Job Losses: The continuing loss of US manufacturing jobs in September has spurred President George W. Bush to do something about a deceptive economy that shows signs of recovery while similtaneously shedding jobs.
The unemployment rate in manufacturing continues to climb (about 2.5 million U.S. jobs have disappeared since January 2001), with many of those jobs going overseas. Product managers at Texas Instruments' Standard Linear Logic Group have been following this trend and noticed one unexpected impact it was having on design engineers here in the U.S. "As production business was transitioning from the U.S. to Asia
TI's Bernett: The real-deal smaller reel sizes for engineers.
over the past 18 months, we began to see more and more design engineers doing prototype and new product introduction work here, but not ramping up the volume as they would have in the past. That's now being done overseas," says Tim Bernett, a marketing manager who is responsible for OEM customers. "Yet, engineers here only could obtain components in sample quantities, which isn't enough parts to prove out their manufacturability, or in standard production reel sizes of 2,500 to 3,000, which is too many." Those excess components often went to waste, says Bernett, since typically once a reel is opened it isn't feasible to ship the remaining parts to Asia for production use. So in order to accommodate engineers' changing needs and save them the cost of un-needed inventory, TI began offering its more popular families like Little Logic in 250-piece reels six months ago. Bernett reports that engineers have expressed so much interest that TI has responded by now offering some 500 different part numbers in the mid-range reel sizes. Design engineers can buy these parts directly from TI or its authorized distributors. The 250-piece reels are identified by a T suffix appended to the TI part number.
For 3D printing to make the jump from rapid prototyping to manufacturing, engineers will need to find easier ways to move products from their CAD screens to their printers.
Gigabit and PoE are two networking technologies moving ahead in tandem as industrial users power remote Ethernet devices such as IP security cameras at 1,000 Mbps over existing CAT5 cable.
New versions of BASF's Ecovio line are both compostable and designed for either injection molding or thermoforming. These combinations are becoming more common for the single-use bioplastics used in food service and food packaging applications, but are still not widely available.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
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For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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