Industrial Automation and Motion Control Blog | The Knotts Company

This post is brought to you by Unitronics.

Summary:  Mar Cor Purification, Inc. specializes in manufacturing pure water and disinfection products for the medical, pharmaceutical and other life science industries.  In order to develop a portable reverse osmosis water purification system—an important development for at home dialysis systems—they needed a compact, user friendly PLC to automate the purification and sanitization process.  Mar Cor selected the Unitronics Vision570 PLC with integrated 5.7-inch color touch HMI for its reliability, compact design and easy communication features.

This post is brought to you by Universal Robots.

French television viewers of the Rio Olympics were treated to robot enhanced camera work with Universal Robots’ partner Augmented Robotics, AR+. The company, located in Laval, France, joined a UR10 robot arm with its proprietary software for an operator-free camera solution where the camera can be mounted to either a gantry or dolly track system to work primarily in closed spaces or to perform precise, repetitive camera movements.

It's almost time for the International Manufacturing Technology Show at McCormick Place in Chicago. Taking place September 12th - 17th, this show comes around every two years and is one of the largest trade shows. They have more than 2,000 exhibiting companies and 114,147 registrants.

Robots are not new to the American manufacturing industry. Assembly line robotics have been instrumental in improving quality and efficiency in automobile assembly, electronics, furniture and more. But the autonomous mobile robot is a new venture that is sure to help factories even more.

This post is brought to you by Dorner.

There are many factors that drive food processors to upgrade their conveyor systems to a more sanitary platform. Leading the charge is the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which takes a more proactive approach toward food safety by adding safeguards to try and prevent contamination or problems from occurring within the nation’s food supply in the first place. Besides the FSMA, companies cannot afford to have a contamination outbreak traced back to poor sanitary designs in their equipment. The risks to their reputation and to their customers’ well-being are too great.

This post is brought to you by Humphrey Products.

New from Humphrey, the iDP Series of inert Diaphragm Poppet valves contain features ideal for hazardous liquid applications.  iDP valves are constructed with material suitable for bodily fluids, aggressive chemicals & cleaning fluids and elevated liquid temperatures.  The engineered diaphragm feature isolates the liquid media from the solenoid element ensuring long life and sustained performance.

The Knotts Company has added 4 new employees over the last 12 months and we are excited to share more about them with you!

Article posted 7/27/2016 by Kagan Pittman on engineering.com

Manufacturing industry tools, systems and factories are becoming “smart,” thanks to the approach of the so-called fourth industrial revolution.

In trying to keep up with this technological evolution, the factory mainstays of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) are meeting their match in the next generation of technology for autonomous mobile robots (AMRs).

This post is brought to you by Universal Robots.

Who cannot relate to this? You are driving to work, listening to the radio to brighten up the dull commute. But listening quickly becomes boring if the radio keeps playing the same five hit songs over and over again. Similarly, packing goods in a production can be a very dull task and while some people can make the best out of almost every boring situation, nobody enjoys doing the same repetitive job day in and day out.

This post is brought to you by Dorner.

In certain production processes, product is random, misaligned or spread out. This can occur either on purpose or as a result of the process.  For example, in an oven, product should be spread out to allow for even baking. However, further down the line the product needs to be reoriented or placed in specific rows and spacing. The challenge is how to take randomly spread product and create neat rows with spacing.