An increasing number of companies are utilising logistics expertise outside their own operation, with benefits in efficiency and customer service. Many of the functions within the logistics chain can now be subcontracted to third parties. A leader in this movement and one which can offer a wider...

The USA's Council of Logistics Management has long stressed its aim of promoting leadership. Reflecting this theme, its 25th anniversary conference was addressed by four recognised leaders in the field. Brian Rooks listened to their talks and extracted some of the messages and lessons they gave...

At its Deeside plant in North Wales, Pilkington Micronics produces 0.4‐4mm glass panels for use in LCD and emissive displays for watches, calculators and laptop computers. The material for these panels is cut to size, ground and packed at Deeside. Describes the automation of the packing...

The current state in the application of lasers for cutting and welding is reviewed. Most cutting operations are performed on specifically developed laser machine tools such as the Trumpf Lasercell and its application in the development of trim shapes and low volume panel production at a...

Reports on the Robot & Automation show held at the Birmingham National Exhibition Centre alongside the MACH 2000 and other principal manufacturing shows. Some of the robot applications developed by exhibiting systems integrators are described including installations for monitoring clean room...

Describes the background and development of a battery powered domestic robot vacuum cleaner. Major problems that have been solved are having the ability to clean a whole room without human intervention, and cleaning as well as a mains‐powered manual cleaner. A total of 50 on‐board sensors...

An extremely high‐pressure jet of water is an efficient method of cutting soft materials, and combining the waterjet process with industrial robots is an economic alternative to the traditional punch tool method of producing complex‐shaped components for car interiors, such as floor carpets,...

A new application for the industrial robot has emerged, inspection, with two players emerging, Stäubli and Amatec Robotics of the Kuka Roboter Group. Both companies’ systems and their competing benefits are discussed. Until this new development, car bodies were inspected on‐line with arrays...

A demonstrator cell has been developed at Airbus UK for building large aircraft wing box assemblies by a partnership of six companies partly funded under the UK government’s civil aviation research and demonstration (CARAD) programme. The cell has shown the feasibility of assembling the three...

Describes an installation at Aerospace Composite Technologies in Luton to apply ice protection heating elements to the leading edge portion of the main rotor blade fitted to the Westland EH101 military helicopter. The elements comprising a layer of porous conductive metal are plasma sprayed...