Digital Work Instructions
Assembly Line
Northrop Grumman Uses Augmented Reality to Assemble Satellites
Augmented reality (AR) technology is a key ingredient of Industry 4.0 and digital manufacturing initiatives. It brings components of the digital world into a person’s perception of reality. AR layers computer-generated imagery onto a user’s view of the real world, providing a composite view.
Northrop Grumman Corp. is one of a handful of leading manufacturers that are using wearable devices to empower assemblers. The company recently invested in AR technology to streamline operations at its historic Space Park facility in Redondo Beach, CA.
“Augmented reality is a technology that takes our view of the real world and overlays useful and relevant digital data on top of that view,” says Oscar Castillo, a mechanical engineer who serves as factory modernization and digital transformation project manager at Space Park. “This is usually achieved through a smartphone, or in recent years through an AR headset such as Microsoft’s HoloLens.
“We have found that virtual reality can help our design teams assess a product’s producibility from a human factors or ergonomics perspective,” says Castillo. “Using engineering CAD models, we can spot challenges early enough in the design cycle so that changes can be made without great cost or schedule impact.
According to Castillo, AR technology is ideal for a variety of manufacturing applications. Most of the products built at Space Park have a 3D CAD model associated with them. Northrop Grumman engineers are leveraging those models to create augmented reality work instructions (ARWI).
Building Innovation: Atlas Copco and Azumuta
Pico MES to Offer its Software for Free
To help small and midsized manufacturers take advantage of digital transformation, software supplier Pico MES has announced that all manufacturers will be able to use its digital work instruction suite of tools for free.
Every manufacturer that signs up will receive a free cloud-based instance with capabilities to build worker guidance instructions, create digital process flows, and assign stations. The only restrictions will be on the number of stations and operators who can use the software.
“This is not a free trial with a time limit. This no-cost model supports our mission of modernizing the supply base and taking cost out of the equation,” says Ryan Kuhlenbeck, CEO and co-founder of Pico MES.
Collaboration Platforms to Solve Your Frontline Workforce Challenges
The Connected Frontline Workforce (CFW) applications space is diverse, dynamic, and fragmented. Players range from early-stage start-ups backed by venture capital to publicly traded global tech giants. The vendors in this space offer a wide range of products and go-to-market strategies.
CFW initiatives have become a strategic imperative for many as manufacturers seek to solve critical labor shortages, skills gaps, and retention issues in frontline operations. CFW-enabling technology has been proven to help companies meet frontline workforce challenges while optimizing operational performance across safety, quality, and productivity dimensions. However, navigating the relatively immature and highly fragmented CFW Applications market to capture the opportunity fully can be challenging.
Predictive Maintenance 3D Simulation Use Case
Connected Digital Manufacturing: Cobots and Augmented Reality for Electronics Assembly
LightGuide’s industrial augmented reality (AR) work instruction platform seamlessly integrates with a wide variety of digital manufacturing technologies, factory tools, and IO devices, including cobots. Here, LightGuide is integrated with KUKA’s LBR iisy cobot to combine the benefits of industrial automation and digital work instructions to streamline the process of assembling an electrical component.
Increase manufacturing processes by 25% with AI, Opcenter and Retrocausual a Siemens Partner
Preventing Escapes in Luxury Goods Manufacturing With Apps
There are two main causes of escapes. The first is a quality issue in a manufacturer’s production line — and the second is a lack of material and production data to detect and mitigate these quality issues in real time. Quality issues occur in your production line when your workers follow inconsistent processes and turn out variances of the same product. Another reason why escapes occur is the inability to detect quality issues early on, most commonly due to a lack of operational and material tracking data.
Unlike many other sectors, luxury goods manufacturing has a highly manual production process. After all, it’s the handmade quality that attracts buyers and justifies the premium price. While manufacturers need to maintain the human element in their production process, they also need to solve the challenge of inconsistent quality and late detection of defects. By adopting digital tools such as digital work instructions, luxury goods manufacturers can start building human-centric operations in which technologies serve to augment their employees’ skills — enabling them to work faster, better, and more efficiently.
Paperless Manufacturing: The Hidden ROI
When you look at the dynamic nature of manufacturing operations and all the stakeholders involved that need to collaborate and share information successfully, the benefits of a paperless environment extend beyond the shop floor. As manufacturers continually look at ways to cut costs and operate more efficiently, the easy answer to that is: going paperless.
You can eliminate a portion of your overhead costs, enhance productivity and help out the environment. Going paperless may seem like a daunting task, but it’s easier to implement than you think.
How Delphi Technologies Reduced Scrap and Improved Transparency with Smart Work Station
In Delphi’s Torreon Plant, they manufacture sensors with specific elements that detect specific changes or issues in how the engine is working. Due to untracked quality issues and incorrect parameters, they were producing a higher than acceptable volume of scrap, from which it was not possible to recover materials. While these quality issues did not impact customers, they led to increased materials costs. They believed they could reduce the volume of scrap by tracking and addressing key elements of the production process, but did not have a software tool that supported that level of granularity. They selected Smart Work Station to address the problem.
Smart Work Station offers Delphi the flexibility to document key elements of the process on the floor, including the recording of personalized data to correlate with performance and quality metrics. Using checklists and digital work instructions, they have been able to ensure consistent execution of processes and measure the results of those efforts.