How 5 Big Moves Kept a Small Manufacturing Business Alive

Phil VanderKraats is an artist, first and foremost. His milieu is crafting intricate, custom signs for businesses. For many years after starting Signs by Van in Prunedale, CA, Phil experienced success and supported his family with his passion-meets-means occupation. But when 2008’s Great Recession hit, his small manufacturing business—which served businesses and municipalities since 1981—took a hard…

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Could Small-Town USA Be the Future of the Manufacturing Industry?

There’s a scene in the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factorywhere the title character shows off his “revolutionary, nonpollutionary, mechanical wonder” in action. Willy Wonka, with a twinkle in his eye, pushes a single button, and the entire machine whirs to life, mixing and milling and drilling. After a few seconds of constrained chaos, out pops a flawless,…

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How the Digital Supply Chain Will Change the Future of Manufacturing

A transformation of manufacturing supply chains is ushering in the fourth modality of logistics. To ground, air, and ocean, manufacturers can now add digital. The move to the digital supply chain—the power source for Industry 4.0—creates multiple opportunities for every company in every industry. But every revolution needs exemplars to help lead the way, and…

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5 Top Manufacturing Trends to Expect in 2019

Innovations such as drones, 3D printing, artificial intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT) have been steadily maturing along their own trajectories. Insiders, pundits, and surveyed companies say that in 2019, these trends will continue their recent convergence into a tapestry of industrial tools that’s greater than the sum of its parts. The manufacturing…

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Robots on the Rise: 5 Examples of Innovations in Industrial Robotics

The term industrial robotics might conjure huge, fast-moving machines engaged in the kind of repetitive, dangerous work that humans used to handle: building automobiles, welding parts, and so on. Although those machines will certainly continue to take on larger roles in manufacturing, innovations in industrial robotics have started to lead humanity in intriguing new directions. From delicate…

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5 Ways the Modern Assembly Line Moved to Automation and Back to Humanization

Since the debut of the modern assembly line on at the Ford Plant in Highland Park, Michigan on December 1, 1913, manufacturers have continually experimented with improving its promise of speed, efficiency, and reliability. Far from a static technology, the assembly line invites change: Automation via robotics, new factory designs that lower manufacturing’s environmental impact,…

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What You Didn’t Know You Can Learn from Working in a Factory

The manufacturing industry’s evolution can be traced along the same lines as that of the tech industry. One of the most basic and common factors in the evolution cycle in both industries is the reduction of the human interface. From the manual manufacturing of yesteryears, the industry is making a shift towards digital manufacturing and…

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The Big Trends Shaping the Factory of the Future

Technical innovation is reshaping traditional industries—take BIM’s (Building Information Modeling) impact on construction planning and smart devices in the energy sector. Manufacturing has experienced its own transformation, but the factory itself hasn’t fundamentally changed since Ford’s Model T production line in the 1920s. While machinery has drastically changed since then, the factory itself hasn’t quite…

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4 Mobile Search Marketing Strategies for Marketers

With over 80% of internet users now owning a smartphone, more and more searches are being conducted via mobile devices. In fact, according to a study commissioned by Google, 42% of B2B researchers now use mobile for the purchase process. Sufficed say, if you have a poor search marketing strategy for mobile then you might…

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