a brake that forces the blade to drop below the table — a process that takes only three milliseconds, which is a fraction of the time it takes you to blink your eye. “Design with vision” was the theme and the keynote speakers shared theirs, including Steve Jobs, the inventor of the personal computer and the co-founder of Apple Computer.
2007 prognostications Most automation companies showed reasonable growth and profit in 2006, a turnaround from leaner years. Emboldened by better results, many of the majors are seeking new growth opportunities, and expect to see some good-sized acquisitions in 2007.
Making demand-driven manufacturing a reality When moving from a push to a pull system, manufacturers need to look for alternative software products to work alongside existing ERP systems, such as cover-time planning to prioritize their production planning. In traditional manufacturing, the time and cost of changeover to produce different products is high, as are the costs of inventory, planning and expediting. Thus, goods are pushed through production at levels determined by often inaccurate scheduling and forecasting tools common in MRP (material resource planning) and ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems. These levels often exceed demand, resulting in building excess finished inventory, while in a flow/lean/just in time (JIT) environment orders are conversely “pulled” through the process, based on actual demand.
2007 World Conference on Quality and Improvement Autodesk “Experience the Possibilities Tour” 2007 Canadian RFID Conference Advanced Manufacturing Expo Quebec Montreal Plant Maintenance & Design Engineering Show Excellence in Manufacturing Consortium (EMC) Lean & Human Capital Conference Western Manufacturing Technology Show OTHER SERVICES FROM ADVANCED MANUFACTURING Search and source products and parts Advanced Manufacturing magazine formed an alliance with GlobalSpec (www.globalspec.com), a leading specialized search engine and information resource for the engineering, technical and industrial communities.
Through this alliance, visitors to Advanced Manufacturing magazine's website (www.advancedmanufacturing.com)
will benefit from GlobalSpec's powerful search capabilities, including
SpecSearch®, GlobalSpec's trademarked search technology. SpecSearch
offers the capability to search by specification 120 million parts in
1,600,000 product families from more than 18,500 supplier catalogs.
This relationship also allows visitors to easily find
engineering-specific content via The Engineering Web®, more than 250
million pages of relevant technical information powered by GlobalSpec. Email the editor To email a comment to the editor: John Tenpenny jtenpenny@clbmedia.ca Unsubscribe from Advanced Manufacturing's newsletter. If you are having any technical problems, please send an email to websupport@clbmedia.ca with "AM newsletter Technical Problems" in the subject line. Your email address will not be sold or passed on to any third party. It is only used for magazine-related purposes, such as renewing your subscription and this e-Newsletter. Please see our Privacy Policy for more details. CLB Media Inc. disclaims any warranty as to the accuracy, completeness or currency of the contents of this e-Newsletter and disclaims all liability in respect of the results of any action taken or not taken in reliance upon information in this e-Newsletter. © CLB Media
Inc., 2007. You may forward and reproduce this e-Newsletter without
modification, provided that you include this copyright notice and the
above-mentioned disclaimer. |
