Manufacturing Matters

If you're selling a limited number of products over the course of Q1-Q3, and then suddenly you have this incredible spike in demand with peak season, that variability doesn't lend itself to sort of traditional forms of automation. The world is changing, day to day, week to week, and what you are selling today may not be what you are selling tomorrow. In addition, consumer e-commerce dema...

Whether it’s in retail, robotics, or quality inspection, our customers today are finding ways to leverage AI to merge multiple different components at once instead of having a single line for one component. While the attention of the masses may gravitate toward robots and AI, machine vision remains an indispensable and increasingly vital technology for businesses of all types around the world. In...

Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) technology is sparking transformations in applications as diverse as LiDAR systems, agri-food, and hyperscale data centers. But manufacturing PICs at scale demands a level of complexity beyond the scope of any single company. It will take an ecosystem. That is the principle behind PhotonDelta’s alliance of materials foundries, PIC designers, chip packaging firms...

Whether you’re programming robots, working in a clean room environment or a dirty steel mill, people working in manufacturing jobs can make a fantastic living and should be proud. Industrial cables are the silent technology that keeps the PLC connected to the HMI and the robot connected to the controller. In some ways, the only time that people think of cables is when there is a problem with one,...

Customers always said to us, we can't find individuals to work on second shift or third shift. We need automation. So, the game changed for us as a company In this episode of Manufacturing Matters, Nino LaDuca, CEO, Shape Technologies and Simon Kenworthy, Global President, Shape Process Automation joined TECH B2B Marketing’s Winn Hardin to talk about the global economy and the state of manufa...

Sometimes the gap separating conventional optics from advanced high-precision performance is only an angstrom thick. Even cutting-edge optics don’t always cut it for the most demanding applications in imaging, laser systems, LiDAR, and augmented/virtual reality gear. Accucoat’s Patrick Iulianello joins TECH B2B Marketing’s Winn Hardin and Dan McCarthy in this episode to discuss how advanced optica...

Manufacturers rapidly address new challenges with AI-enabled vision sensors and simplified calibration for robotic applications.  In this episode of Manufacturing Matters, SensoPart’s head of applications engineering, Alex Rudolph, joins TECH B2B Marketing’s Winn Hardin and John Lewis to discuss the latest in machine vision technology. ​They discuss SensoPart’s unique offerings in the industrial a...

In this special robotics panel discussion episode of the Manufacturing Matters podcast, Juan Aparicio (Reshape Automation), Josh Cloer (Mujin), SK Gupta (GrayMatter Robotics), and Suzy Teele (ARM Institute) join TECH B2B Marketing’s Winn Hardin and Jimmy Carroll to discuss all things current and trending in robotics and industrial automation. Topics include ongoing labor shortage woes, AI applicab...

“ Let's not treat the humans like a robot. Let's treat the robot like a robot. ”   Welding and fabrication can be tedious and unfulfilling when you’re creating the same part over and over. This is just one factor that’s making welders harder to find around the globe. While some manufacturers have invested in traditional robotic welding cells to handle repetitive tasks, they’re often proh...

What comes to mind when reading the term “no-touch serialization?” and how does that fit into the machine vision space? Can you imagine taking images of each blank piece of paper in a full ream, “feature printing” (think digital fingerprint), each of them, and then being able to identify each one? For U.S. Pacific Northwest company Alitheon, this is everyday life. In this episode of Manufacturing...

In this special machine vision panel discussion episode of the Manufacturing Matters podcast, Jason Covar (The Imaging Source), David Dechow (Motion AI), and Dale Deering (Teledyne) join TECH B2B Marketing’s Winn Hardin and Jimmy Carroll to discuss all things current and trending in the machine vision space. Topics include the intersection of robotics and machine vision, the real value of AI on th...

I felt the pain of being an integrator and envisioned a world where an entire workflow could be entirely digitalized. Picture building an automation system in hours, just like with LEGOs. This is what Vention set out to do when Vention began in 2016. In this episode of Manufacturing Matters, Etienne Lacroix, Founder and CEO of Vention joined TECH B2B Marketing’s Jimmy Carroll to talk about how Ven...

With “explainable, industrial-grade AI” the goal is not just predict an issue but understand why. In this episode of Manufacturing Matters, Berk Birand, CEO, Fero Labs joined TECH B2B Marketing’s Jimmy Carroll to talk about the deployment of AI-based technologies on the factory floor. Leveraging AI in industrial automation can mean more than just visual inspection, as AI tools for process optimiza...

You should expect more from your automation. In this episode of Manufacturing Matters, Reinhold Niesing, Vice President, Automotive & Battery Vertical Markets, Siemens joined TECH B2B Marketing’s Winn Hardin and Jimmy Carroll to talk about why manufacturers and end users today should expect more out of their automation systems. Leveraging technologies such as AI, for example, can help with pre...

“I’ve been doing this technology long enough that I can almost see in shortwave infrared.”  In this episode of Manufacturing Matters, Martin Ettenberg, CTO, Princeton Infrared Technologies joins TECH B2B Marketing’s Jimmy Carroll and John Lewis to talk about the rise of shortwave infrared (SWIR) imaging technology in the past few years, what’s led to this growth, and how SWIR has evolved over the...

For startups entering the automation and manufacturing market, the road ahead can be a difficult one. But those coming from Europe into the United States, that road is much bumpier, even with significant funding behind them. In this episode, Sue Susenburger, Managing Partner at giddyUp! Innovations, explains how the company helps foreign startups enter the market with TECH B2B Marketing’s Winn Har...

As the labor shortage continues to impact manufacturers and the desire for lights-out manufacturing persists, robot adoption continues to grow across disparate types of businesses and applications. In this episode of Manufacturing Matters, Jane Heffner, Vice President of Global Sales & Marketing, Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR) joins TECH B2B Marketing’s Jimmy Carroll and Winn Hardin to discuss...

How do image sensor companies approach new product development? Oftentimes it involves developing custom products for customers and then using the resulting IP as new products. Sometimes, however, these products that may target specific applications such as machine vision end up adding value far beyond the factory floor, from surgical guidance to indoor pet monitoring. If a camera can produce a cr...

Hyperspectral imaging has been around for decades, but new capabilities are taking the technology to whole new levels. In this episode of Manufacturing Matters, TECH B2B Marketing’s Jimmy Carroll and John Lewis sat down with Alex Fong, CTO at Hinalea Imaging, to talk about where the technology is heading. Hinalea uses a Fabry-Pérot interferometry approach that provides extreme versatility — very q...

When you think of low-cost automation, what comes to mind? What about cobots for under $7,000? While Igus is perhaps best known for motion plastics manufacturing, the company’s RBTX platform aims to help end users find the most cost-effective automation solutions within 30 minutes. During an in-person podcast held at the Igus’ robotics lab, Jan Hennecke, Robotics Product Manager at Igus joined TEC...

As robotic systems become more versatile and sophisticated, robotic end effectors continue to develop to meet new demands. At PACK EXPO International in Chicago, Manufacturing Matters hit the show floor to find out more about how robotic grippers are becoming more flexible, durable, and intelligent to meet the demands of a wide range of industries. TECH B2B Marketing’s Winn Hardin talked with Gary...

Waterjet cutting is a precise and eco-friendly technology reshaping manufacturing. A key attribute is its sheer versatility, cutting literally any material—from fresh vegetables to ceramics to titanium—with high-pressure water. For this episode of Manufacturing Matters, TECH B2B Managing Director Winn Hardin caught up with Brian Sherick, president of Flow International, and Nino LaDuca, CEO of Sha...

In this women in automation panel discussion recorded at IMTS 2024, TECH B2B Marketing’s Amanda Del Buono is joined by guest co-host and Automation Ladies host Nikki Gonzalez, along with Julia Astrid Riemenschneider, VP of Business Development at Rethink Robotics and United Robotics Group; Cathy Rinne, President of Flex-Line Automation; and Kirby Witte, Chief Commercial Officer of ESTAT Actuation....

Does the concept of robots with no programming, 24/7 support, and instant ROI catch your attention? If so, check out this episode of Manufacturing Matters, where GrayMatter Robotics’ co-founder SK Gupta joins TECH B2B Marketing’s Jimmy Carroll to talk about the latest pain points manufacturers are facing and how robotics companies are lowering the barrier of entry when it comes to adopting automat...

Encoders might be small pieces in the automation puzzle, but they have a huge impact on whether that automation works correctly. By providing feedback on position, speed, and rotation, encoders help machines and systems operate accurately and efficiently. Wachendorff Automation has been making encoders for more than four decades, and knows a thing or two about the demands being placed on precision...