Any visitor’s heartbeat will increase when they hear Factory 2050 project at AMRC which are starting and producing real-world answers to today’s manufacturing hurdles that are completely fascinating and engrossing. The researchers were filled with extra enthusiasm which added glow to the experience. They displayed their projects that included teaching a robot how to polish builders’ line pins.
Even the advanced manufacturing company Sheffield hand tool company Footprints need help, they makes line pins using a drop forge. Later workers do more polishing and sharpening them on a polishing machine. The problems of Footprints can’t be replaced as the ageing employees’ who have achieved the necessary polishing skills over decades. They are referring it to just a job young people queuing up to apply for. So, AMRC Factory 2050 is trying to program a robot for acquiring the knowledge the ‘eye’’ and the skills to do the job in future.
They describe how there guide and he turned to see two very old, quite battered machine tools that would not have looked out of place in a 1960s machine shop. They felt like they were finding a Model T Ford in a supercar showroom. They have to compete with the gigantic biggest robot in the U.K. named KUKA Titan. The researchers dedicated their life towards future which was two blasts from the past.
One of the very good reason that were accompanying the researchers on the tour was Paul Haimes from PTC, one of the Internet of Things Factory, an industry 4.0 research project within Factory 2050 along with PTC’s Thingworx software at its core. The machine is not visible but they are packed with the tiny sensors communicating data in just the same way any new machinery on the market would do.
He also exclaims that IoT retrofit had enabled these dinosaurs in order to operate in an industry 4.0 world. The cost of such sensors is very high which will be imported in future. Everyone in the international market is trying to grasp this opportunity of having such sensors. The cost consumption has become less and an old machine to deliver predictive analytics via your MES or to connect with the kind of supply chain via your ERP, delivering real-time information to whoever needs it.