Learn about automated optical measurements on stationary parts.
About the presentation Precision-machined parts in aviation, automotive, and manufacturing industries have tightly controlled tolerances for the dozens of small geometries spread throughout a single part. Commonly referred to as edge break, chamfers and rounded edges can have specifications on the order of a few thousandths of an inch called out on every edge transition on the part. The sheer number of measurements needed on each part paired with the high volume of parts demands the ability to take not only one measurement quickly but dozens in a rapid process. Quick, single-frame measurements of edge break geometries and defects can be done with polarized structured light (PSL). The vibration immunity provided by single-frame measurements allows for PSL instruments to be mounted on collaborative robots. Robotic automation of such a device yields accurate measurements at volume quickly. This presentation discusses gage studies and the increased speed of inspection with automated optical measurements on stationary parts, parts moving on a production line, and rotationally symmetric parts on a rotary stage. It also looks at ongoing projects aiming to automate the inspection process itself, enabling one operator to inspect entire parts in minutes rather than days.
Meet your presenter Dr. Erik Novak is Vice President and General Manager at 4D Technology, where he was worked since 2013. He’s been developing instrumentation for precision metrology for more than 24 years in applications such as semiconductor, optics, aerospace, automotive, photovoltaics, and medical devices. Erik has received seven international product awards, holds more than a dozen patents, and has more than 60 publications and book chapters related to surface measurement and industrial process control.
About the company For more than 20 years, 4D Technology created innovative metrology products for measuring surface quality and defects on precision surfaces, as well as the surface and wavefront quality of optics. 4D’s patented Dynamic Interferometry® technology enables measurements in environments where vibration, air turbulence, or rapid motion have traditionally prevented accurate measurement. We have distributors all over the world, and a customer support organization to ensure your investment operates at peak capability for a long time to come.
The Smart Factory @ Wichita aims to advance the future of manufacturing, spur innovation through digital transformation.
Deloitte announced the grand opening of The Smart Factory @ Wichita. This new experience center marries an ecosystem of world-leading, innovative collaborators, including founders: AWS, Dragos, Infor, SAP, Siemens, and Wichita State University, and builders: Check Point, HPE, Tenable, ServiceNow, UiPath, Verizon, and more with strategy and cutting-edge technology to showcase the power of smart factory technologies.
Why it matters As organizations continue to respond to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing demand for products amid a volatile supply chain, labor shortages and a fluctuating global economy, many manufacturers find themselves relying on outdated legacy systems to power their operations. Organizations that engineer an end-to-end smart manufacturing operation can increase efficiency, sustainability, and cybersecurity, build resilience, and create new levels of growth and competitive advantage.
Experience Industry 4.0 in action The Smart Factory @ Wichita showcases advanced manufacturing techniques in a variety of applications on a shop floor to help organizations navigate their biggest challenges. Visitors to the new, immersive facility will experience smart factory concepts that bring together the Internet of Things, cloud, artificial intelligence, computer vision and more to create interconnected systems that use data to drive intelligent actions. They will also be involved in real-world demonstrations, hands-on workshops and see practical applications brought to life that are designed to help their organizations build a road map to accelerate growth.
The Smart Factory @ Wichita also serves as a catalyst for operational transformations and improved business results. For example, Deloitte has created a technology platform, Smart Factory Accelerator, with a suite of managed services that enable manufacturers navigating the complex digital transformation landscape to optimally achieve their operational performance objectives. The new, cloud-based, turnkey set of solutions with advanced analytics, coupled with Deloitte's network of ecosystem relationships, solves for today's most important operational challenges, such as visibility into end-to-end operations at scale, provides proactive, predictive operational insights, and helps achieve step-change performance objectives.
Sustainably smart Housed in a net-zero building, the 60,000ft2 Smart Factory @ Wichita is powered by a renewable energy smart grid and is outfitted with wind trees, solar assets and smart lighting. Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) kits produced at the factory use 100% recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) collected from the local recycling stream as the primary raw material, bringing the circular economy to life.
STEM education: The Smart Factory @ Wichita enables the next generation of innovators In line with its commitment to philanthropy and STEM education, The Smart Factory @ Wichita joined forces with Elenco Electronics and AWS to help produce and distribute a new STEM education product: the Smart Rover kit – a STEM-forward 21st century learning experience. Produced on the factory's state-of-the-art production line, the Smart Rover kit incorporates one of Elenco's award-winning Snap Circuits kits, the Snap Rover, with a Raspberry Pi microcomputer and camera module to educate middle school students on product design, coding and engineering. The program's mission is to inspire the next generation of diverse innovators to fill the growing talent gap in critical STEM-focused areas. With initial donations impacting 1,000 middle school students in Metro Detroit, Philadelphia and Wichita in 2022, Deloitte aims to reach 800,000 students in the U.S. over four years to foster long-term systemic impact in STEM education.
Wichita: A center of precision manufacturing and technology In support of a community that is known for its deep roots in manufacturing, The Smart Factory @ Wichita is working with Wichita State University, which hosts the factory on its Innovation Campus, to bring together Deloitte's technology experience with the university's research, educational and innovation capabilities. Wichita State University is also using the factory in its curriculum as an applied learning experience to enrich its students' experiences and help inspire the next generation of STEM manufacturing talent.
The factory is anticipated to draw over 5,000 visitors, including leaders of globally renowned companies, to the local area over the next year, with growth anticipated in the future. The Smart Factory @ Wichita also engages many parts of the community including local vendors, suppliers, and businesses.
Manufacturers can now automate CNC machine tending 75% faster.
Responding to ever-increasing labor shortage and supply chain challenges, Robotiq now offers a Machine Tending Application Solution that makes cobot automation more accessible than ever.
Lowering implementation costs by up to 50%, the new solution takes less than two hours to go from unboxing to machining the first part – no coding experience required.
“When a machine shop owner struggles to find employees to do the work, their first instinct is to look for new CNC machines that can run unattended for longer and with shorter changeover times. But those machines are costly, and this, combined with a longer lead time, makes for a less than ideal solution,” Samuel Bouchard, Robotiq CEO
Robotiq’s new solution features intuitive automation technology that emulates the machine operator. There is no need to modify or alter the machine controls. Since its non-intrusive, the Machine Tending Solution will work with any brand of CNC machine.
“Instead of hard-wiring the machine like with traditional automation, Robotiq’s Machine Tending Solution communication modules are non-invasive and do not require installation by certified technicians,” Bouchard explains. “The solution can be deployed in 2 to 3 hours, 75% faster than with traditional programming.”
Manufacturers automating with Robotiq solutions attest that it has simplified their lives: Vincent Roussy, manufacturing engineer at Usinatech, says, “This allowed us to stabilize production, delivery to customers, and productivity while solving our labor shortage challenge.”
On the shop floor, the solution also delivers peace of mind: “I never thought a robot would replace me, and I am happy to have my three robots; my speed keeps increasing,” says Hugo Santos, operator at Usinatech.
Ceramics Expo enhances position as North America’s leading advanced ceramics event with launch of new co-location.
The seventh edition of Ceramics Expo will take place on August 30-31, 2022, at the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland, Ohio. To enhance its offering for 2022 and in response to developments in the use of advanced ceramic materials across high-tech industries, the event welcomes the new launch edition of Thermal Management Expo.
Exhibition Manager, Raymond Pietersen says, “The introduction of Thermal Management Expo is great news for the industry and even more so for the markets that already attend Ceramics Expo each year! We are confident the synergy between the two events will provide an engaging experience for our visitors but also increase the opportunity for our exhibitors to do business.”
The exhibition is set to welcome more than 350 global market leading exhibitors across the entire advanced ceramics and glass manufacturing supply chain, including GeoCorp Inc, Saint-Gobain Ceramics, Osterwalder Inc, Corning, and Bosch Advanced Ceramics.
Alongside the exhibition runs a free-to-attend conference, addressing the most pressing challenges facing stakeholders from across the advanced ceramics supply chain. Sessions will be delivered by technical experts from Morgan Advanced Materials, IMERYS Performance Minerals Americas, Air Force Research Laboratory, and more, delivering first-class thought leadership on topics including material advancements, key applications, and manufacturing developments.
Mark Mecklenborg, executive director at The American Ceramic Society (ACerS) says, “Ceramics Expo, now in its seventh year, provides an unrivaled opportunity to see firsthand and up close the innovations in materials, processes and products that are driving today’s ceramic manufacturing industry. ACerS is proud to be a founding partner of this event. If you are an engineer, researcher, business leader, decision maker or buyer in the ceramics and glass manufacturing industry, this is a must-attend event. More than 350 global suppliers and manufacturers will be front and center on the show floor, ready to show you their latest products and demonstrate their cutting-edge technology.”
Registration is open now and Ceramics Expo encourages interested visitors to register in advance, for free.
Scaffolds created by melt electrowriting aim to support new tissue formation.
Development of 3D printed artificial heart valves are designed to allow a patient’s own cells to form new tissue. To form these scaffolds using melt electrowriting – an advanced additive manufacturing technique – researchers created a new fabrication platform enabling them to combine different precise, customized patterns to fine-tune the scaffold’s mechanical properties. Their long-term goal is to create implants for children that develop into new tissue and therefore last a lifetime.
A close-up of a printed scaffold for a heart valve. The different structures that ensure the appropriate biomechanics are clearly visible.
In humans, four heart valves ensure blood flows in the correct direction and it’s essential that heart valves open and close properly. To do this, heart valve tissue is heterogeneous, meaning that heart valves display different biomechanical properties within the same tissue.
A team of researchers working with Petra Mela, professor of medical materials and implants at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), and Professor Elena De-Juan Pardo from The University of Western Australia, have imitated this heterogeneous structure using a 3D printing process called melt electrowriting. They have developed a platform that facilitates printing precise customized patterns and their combination, which enabled them to fine-tune different mechanical properties within the same scaffold.
Precise, customized fiber scaffolds Melt electrowriting is a comparatively new additive manufacturing technology using high voltage to create accurate patterns of very thin polymer fibers. A polymer is heated, melted, and pushed out of a printing head as a liquid jet to form the fibers.
During this process, a high-voltage electric field is applied, which considerably narrows the diameter of the polymer jet by accelerating it and pulling it towards a collector. This results in a thin fiber with a diameter typically in the range of five to fifty micrometers. Moreover, the electric field stabilizes the polymer jet, which is important for creating defined, precise patterns.
3D_ArtificialHeartValve-2--Kilian Mueller, a doctoral candidate at the TUM School of Engineering and Design, examines a 3D printed heart valve structure produced using melt electrowriting (MEW).
The “writing” of the fiber jet according to predefined patterns is conducted using a computer-controlled moving collector, that collects the emerging fiber along a defined pathway. The user specifies this pathway by programming its coordinates.
To reduce the programming associated with the creation of complex structures for heart valves, researchers developed software to easily assign different patterns to different regions of the scaffold by choosing from a library of available patterns. Furthermore, geometrical specifications such as length, diameter, and thickness of the scaffold can easily be adjusted via the graphical interface.
Scaffolds are compatible with cells and biodegradable The team used medical grade polycaprolactone (PCL) for 3D printing, which is compatible with cells and biodegradable. The idea is that once the PCL-heart valves are implanted, the patient’s own cells will grow on the porous scaffold, as has been the case in first cell culture studies. The cells might then potentially form new tissue before the PCL-scaffold degrades.
The PCL-scaffold is embedded in an elastin-like material that imitates properties of natural elastin present in real heart valves and provides micro-pores smaller than the pores of the PCL structure. The aim is to leave enough space for the cells to settle, but to seal the valves adequately for blood flow.
The engineered valves were tested using a mock flow circulatory system simulating physiological blood pressure and flow. The heart valves opened and closed correctly under the examined conditions.
Nanoparticles allow for visualization using MRI The PCL-material was further evolved and evaluated together with Franz Schilling, professor of biomedical magnetic resonance, and Sonja Berensmeier, professor of bioseparation engineering at TUM. By modifying PCL with ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles, researchers could visualize the scaffolds using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The modified material remains printable and compatible with cells. This might facilitate the translation of the technology to the clinics, as the scaffolds can be monitored upon implantation.
“Our goal is to engineer bioinspired heart valves that support the formation of new functional tissue in patients. Children would especially benefit from such a solution, as current heart valves don’t grow with the patient and must be replaced over the years in multiple surgeries. Our heart valves, in contrast, mimic the complexity of native heart valves and are designed to let a patient’s own cells infiltrate the scaffold,” Mela says.
The next step on the way to the clinic will be pre-clinical studies in animal models. The team also works on further improving the technology and developing new biomaterials.