3D Printing Reboot
Dana Blankenhorn for SeekingAlpha: While many people consider 3D printing dead, given what has happened to the stocks of industry leaders such as 3D Systems, Stratasys, ExOne and voxeljet , it's more accurate to say the industry has rebooted and is preparing for another run.
This means the industry's excitement is now coming from college campuses and startups. As an investor you want to keep an eye on this, but withhold your investment.
Industry leader 3D Systems has been drawing a bid this year as it undergoes a restructuring, bringing in more professional management, anddropping the Cube, its consumer printer, from the product line. For all of 2015 it reported a loss of $664 million, $5.85/share, on revenues of $666 million. The stock, which once traded as high as $96/share during the last boom, is now at around $13, but it had been as low as $6.42 in mid-January. Founder Charles Hull, 76, has been kicked upstairs to a Chief Technology Officer role. Cont'd...
America Makes and ANSI Launch Additive Manufacturing Standardization Collaborative
America Makes, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) today announced the launch of the America Makes & ANSI Additive Manufacturing Standardization Collaborative (AMSC). The purpose of the AMSC will be to coordinate and accelerate the development of industry-wide additive manufacturing standards and specifications consistent with stakeholder needs and thereby facilitate the growth of the additive manufacturing industry. Participation is open to any interested person.Â
The catalyst for the AMSC is the fact that a number of standards developing organizations are engaged in standards-setting for various aspects of additive manufacturing, prompting the need for coordination to maintain a consistent, harmonized, and non-contradictory set of additive manufacturing standards. Â Full Press Release:
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Nanolights
From Nature.com:
Ultimately, Goh, a PhD candidate at the National University of Singapore, hopes that the method will help her to find blood vessels that are leaking owing to inflammation, perhaps helping to detect malaria or predict strokes. Crucial to her technique are the virus-sized particles that give the solution its colour. Just a few tens of nanometres across, they are among a growing array of 'nanolights' that researchers are tailoring to specific types of fluorescence: the ability to absorb light at one wavelength and re-emit it at another.
Many naturally occurring compounds can do this, from jellyfish proteins to some rare-earth compounds. But nanolights tend to be much more stable, versatile and easier to prepare — which makes them attractive for users in both industry and academia.
The best-established examples are quantum dots: tiny flecks of semiconductor that are prized for their beautiful, crisp colours. Now, however, other types of nanolight are on the rise. Some have a rare ability to absorb lots of low-energy photons and combine the energy into a handful of high-energy photons — a trick that opens up opportunities such as producing multiple colours at once. Others are made from polymers or small organic molecules. These are less toxic than quantum dots and often outshine them — much to the amazement of chemists, who are used to carbon-based compounds simply degrading in the presence of ultraviolet light... ( full article )
Bosch combines "Industrie 4.0" platform and Industrial Internet Consortium standards
Connected industry is now becoming an international reality. In a new project, Bosch is working together with partners to combine the technical standards of Germany’s “Industrie 4.0” platform and of the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) for the first time. This combination of the two approaches allows the exchange of data between central areas of connected industry. “Industry 4.0 is not so much a national as an international issue. Only a truly global approach – without competing company standards or differing national regulations – will allow it to develop to its full potential,” said Dr. Werner Struth, a member of the Bosch management board, at the Bosch ConnectedWorld IoT conference in Berlin. To date, the lack of a common language has hindered the smooth international coordination of manufacturing, logistics, and building and energy management. “As we head towards connected industry, two worlds are now coming together. This is a major advance. A combination of these two standards paves the way for numerous new cross-border business opportunities for Industry 4.0 solutions, both for Bosch and for other international companies,” Struth said. Full Press Release:
4D-Printed Concept Car Will Predict Your Wishes
Viknesh Vijayenthiran for Discovery News: New materials will also play a significant role in the further evolution of the car, according to BMW. This has already started with the increasing use of carbon fiber and other composites instead of conventional steel.
Looking further forward, technologies such as rapid manufacturing and 4-D printing (3D-printed materials that change depending on conditions) will open up new possibilities.
One of the more interesting aspects of the concept is a technology called Alive Geometry which consists of 4D-printed components that can change their shape and interact with the driver. Full Article:
Plattform Industrie 4.0 and Industrial Internet Consortium Agree on Cooperation
Representatives of Plattform Industrie 4.0 and the Industrial Internet Consortium met in Zurich, Switzerland to explore the potential alignment of their two architecture efforts - respectively, the Reference Architecture Model for Industrie 4.0 (RAMI4.0) and the Industrial Internet Reference Architecture (IIRA). The meeting was a success, with a common recognition of the complementary nature of the two models, an initial draft mapping showing the direct relationships between elements of the models, and a clear roadmap to ensure future interoperability. Additional possible topics included collaboration in the areas of IIC Testbeds and I4.0 Test Facility Infrastructures, as well as standardization, architectures & business outcomes in the Industrial Internet.
State Secretary, Matthias Machnig, Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy: “We welcome the cooperation of both initiatives as an important milestone in the cooperation of companies internationally. The combined strengths of both IIC and Plattform Industrie 4.0 will substantially help to pave the way for a mutually beneficial development of a digitized economy for our international businesses.”
Prof. Dr. Siegfried Russwurm, Technical Director of Plattform Industrie 4.0, CTO and Member of the Managing Board of Siemens AG, said„Collaborating with other initiatives is important, especially for Germany’s export-oriented economy. We are highly interested to cooperate intensively with others in order to pave the way for global standards. Cooperating with IIC – and with other consortia – is an important step in the right direction.” Full Press Release:
Mobile Robotic Fabrication System for Filament Structures
The project Mobile Robotic Fabrication System for Filament Structures, developed by ITECH graduate Maria Yablonina, demonstrates a new production process for filament structures. It proposes multiple semi-autonomous wall climbing robots to distribute fiber filament, using any horizontal or vertical surface, or even existing architecture, to support the new structures. Compared to larger scale industrial robots that are limited by position and reach, these robots are enabled with movement systems and a collection of sensors that allow them to travel and interact accurately along typical ground, walls, roofs, and ceilings. One can imagine a fabrication process where an operator arrives to the scene with a suitcase housing all the necessary robots and materials to create a large structure. These agile mobile robotic systems move robotic fabrication processes beyond the constraints of the production hall, exposing vast urban and interior environments as potential fabrication sites.
Automotive Industry 4.0 - Disrupting the Industry?
Pascal Drescher for The Market Mogul: We all know what happened to Nokia and Motorola around a decade ago – are BMW, GM and Toyota the next to get disrupted?
The automotive industry developed on an evolutionary path after Henry Ford’s game-changing introduction moving assembly line over a century ago, but the industry might soon get disrupted once more.
There are currently several catalysts, rooted in technological advancements as well as in changes in consumer behaviours such as more and more powerful batteries and growing interest in environmentally friendly fuels, or self-driving vehicles. Furthermore, the sharing economy has reached the automotive industry with different services such as BMW’s DriveNow or autolib in Paris. Tesla is so far the most successful new entrant that took advantage of some those developments, but other companies from the Silicon Valley might put an even higher threat to established manufacturers such as BMW, Toyota or GM. What is likely to be the next big thing is the move towards automotive industry 4.0, that is marked by the convergence of automotive, technology and telecommunication industry, according to a Roland Berger study. The automotive industry is not the first to face such disruption, thinking about how iTunes revolutionised the music industry, or how Apple and Samsung with their Smartphones remodelled the telecom industry while previously leading companies such as Nokia had to face bankruptcy. And when thinking of technology and telecommunication, it is clear that it will be once more tech giants Apple and Google who are only waiting to jump into the market, leveraging their massive technological knowledge and financial base. As it is known, both already highly invested in developing self-driving vehicles, Apple under its “Project Titan” and Google’s autonomous vehicles are already driving through California. Cont'd...
A New Boeing Patent Describes Levitating 3D Printing
By Lindsey Kratochwill for Popular Science: Watching a 3D printer work can sometimes seem like magic--thin filaments slowly build up on top of a platform, turning into parts and figurines. Now, apatent published by aerospace company Boeing introduces an even more futuristic element: levitation.
With this method, the object prints while floating in midair thanks to magnets or acoustic waves. A "nugget" or base gets printed first out into space, and then a cadre of 3D printers add more and more of the printing material.
But why? Levitation is cool, yes, but it turns out there is also a practical purpose for a floating 3D printed object, at least according to Boeing's patent. The levitating object can be manipulated and turned more so than an object stuck to a platform can be, and using many printheads at the same time would ostensibly speed up the process. Cont'd...
New Materials for Manufacturing: The Economist's Overview For 2015
From The Economist's Technology Quarterly:
This is what some scientists describe as a “golden age” for materials. New, high-performing substances such as exotic alloys and superstrong composites are emerging; “smart” materials can remember their shape, repair themselves or assemble themselves into components. Little structures that change the way something responds to light or sound can be used to turn a material into a “metamaterial” with very different properties...
...When it comes to making chemical bonds, one element, carbon, is in a league of its own; a more or less infinite number of distinct molecules can be made from it. Chemists call these carbon-based molecules organic, and have devoted a whole branch of their subject—inorganic chemistry—to ignoring them. Mr Ceder’s Materials Project sits in that inorganic domain. It has simulated some 60,000 materials, and five years from now should reach 100,000. This will provide what the people working on the project call the “materials genome”: a list of the basic properties—conductivity, hardness, elasticity, ability to absorb other chemicals and so on—of all the compounds anyone might think of. “In ten years someone doing materials design will have all these numbers available to them, and information about how materials will interact,” says Mr Ceder. “Before, none of this really existed. It was all trial and error... ( full article )
Samsung to provide 'smart factory' solution in South Korea
Cho Mu-hyun for ZDNet: Samsung Electronics will provide its smart factory solution for over a thousand small and medium-sized businesses in South Korea by 2017, the company announced.
The South Korean tech giant will first provide the solution to 224 firms selected by the Center for Creative Economy & Innovation (CCEI), a state-run startup and small businesses accelerator program, starting this month.
The CCEI has centres nationwide and works with almost all South Korean conglomerates to fund and support small enterprises with potential.
Samsung will provide these firms with manufacturing execution systems and enterprise resource planning solutions. It will also provide its IT-based manufacturing solutions such as automated manufacturing, process 3D simulations, and CAD/CAM super-precision moulding machines.
The firm plans to provide 450 companies with the solutions this year and over 1,000 by next year. Cont'd...
NASA, Made in Space think big with Archinaut, a robotic 3D printing demo bound for ISS
Debra Werner for Space News: Â Within five years, companies could begin in-orbit manufacturing and assembly of communications satellite reflectors or other large structures, according to Made in Space, the Silicon Valley startup that sent the first 3D printer to the International Space Station in 2014.
As Made in Space prepares to send a second 3D printer into orbit, the company is beginning work with Northrop Grumman and Oceaneering Space Systems on Archinaut, an ambitious effort to build a 3D printer equipped with a robotic arm that the team plans to install in an external space station pod, under a two-year, $20 million NASA contract. The project will culminate in 2018 with an on-orbit demonstration of Archinauts ability to additively manufacture and assemble a large, complex structure, said Andrew Rush, Made in Space president.
NASAs selected the Archinaut project, officially known as Versatile In-Space Robotic Precision Manufacturing and Assembly System, as part of its Tipping Points campaign, which funds demonstrations of space-related technologies on the verge of offering significant payoffs for government and commercial applications. Archinaut was one of three projects NASA selected in November that focus on robotic manufacturing and assembly of spacecraft and structures in orbit.  Cont'd...
Republican-Leaning Cities Are At Greater Risk Of Job Automation
​ By Jed Kolko for Five Thirty Eight: More and more work activities and even entire jobs are at risk of beingautomated by algorithms, computers and robots, raising concerns that more and more humans will be put out of work. The fear of automation is widespread — President Obama cited it as the No. 1 reason Americans feel anxious about the economy in his State of the Union address last month — but its effects are not equally distributed, creating challenges for workers and policymakers. An analysis of where jobs are most likely to face automation shows that areas that voted Republican in the last presidential election are more at risk, suggesting that automation could become a partisan issue.
So-called “routine” jobs — those that “can be accomplished by following explicit rules” — are most at risk of automation. These include both “manual” routine occupations, such as metalworkers and truck drivers, and “cognitive” routine occupations, such as cashiers and customer service reps.1 Whereas many routine jobs tend to be middle-wage, non-routine jobs include both higher-wage managerial and professional occupations and lower-wage service jobs. Cont'd...
The making of: BionicANTs
What do ants and Industry 4.0 have in common? What challenges faced the engineers when it came to developing these delicate technology platforms? Take a look behind the scenes and dive into the world of the Bionic Learning Network... ( cont'd )
Industrial IoT Market Nears $132 Billion in 2020: Technavio
Pedro Hernandez for Datamation:  The Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to have a major, efficiency- and productivity-enhancing impact on how manufacturers and other companies in industrial settings conduct businesses. A new forecast from market research firm Technavio paints a rosy picture for IT vendors that specialize in industrial IoT.
According to the analyst group, the market for industrial IoT software and services will reach nearly $132 in 2020. Between now and then, the market will expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7 percent.
In terms of demand, Technavio has identified the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region as the largest market for industrial IoT.
Last year, the industrial IoT market generated $38 billion in sales in the region, a number that will reach $54 billion in 2020. APAC countries are investing heavily, including South Korea, which plans to pour over $3.6 billion into the IoT by 2020. Â Cont'd...
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