The promises of Industry 4.0 – enhanced productivity, work capacity and savings – appear enticing, but in many smaller manufacturing firms, everyone from the owner to the shop floor chases a long list of must-do tasks, leaving little time to think about how to improve the status quo. Some of the most-asked questions…
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Many manufacturers fail to get the maximum amount of productivity out of their machine tools. In fact, according to research by Machine Metrics, the average machine utilization rate in 2018 was less than 29 percent – but most manufacturers are oblivious to the fact that there’s a problem with their shop’s efficiency. Luckily,…
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If you take a closer look at your yearly tooling expenses, you might be surprised at the cost – both in dollars and efficiency. A lack of effective tool management results in missing or lost tools or stock-outs, lost productivity searching for tools, and increased machine downtime to replace or switch out tools….
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Manufacturing success has always required the careful collection and analysis of data. Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century, shops have been performing increasingly sophisticated analyses of their operations to gain a competitive edge or develop new innovations. Indeed, the manufacturing handbooks and manuals found on workbenches and…
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