CompositesWorld.com
17
TRENDS
CW: What are some things a company can do to
get on the road to higher efficiency and higher rate
production?
ABB: When someone approaches us like that, we obvi-
ously ask some more questions. What's going on? Where
are your challenges? Where are your pain points? In most
cases, the root cause for all of this is a production envi-
ronment that grew more challenging either by complexity
or by volume. And, for whatever reason, the investment
did not keep up with that. And so the systems and
processes are just not suitable to deal with that level of
complexity or volume. …. And if you throw more people
and more paper at it, it only makes things worse. …. We
start by solving the most elementary need to digitize
the process. How do we integrate the data? How do we
automate data collection? And there we would introduce
sensors, for example, we put RFID or any other sensor
— could be Bluetooth — on every material, every tool,
every part that moves around. Now we are working with
customers on temperature sensing. What about humid-
ity sensing? But this is a lot of data that did not exist, or
existed in paperwork somewhere. …. The pain points in
composites are in tracking, managing the materials — not
just the raw materials but the work in progress …. As
we develop a dialog, we pilot a system, and eventually
deploy it. And deployments can be very quick.
CAMX 2017 was originally scheduled for September 2017
in Orlando, FL, US, but Hurricane Irma blew it off course
and into December. The postponed show was no worse
for the wear and proved, again, the dynamism of the
composites industry's largest market. CompositesWorld
was there, and you can see our reporting online in several
places, including summaries from senior editors Ginger
Gardiner ( short.gardnerweb.com/CAMX17GG ) and Sara Black (short.
compositesworld.com/CAMX17SB) and editor-in-chief Jeff Sloan
( short.gardnerweb.com/CAMX17JS ). And if video is more your
speed, see the show here: short.gardnerweb.com/CAMX17V.
Catching up with CAMX 2017
Source | CW