Unplanned downtime is very expensive for any company— and emergency downtime can be disastrous for profits and continued viability. Emergency downtime (when something has gone seriously, catastrophically wrong) can cost five times as much as downtime for planned maintenance.

Designing an effective and long-lasting system—one that will not only meet current requirements but will also provide exceptional performance and quality in the future—is a challenge that many manufacturers struggle to meet. This article looks at how to design an optimal system. Learn more

The innovative battery-less absolute encoder operates through the combination of gears recognizing the rotational position data, which eliminates the need for a battery (and battery replacement) that is normally required for a conventional absolute encoder.

A wide variety of product types are in the new RCP6 series, which also include wide slider types and wide radial cylinder types, and no battery maintenance is required because there is no battery. Since home return is not required at equipment startup or after an emergency stop, this feature reduces operation time and production costs.

Securing the go ahead for a system upgrade can be difficult in a competitive work environment, where every cost must be accounted for and validated. Getting your project noticed and approved when it's lost among a sea of competing projects—each one making a claim on finite resources—can seem an impossible task.

When discussing fluid power, pressure is the basis for producing any kind of work.  Work cannot be achieved without pressure. To understand the finer points of fluid power, one must first understand the concept of pressure

A growing trend in industrial plant design is wireless connectivity. Recent technological advances have made wireless protocols significantly more robust and reliable than previous versions, enough so to rival traditional hard-wired connections.

Proper training in product, maintenance, and system startup was an essential part of a successful startup of the heat tracing system at the power plant.

Factory automation mobility is not just about iPads. Companies of all sizes need to think about the software needed to push context-sensitive information to operators and managers.

Intelligent Actuator Inc (IAI) is a world leader in the design and manufacture of off-the-shelf single and multi-axis servo positioning systems and SCARA robots.

IAI answers some of their most asked questions

Eight Reasons Why Off-Loop Filters Work

While demographers busily count the world's population, manufacturers world-wide fight a different battle against growing particle populations within lube-oil and hydraulic systems.

One resource that you may have overlooked is OSHA's collection of standard interpretation letters, which are OSHA's official responses to written questions about compliance with the agency's requirements.

Standard fluid line systems were for many years constructed from threaded pipe of assorted materials and were assembled with various standard pipe fitting shapes.

Emissivity is a surface property that determines how much radiation an object emits at a given temperature compared to a blackbody at the same temperature.

If an IRt/c sensor is installed and does not function as expected the failure may be due to something other than the sensor.

This video, courtesy of IAI, highlights another example of the IAI America ROBO products in an automated inspection process.

Slicing Aluminum with IAI Automation Products

Valin Corporation is the largest Parker Instrumentation distributor in the Western United States

As the amount of critical data surrounding industrial processes has increased, industrial device manufacturers have found that the traditional methods of exchanging and gathering data are not able to keep pace.

"Precision" is a term that needs to be broken down into several components including accuracy, repeatability, flatness, straightness, etc.

Lean Manufacturing is the art of improving production efficiency.

Most people simply think of the price and lead time of their systems, but there are many other things to take into consideration.?