Engineering

How ready is your company to connect people, processes and technologies for bigger profits? John Watts, Regional Marketing Director – Asia Pacific, Rockwell Automation SEA Pte Ltd John Watts, Regional Marketing Director, Asia Pacific is responsible for all regional marketing functions including commercial marketing, commercial engineering and product business management. John also has responsibility for sales operations and sales competency. John has 18 years of experience in automation and process control sales and marketing. Apart from his time at Rockwell Automation, John has held sales and sales management positions with Yokogawa. He joined Rockwell Automation in 2006 as Manager, Process Solutions, Asia Pacific. From 2010 he held the position of Director, Integrated Architecture for Asia Pacific. In this role he had responsibility for business management and marketing of Integrated Architecture products including PLC / PAC controllers, motion control, software, operator interface and condition monitoring. He holds a Masters in Business Administration from Melbourne Business School and a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Melbourne. John is based in Singapore. Savvy manufacturers are leading the charge in managing how information is shared seamlessly and securely across their enterprises. In quest of better decisions, increased collaboration, faster time to market, lower total cost of ownership, maximised asset utilisation and minimised enterprise-risk management, industrial operators are progressively connecting their manufacturing operations with the entire value chain – uncovering the benefits of the Connected Enterprise. A New Path to Enhanced Productivity The rapid convergence of plant-floor operations technology (OT) and business-level information technology (IT) is delivering insight. The Internet of Things (IoT) is enabling data from production-line and remote-device sensors, actuators, controllers and switches to be distributed real time to enterprise teams and supply-chain partners. By connecting people and processes via technology, executives and their continuous-improvement teams acquire new visibility into the […]

RS Components (RS), the trading brand of Electrocomponents plc, the global distributor for engineers, has launched DesignSpark Electrical, which brings the benefits of design software to all those not already using electrical CAD tools. The new software targets electrical design engineers and other electrical professionals, enabling them to save time and money. Supported by Schneider Electric, DesignSpark Electrical joins the award-winning suite of DesignSpark engineering resources and continues to drive the initiative of removing the barriers to innovation for every engineer. DesignSpark Electrical is a fully specified electrical CAD package delivering time saving and error avoidance, for control panel, machinery and electrical system design. This new free tool provides access to the functionality of electrical CAD for businesses that in many cases cannot reasonably justify the considerable price tag per seat for existing commercial electrical CAD software. A key element of the DesignSpark Electrical software is the integration of a library that comprises more than 250,000 components and parts, including 80,000 from Schneider Electric and 10,000 from RS, which can easily be added to customer designs. Other key features of the highly intuitive and highly functional software include intelligent and specialist electrical design tools, real-time referencing and validity checking to allow the creation of accurate 2D panel layouts, all of which saves time and reduces errors. Also built into the software is Bill-of-Materials (BOM) quote functionality, enabling customers to order parts via RS for their designs, both quickly and easily. The high cost and the learning time required of existing commercial electrical CAD tools have been major barriers to adoption for many companies. The introduction of the highly intuitive DesignSpark Electrical removes these cost barriers in a single stroke and passes on the key benefits of electrical CAD to all engineers. DesignSpark Electrical is available for free download at www.designspark.com.

The newest member of the KUKA robot family – the LBR iiwa lightweight robot At the KUKA booth, the visitors of this year’s Hanover Fair can deal with the increasing digitalisation of production and cooperative network of employees and machines. As Europe’s leading supplier of industrial robots and automated production systems, KUKA directly participates with its products and services in the fourth industrial revolution – Industry 4.0. Therefore, robots will be the defining component for industry in the future – while the human takes centre stage. Sustainable automation concepts can only be developed with efficient, flexible and first of all safe production systems respecting the needs of the production staff. KUKA will not only present ways in which KUKA products can improve competitiveness, but also prove its compatibility with the digital world. Across the more than 1000 square meters of space in the Industrial Automation area, KUKA will be presenting innovative solutions that have one key characteristic in common: they are all designed to meet the requirements of Industry 4.0 and bring flexibility in the utilisation of production capacity, in logistics, in the sustainable use of resources. KUKA achieves this by merging the IT world and conventional high-tech industry solutions into complete Cyber-Physical Production Systems (CPPS). In order to react in a flexible manner, to control process data streams from complex networks around the globe and to network digital controllers from different systems, interfaces based on Mainstream IT infrastructure are essential. This was already a key concept at KUKA in the mid-90s when it brought the first PC-based robot controllers onto the market. Subsequent KUKA innovations and developments also followed this core concept of simple integration. With the newest member of the KUKA robot family – the LBR iiwa lightweight robot and the controller Sunrise designed for direct cooperation between […]

Tesla Motors’ decision last year to make all of its patents open to outside use has turned the industry on its head. By Stefano Picozzi, PaaS business development manager, Red Hat A/NZ Most industries are affected by disruption from technology so, to remain competitive, organisations need to keep up. Technology advances affect manufacturing, in particular. The industry is changing quickly, and the manufacturers that continue to prosper are those that keep pace with technology. Industrial solutions such as automation, resource management systems, and high-speed industrial design processes have helped manufacturers become far more agile and productive than they used to be. A manufacturer can only be as innovative and agile as the software on which these industrial solutions rely. However, not all software is created equal. The bulk of software solutions used in this industry is proprietary; owned, managed, and developed by a single company. This means new developments can be slower when it comes to innovation and best practice. Open source software, by comparison, is not owned by any single organisation; it is the result of a global community of millions of programmers. Because of the open and collaborative nature of this sort of software, with many minds contributing to its development, it can keep up with the agility and innovation that industry now demands. Organisations in many areas of business are increasingly seeing the value in the open source approach. The automotive sector is a good example. Digital design and automated manufacturing means developing a new car now takes a fraction of the time it used to. Tesla Motors’ decision last year to make all of its patents open to outside use has turned the industry on its head. Tesla made this unprecedented move in the hope that it would help drive the adoption of electric car platforms. […]

Delcam has launched the 2016 release of its FeatureCAM feature-based CAM software. This includes a range of enhancements, in particular more options for the Vortex high-efficiency area-clearance strategy, support for bar-fed mills, more efficient turning and user-interface improvements to make programming even easier and faster. FeatureCAM was the world’s first feature-based programming software when it was launched in 1995. Constant development since then has ensured that the system has retained its leadership in programming speed and ease of use, while an increased range of strategies has been added to provide more efficient toolpaths that give greater productivity on a wider range of machinery, including mill-turn machines, five-axis mills and wire EDM equipment. The 2016 release includes a number of enhancements to the Vortex area-clearance strategy. Vortex gives the fastest safe metal removal from solid carbide tooling, in particular designs that give deeper cuts by using the full flute length as the cutting surface. It produces toolpaths with a controlled engagement angle and so maintains the optimum cutting conditions for the complete roughing cycle, giving faster machining and longer tool life. The ability has now been added to adjust and fine tune the non-cutting moves of 2.5D and 3D Vortex toolpaths, with options to retract the tool and/or to increase the feedrate. These options can be set individually, or can be combined to achieve an optimum toolpath, with a reduced cycle time. Other roughing improvements include the ability to take into account any remaining stock on the model during holder collision checking, ensuring that Z-level roughing toolpaths are completely free of tool-holder collisions. Milling of inside or outside groove features has been upgraded with a number of improvements. These include support for different types of roughing links, wind-fan approach and retract moves for finishing, better gouge checking for plunges and retracts, […]

Ming Xu – CAE Marketing Manager,Asia Pacific Marketing,Siemens PLM Software. Asian manufacturers are on the cusp of the next industrial revolution with innovation as the catalyst that is redefining their path to success. With great opportunities come great challenges – the current Asia Pacific manufacturing scenario is seeing multiple impactful factors at play. The pressure to shorten time-to-market, design highly customisable and energy-efficient products is driving companies to rethink their manufacturing strategies. To add to this, we live in a culture of instant gratification and immediate results. Continuous and consistent improvement is the only way to stay ahead of the competition. To win in this highly complex marketplace, we need to identify trends with the potential of optimizing product development processes in order to maximize our advantage. Integrated 3D Design and Simulation for Reimagining Processes A great product is born well before the raw material reaches the machine. High quality products start their journey from high quality designs. Virtual prototyping (the process of creating an optimal physical design in software before building a physical prototype for verification) is experiencing a widespread usage in today’s manufacturing processes. It has assumed a much greater significance in recent years as engineering design has evolved drastically thanks to the availability of cutting edge design tools and software. Today’s leading manufacturers’ use advanced 3D design (CAD) and simulation (CAE) software in their research and development (R&D) processes to pre-empt, assess and avoid errors. Simulation guides critical trade-off decisions to balance competing product objectives such as reliability, cost and weight requirements. It also plays a major role in product and process innovation. Both CIMData and Scientific Computing World have noted how pivotal CAD/CAE integration is to product development. Historically, simulation has often been out of step with the design schedule with results too late to be […]