By: Jim CamilloSenior [email protected] Magazine Assembling control arms for one of America’s most popular car manufacturers is a challenge at many levels for ZF at its Lapeer, MI, plant. The assembly process includes precision machining a cast aluminum control arm, fixturing the arm multiple times, and installing a …
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The Challenge of Implantable Medical Device Batteries
If the battery in your flashlight or cell phone fails, it’s an inconvenience. But, if the medical device batteries in your surgically implanted medical device (IMD) fails, it’s a medical emergency. Needless to say, batteries for the latter are very special and put together with extreme care. Up to 90% of the volume of an IMD is the battery and …
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Lean Manufacturing – Working to Be Lean, Green and Energy Wise
Lean Manufacturing Lean manufacturing is a concept that engineers often tend to over-think in design and over-complicate in execution. When it comes to assembly operations this often results in engineers stripping equipment back to the bare bones, which is almost always a huge mistake. Lean means cutting the fat, not the muscle, or as Sami …
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The Smart Process for Upstreaming Assembly in Modern Times
The trend toward consolidating suppliers and buying modules or assemblies rather than parts is well-established and accelerating across a broad range of industries. It started in aerospace, where typically up to 70% of each aircraft produced today is made by suppliers. It’s common for an aircraft …
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Intelligent Automotive Assembly Continues To Evolve
In 2004, Promess Inc.’s founder, Larry Stockline, wrote an article describing how two fairly new technologies, real-time process monitoring and signature analysis, were combined to improve the quality of an automotive wheel-stud insertion system. The system he described used linear variable differential transformer (LVDT) sensors to monitor the …
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