The vision of an electric, autonomous future was catapulted back into the spotlight recently when Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled his latest innovation and first foray into the commercial vehicle market. Though not fully autonomous, the Tesla Semi is an electric, semi-autonomous truck that Musk says will be able to travel 500 miles fully loaded on a single charge. Tesla isn’t the only company developing electric trucks, but the moment has certainly re-charged industry hype. Everyone’s talking about it - especially those of us in the logistics industry. So, just how close are we to an autonomous freight transport future?…
As composites take hold across the aviation industry as a way to lightweight aircraft and other structures, a NASA-led consortium is exploring ways to shorten the cycle for material development and certification—the goal being to boost competitive advantage among US manufacturers. The Advanced Composites Consortium (ACC), which includes 13 members, including aerospace manufacturers, university partners, and more recently a single software provider, conducts research focused on the accurate prediction of the strength and life of composite structures, rapid inspection of composites, and efficient development of manufacturing processes. Collier Research, maker of HyperSizer optimization software, is the sole software member, committed…
Osvald Jensen A/S is a Danish-based, family-owned manufacturing business with in-house production of worm gears marketed under its own brand. The company set about automating various manufacturing tasks to increase productivity, eliminate repetitive and strenuous duties, and lower the risk of errors. Since 2015, the company has used collaborative robots (cobots) to load and unload computer numeric control (CNC) machines. However, after upgrading their cobots with dual grippers, the company cut cycle time nearly in half. Previously, the single-gripper robots would load a part, wait for the process to finish, unload the part, and pick up a fresh one. The…
Etalex, a Canadian shelving system manufacturer, needed a flexible robotic arm solution that could be used for multiple tasks while taking up little valuable space on the production floor. One of the tasks is manually unloading a brake press 8 hours a day. Physically demanding work that also has the potential for accidents. “We needed a flexible automation solution that could be used for 10 different production cycles. Since I only have 6 feet of space in front of the brake press, it was important that I could run this application without safety caging around it.” - Jean Francois Rousseau,…
A new study by the McKinsey Global Institute estimates that between 400 million and 800 million of today’s jobs will be automated by 2030. The research adds a fresh perspective to what is becoming an increasingly concerning picture of the future employment landscape. “We’re all going to have to change and learn how to do new things over time,” institute partner Michael Chui told Bloomberg. In the United States, it appears it’s the middle class that has the most to fear, with office administrators and construction equipment operators among those who may lose their jobs to technology or see their…
According to a recent report from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), Japan is the world´s predominant industrial robot manufacturer. The production capacity of the Japanese suppliers has reached 153,000 units in 2016 – the highest level ever recorded. Today, Japan´s manufacturers deliver 52% of the global supply. The results were published ahead of the International Robot Exhibition (iREX) in Tokyo, November 29th - December 2nd 2017. “Japan is a highly robotized country where even robots are assembled by robots,”said Joe Gemma, president of IFR. “The statistics show that automation strongly boosts exports and domestic investments as well; robot sales…
Michael Mandel, the chief economic strategist at the Progressive Policy Institute and a senior fellow at the Mack Institute for Innovation Management at the Wharton School, has just declared the existence of the Internet of Goods. Writing in the October 17, 2017 issue of The Wall Street Journal, Mandel defines the Internet of Goods as “our term for the fast-growing digitization of the production, sorting and movement of physical products.” In other words, it’s the rapid digitization of everything we do in warehousing, distribution and fulfillment. At Swisslog we’ve advanced this concept under the mantel of Industry 4.0, shorthand for…
The promise of the Jetsons has finally arrived as autonomous vehicles of all types come at us. Or is that promise really here quite yet? Leading the pack are commercial airliners that typically rely on autonomous control more than they do on pilots and co-pilots. Built as a completely autonomous cargo ship, the Norwegian Yara Birkeland is to set sail next year followed by Rolls-Royce’s autonomous tug boats and ferries in 2020. And, of course, there are autonomous drones, especially in military operations, that will one day make human-controlled drones a quaint memory. Clearly, the subject of autonomous vehicles is…
Vanderlande has announced that it will obtain a minority shareholder interest in the robotics development company Smart Robotics, which is based in Best near Eindhoven, The Netherlands. The investment will create a focus on robotic technology development for logistic purposes, through a joint research and development (R&D) multi-year program, and commitment through co-ownership. Founded in 2015 as a spin-off of the Eindhoven University of Technology, Smart Robotics develops, sells and rents modular collaborative robots (or ‘cobots’) that can be configured for specific tasks. Its solutions are utilized for a variety of processes such as order picking and placing, (de)palletising, and…
Late last June, Koerber Group announced its fostered entry into the U.S. market with the acquisition of DM Logic, a provider of WMS and logistics software and integration services. At the time, Stephan Seifert, CEO of the Group Executive Board of Koerber AG noted that “With DMLogic, we gain another experienced partner to advance our long-term internationalization and growth course.” When we interviewed Bob Kennedy, DM Logic’s vice president of business development, about the deal last July, he hinted that this was probably not the last acquisition, but without naming names. So, it wasn’t a complete surprise when Koerber announced…
