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Supercomputers, AI and the metaverse

This supercomputer will be used in an EU-funded metaverse project to understand how the human brain works. Arunima SarkarLead, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, World Economic Forum and Nikhil MalhotraChief Innovation Officer, Tech Mahindra Supercomputers are ultrafast processors used to manage and interpret vast quantities of data. Artificial Intelligence (AI) relies on and benefits from the global race for faster supercomputers. Ultra-fast data processing brings with it far-reaching and fundamental ethical questions. Since the beginning of this year, there has been a lot of hype, skepticism, cynicism, and confusion surrounding the concept of the metaverse. For some, it has added to the confusion of an already elusive world of augmented reality and mixed reality. But for the well-initiated, the metaverse is a landmark moment in the extended reality world; a world approaching the ‘second life’ that many have long predicted. News that some of the world’s top tech firms are rapidly developing AI supercomputers has further fueled that anticipation. But what will the entry of supercomputers mean for the metaverse and virtual reality — and how can we manage it responsibly? What is a supercomputer? Simply put, a supercomputer is a computer with a very high level of performance. That performance, which far outclasses any consumer laptop or desktop PC available on the shelves, can, among other things, be used to process vast quantities of data and draw key insights from it. These computers are massive parallel arrangements of computers — or processing units — which can perform the most complex computing operations. Whenever you hear about supercomputers, you’re likely to hear the term FLOPS — “floating point operations per second.” FLOPS is a key measure of performance for these top-end processors. Floating numbers, in essence, are those with decimal points, including very long ones. These decimal numbers are key when processing […]

Siemens extends mechanical performance with Simcenter 3D

Siemens’ Simcenter 3D software, part of Siemens’ Xcelerator portfolio of software and services, enables engineers to tackle the complexity of product development and innovation with advanced simulation. Among the new capabilities, Simcenter 3D offers increased support for turbomachinery modeling, a dedicated drop test application for handheld devices, tightly integrated topology optimisation with the NX Design environment, and a new acoustic solution method that is up to 10 times faster than standard methods. Simcenter 3D brings together combined expertise and experience across a wide range of industry sectors, capabilities and physics. Customers are finding bold new ways to make use of complex physics simulation to drive innovation across industries. Siemens’ Simcenter 3D 2022.1 release focuses on helping engineers overcome challenges in four key areas: Model the complexity: The ability to model and understand complex physical phenomena is at the forefront of this Simcenter 3D release. Simcenter 3D’s industry-leading solution for the turbomachinery industry has been extended with additional thermal multiphysics, rotordynamics and thermal fatigue capabilities to more accurately capture the complex physics happening within these machines. A new dedicated set of tools to simulate spiral bevel gears, as often found in automotive differentials, enables accurate, system-level NVH analysis on these mechanisms to reduce gear whine. Additionally, a new dedicated application simplifies and streamlines the drop-test simulation process for electronic and other handheld devices for engineers who are not simulation experts. Explore the possibilities: Acoustics auralisation capabilities allow engineers to not only simulate but also listen to the acoustics/sound within the context of the end-user’s experience. Engineers can now mix all contributing sounds and listen to the combined acoustics results to answer questions such as “What will a loudspeaker sound like when you put it in a car and combine it with background noise from the engine, HVAC, wind and road?” In […]

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ToolBox suite gives laser job shops a boost for industry 4.0

A new laser cutting and fabrication quoting tool suite is being introduced to Australasia and Asia-Pacific to save job shops time, and keep quotes accurate and consistent, no matter who is preparing them. The ToolBox digital tool kit from Tempus Tools Inc turns a CAD drawing into an accurate quote in seconds, and the time saved can be used to allow laser job shop staff and resources to be reallocated into areas such as business growth. Toolbox can also provide an innovative 3D unfolding service, whereby it can be fed full 3D schematics of a product and it will select precisely all the 2D sheet metal surfaces required to be cut by a laser workshop. It’s also possible to create the drawing without using any CAD software, using Toolbox’s Quick Part parametric parts library. Quick Part has a broad range of customisable parts, including brackets, flanges, gussets, and plates that can be adjusted to the specific needs of the user. “ToolBox is designed to put the tools in the hands of small laser cutting and fabrication workshops that are looking to grow their business. It helps with cleaning drawings, part creation or extraction, and laser cutting calculations, so the business can quote more jobs and expand its operations,” says Mr Felipe Lechuga, President, Tempus Tools. “With the shift to Industry 4.0, slow quoting processes just aren’t competitive anymore, so job shops need new tools to get the job done faster, more accurately, and with total consistency,” says Mr Lechuga. The laser cutting market is growing due to its importance to vital industries such as automotive, aviation, architectural and construction products, defense, engineering electrical, manufacturing, metals, mining and energy, shipbuilding and textiles. “Customers in these demanding industries need fast quotes. ToolBox empowers job shops, particularly smaller ones, to win more projects […]

CFO 4.0 instrumental in building the factory of the future

SYSPRO has announced new research into CFO 4.0, which reveals that the manufacturing CFO will play a critical strategic, innovative and financial role in the business moving forward. The study, which was conducted in July to September 2021 and led by SYSPRO, assessed the sentiment amongst senior level Chief Financial Officers within manufacturing sectors across the Americas, APAC and EMEA. The participants encompassed financial leaders across both SMEs and larger enterprises, indicating that these results reflect the insights of a wide range of players in the Manufacturing and Distribution space. The diversification of business operations The study revealed that the disruptions caused by the pandemic played a catalytic role in the diversification of manufacturing businesses. In order to thrive, 65% of CFO respondents surveyed indicated that they have shifted expenditure into new markets, product lines and technologies. Drilling down further, the SYSPRO survey found: 33% of businesses expanded into new markets 29% of businesses innovated through the introduction of a new production line 39% of businesses will explore new routes to markets such as eCommerce channels In order to enable the diversification of business models, 29% of CFOs indicated that they would invest further into R&D. Building and securing a digital future When asked about future areas of investment to ensure continued success, 56% of CFO respondents indicated that they would be investing in warehouse automation, 37% of respondents confirmed that they would investigate migration to cloud-based services and 37% would be exploring SMART technologies including 3D printing, IoT, machine learning and artificial intelligence. 47% of CFOs also indicated that they will be investing in ERP to increase visibility, enhance transparency and data-driven decision making. Winning the war for talent When exploring the key reasons behind business disruptions in 2021, it comes as no surprise that 43% of respondents […]

Four steps for developing a successful IT infrastructure monitoring concept

-Sebastian Krueger, Vice President for Asia Pacific at Paessler AG IT and traditional engineering environments don’t tend to be bundled together rather one tends to be a support extension that allows the other to work more productively. However, as more New Zealand companies embark on their digital transformation, more businesses are increasingly relying on multi-cloud strategies, diverse applications and complex infrastructures to drive business outcomes and enhance outputs. With the many layers and complexities, analysing performance and reliability is increasingly difficult. IT Monitoring should be at the core of IT environments of any size, but observability becomes even more crucial in larger environments that feature more than 1,000 monitored devices and applications – such as manufacturing. If large enterprises optimise and organise their monitoring better they will save time and money while delivering better IT services to their employees, partners, suppliers and customers. A good way of looking at it is, if IT is the foundation of large organisations, then monitoring is the insurance for their IT. To ensure business continuity, IT teams have had to adapt several IT strategies, from expanding VPN capacity to finding different ways of doing unified communications (UC). Gartner says that SD-WAN solutions will serve two to three per cent of the global remote workforce by the end of 2021, driven by the need to improve and secure work-from-home connectivity. Monitoring is a vital but complex task in large enterprises, in order to create a successful concept for monitoring a large IT infrastructure, these four steps are crucial to developing a successful monitoring concept: Define points of measurement, thresholds, and alerts Segment the network Build a centralised overview Define response teams and set up notifications Define points of measurement Prior to planning a monitoring architecture, it is important to understand the entire environment. And at […]

Fiercely competitive new normal driving technology adoption for manufacturers

By Jarrod Kinchington, Infor ANZ managing director Manufacturers worldwide are eager for signs of recovery and are also bracing for the next wave of change it will bring. While some manufacturers spent the past year in a holding pattern, others accelerated their adoption of digital technologies. Those early adopters have kindled new market expectations for speed, value, and customer engagement. It’s a new era, new rules, new ways to achieve success. Improving visibility in the supply chain, accommodating digital commerce, adopting safe distancing within plants, and enacting new safety protocols for employees were among the typical “adapt-to-survive” tactics completed in 2020. Pragmatic manufacturers focused on the long-term opportunities. They accelerated digital initiatives and fast-tracked deployment of cloud-based solutions to take advantage of emerging micro-markets, shifts in consumer attitudes, and a move to regional sourcing. The ability to stand up new business models quickly proved valuable for the entrepreneurial minded. Many manufacturers used the time to direct energies toward R&D, building partnerships at regional levels, testing new pricing models, and migrating solutions from on-premises to the cloud. Use of ecosystems and partnerships also escalated, proving to be effective in co-innovation and problem-solving. “When the pandemic impacted businesses a year ago, most brands and enterprises scrambled to accelerate digital transformation efforts,” writes R Ray Wang of Constellation Research in a blog post. He reports that efforts have ranged from rekindling digital channel projects to forging new digital revenue streams. “These accomplishments accelerated five years of digital transformation in less than one year’s time.” A survey by Deloitte found that 62% of manufacturers are committed to continuing or accelerating their factories’ digital transformation. On average, manufacturers expect to apply 36% of their factory investments toward smart manufacturing, an impressive 20% increase over last year’s figure. “The disruption and economic hardship caused by the […]

Additive Manufacturing Network platform connects community of design engineers

By Schaeffler, a global automotive and industrial supplier, to connect its community of design engineers with its AM Fab Shop for additive manufacturing to facilitate collaboration, speed time to production and to foster greater application of the benefits of additive manufacturing (AM) within its value-chain. Siemens’ AM Network digitalises the additive manufacturing workflows (order-to-delivery process chain) of customers and partners, as well as applying additive manufacturing on an industrial-grade to scale their business. With the AM Network, customers and partners are enabled to build up their own additive manufacturing ecosystem (company-internally as well as with their trusted external suppliers/partners), and to join the existing ecosystem already established over the past years on the AM Network platform. With demand for additively manufactured parts growing exponentially among its R&D designers and engineers, Schaeffler has adopted Siemens’ AM Network as the single platform for all engineering/ technical collaboration throughout the entire AM order-to-delivery process. This cloud-native platform enables it to take advantage of the benefits of additive manufacturing more quickly, efficiently and at greater rate of scale by digitalising and streamlining additive manufacturing workflows. R&D designers and engineers are guided through the AM part qualification process, as defined by the AM Fab Shop, while shop floor operations and machine utilisation have been streamlined to increase efficiency. Time and effort are saved with increased throughput while fostering a wider understanding of the benefits of additive, better formalisation of best practice and ultimately, more efficient execution and more timely delivery of the successfully 3D printed parts. Siemens‘ Additive Manufacturing Network platform was selected not only to assist orchestrating the end-to-end order-to-delivery process for industrial additive manufacturing, but was perceived as a long-term partner to grow with and to explore further opportunities to create a fully digitised end-to-end AM workflow and value chain. The Additive Manufacturing […]

WebLytics solution for collaborative applications

OnRobot makes its software debut with the launch of WebLytics, a unique production monitoring, device diagnostics, and data analytics solution designed to enhance productivity and minimise downtime. Capable of monitoring the performance of multiple collaborative applications simultaneously and in real-time, WebLytics gathers equipment data from both robots and tools and transforms it into easy-to-understand, visualised device and application-level intelligence. WebLytics provides real-time, application-focused data for collaborative applications across major robot brands. WebLytics marks the beginning of OnRobot’s journey into robot software and completes their vision of providing a One Stop Shop for collaborative applications on both the hardware and software side. For end users and integrators, WebLytics not only eliminates manual data collection — it provides actionable insights into how well a collaborative application is performing, offering live device diagnostics, alerts and preventive maintenance measures to keep costly robot cell downtime to a minimum. Integrating the globally recognised overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) industry standard, WebLytics identifies trends in real-time in the robot cell, including patterns, peaks, and disturbances in application productivity. OEE measures the percentage of manufacturing time that is truly productive – a score of 100% indicates that the collaborative application is producing only good parts, as fast as possible, and with no downtime. Leveraging these OEE measures, WebLytics can determine whether the manufacturing process is running at optimal speed and can monitor and analyse the quality of application cycles –key insights for manufacturers of all sizes. WebLytics can report on utilisation of the robot arm and OnRobot tools such as grippers, vision cameras, and sensors, as well as the number of safety stops initiated, and the number of grip cycles performed while an application is running. When changes are made to a robot cell, such as adjusting the speed of a robot or the settings on a gripper, […]

Australian manufacturer develops cutting edge tool for underwater recovery

The custom recovery jaws will assist HEART with underwater recovery missions. Blueprint Lab, an Australian robotics manufacturer, has developed custom jaws for their Alpha robotic arm which will allow for greater grip on fabric when resurfacing underwater drowning victims. This tool was developed for the Hutterian Emergency Aquatic Rescue Team (HEART). HEART are a volunteer group of certified divers from Manitoba, Canada who specialise in emergency water search, rescue and recovery. Using a combination of highly-skilled human divers and specialised technology, they are able to recover victims of tragic drowning accidents from the waterways of their region, including arctic underwater environments. The HEART operators have been using Blueprint Lab’s Reach Alpha subsea robotic grabber to assist them in recovery missions but were having trouble with the intense grip stability required to resurface deceased victims. They got creative and temporarily installed a makeshift DIY nail modification to their grabber in the short term, and then approached Blueprint Lab for an engineered solution. Blueprint Lab’s engineering team began developing and testing a grabber upgrade that would fulfil these specific task requirements, resulting in a new tool specialised for Search and Recovery – the Reach Alpha Special Recovery Tool. As well as looking the part, the Special Recovery Tool is strong, sturdy, and sharp making it an effective solution for HEART’s requirements. The Blueprint Lab team are thrilled to have worked with HEART to ensure their continued mission success. Always keen to rise to the operational challenges faced by partners and customers no matter how unique or challenging. “Here at HEART Team we use the Blueprint Lab manipulator on our VideoRay Pro 5 ROV for body recoveries. We had an opportunity to speak with the folks from Blueprint Lab about our work and the need for a grabber that is more suitable for […]

Robotic solution to nuclear waste

An innovative robotic solution to mapping and segmenting different levels of nuclear waste without the need to put humans into a hazardous radioactive environment has been proven by a pioneering company. Createc is behind some of the world’s most advanced technologies in robotics and computer imaging and is well-known for finding solutions to some of the world’s most complex industrial challenges. Createc’s Automated Nuclear Detection Cell (AND-C) innovation responds to the challenge of removing nuclear workers from hazardous environments by providing a system that can remotely scan items for radioactive contamination and then automatically remove the contamination. Createc’s technology involves an AND-C sensor pack being deployed on a robotic arm. The sensor scans the contaminated item and the 3D radiation contamination map is transferred directly to the robotic system to guide the arm to the precise location and remove the contamination. The AND-C system allows remote radioactive decontamination without requiring operators to work inside a hazardous nuclear environment. In many nuclear decommissioning facilities, a decontamination cell is used to process transport containers on site so that they can be sentenced to low level waste. This is labour intensive work which needs to be carried out using complex PPE and sometimes air-fed suits and involves multiple operational teams as well as support staff and radiation protection staff. Combining Createc’s proven technology for radiation mapping with nuclear robotic arms means the precise location of the contamination can be identified and removed without having to put nuclear workers into this hazardous environment. It means operations can be carried out more safely, sooner and also at less financial cost. Identifying different levels of nuclear waste in this way will result in significant financial savings as it will mean low level waste will not be sent to intermediate level waste facilities unnecessarily. Createc’s tried and tested N-Visage […]

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