Capturing this week's zeitgeist
This week's most influential Industry 4.0 media.
In the wake of Renewcell’s bankruptcy announcement, some concluded that fashion brands weren’t ready to make the leap to adopting ‘circular textiles’, but IFC’s financing round hinged on brands purchasing in advance the majority of the recycled fiber capacity from the first years of the scaled factory’s output. So, how do Renewcell’s and IFC’s technologies and business models differ? How might IFC avoid the commercial challenges faced by Renewcell (who also count H&M as an investor)?
Infinited Fiber Company’s Co-founder and CEO, Petri Alava, went on to point out significant differences in the feedstock sources, funding and commercialisation model of IFC, compared to Renewcell. Regarding feedstocks, he explains: “we are obtaining post-consumer textiles discarded clothing, as well as dust airborne textile fibers from mechanical textile recycling factories in Turkey and North Africa. IFC has secured it’s used clothing and textile waste from Europe-based garment collectors and sorters.
Back in 2018, Timescale first announced how we planned to build a self-sustaining open-source business in the cloud era and that we had started developing features under a new, source-available license called the Timescale License (TSL). At the time, the TSL was a radical idea: a source-available license that was open-source in spirit but that contained a main restriction: preventing companies from offering software licensed under the TSL via a hosted database-as-a-service.
The TSL, like the Elastic License before it and the Confluent Community License (coincidentally launched around the same time), are examples of what we call “Cloud Protection Licenses.” These licenses attempt to maintain an open-source spirit but recognize that the cloud has increasingly become the dominant form of open-source commercialization.
Here is how a Rochester, New York-based, family-owned mold builder, Accede Mold & Tool, innovated to overcome obstacles presented by travel restrictions and customer budget constraints by developing and implementing a remote mold validation process. While born out of necessity during the emergence of the pandemic, the process persists and has delivered considerable time and cost savings for its customers and benefits for the mold builder.
For remote mold validation, Accede has a carefully curated kit that contains a decently powered computer for graphics, cam links to turn regular high-performance cameras into webcams, a USB microscope for inspecting plastic parts under magnification, studio lights, mounts and noise-canceling headsets for the production environment. This kit ensures Accede is always prepared for remote mold validations.
Highlighting new and innovative facilities, processes, products, and services
Covariant is announcing RFM-1, which the company describes as a robotics foundation model that gives robots the “human-like ability to reason.” “Foundation model” means that RFM-1 can be trained on more data to do more things—at the moment, it’s all about warehouse manipulation because that’s what it’s been trained on, but its capabilities can be expanded by feeding it more data. “Our existing system is already good enough to do very fast, very variable pick and place,” says Covariant co-founder Pieter Abbeel. “But we’re now taking it quite a bit further. Any task, any embodiment—that’s the long-term vision. Robotics foundation models powering billions of robots across the world.” From the sound of things, Covariant’s business of deploying a large fleet of warehouse automation robots was the fastest way for them to collect the tens of millions of trajectories (how a robot moves during a task) that they needed to train the 8 billion parameter RFM-1 model.
In its first iteration, Agility Arc will provide customers with operational visibility into critical KPIs like uptime, throughput, Mean Time Between Incidents (MTBI), and robot status, allowing customers to understand what’s happening in the workcell and how Digit is performing. Additionally, Agility Arc will provide industry standard APIs to simplify integration with existing Warehouse Management Systems (WMS), Warehouse Execution Systems (WES), and Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) among others.
Lyten, a supermaterials application company and the leader in lithium-sulfur battery technology, announced it is consistently surpassing 90 percent yield from its automated battery production line, confirming the manufacturability of its lithium-sulfur battery utilizing a sulfur cathode and lithium metal anode.
The lithium-sulfur manufacturing performance has been achieved utilizing standard lithium-ion manufacturing equipment and processes. The conversion of lithium-ion equipment to produce lithium-sulfur batteries in Lyten’s pilot facility required 6 weeks and less than 2% of the total capital cost. This confirms Lyten’s ability to rapidly scale by converting existing Li-ion gigafactories to lithium-sulfur with minimal cost and time.
Lyten’s lithium-sulfur battery chemistry utilizes no NMP (N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone) in the cathode manufacturing process, eliminating the potential health, safety, and environmental impacts of the highly toxic solvent standard in today’s lithium-ion batteries. Additionally, the lithium-sulfur battery cell has proven to be highly tolerant of metallic contamination, significantly reducing the capital equipment and operational costs associated with preventing metal contamination in today’s leading battery chemistries, namely NMC and LFP.
Lyten’s lithium-sulfur battery contains no nickel, cobalt, manganese, or graphite in the cathode and anode, enabling an entirely locally sourced and manufactured battery. Lyten expects to achieve 98%+ yields at scale and will begin delivering commercial lithium-sulfur cells for non-EV customers in aerospace and government applications in 2024 from its San Jose pilot production facility. Lyten is executing engineering and design, procuring equipment, and evaluating locations to rapidly scale up lithium-sulfur manufacturing to meet growing interest from EV, trucking, space, aerospace, and government customers.
Scientists from Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, have led an international team to a clean energy breakthrough by setting a new efficiency record for fully roll-to-roll printed solar cells. Printed onto thin plastic films, this lightweight and flexible solar technology will help meet the growing demand for renewable energy by expanding the boundaries of where solar cells can be used. The team demonstrated performances for solar cells of 15.5% efficiency on a small scale and 11% for a 50 cm2 module, which is a record for fully printed solar cells.
CSIRO is actively seeking industry partners to further develop and commercialise this technology.
How governments are shaping the future industrial landscape.
As companies around the world look for a back-up to China to protect themselves from geopolitical disruptions — a strategy known as China plus one — Malaysia is becoming a surprise investment destination. It has a 50-year history in the “back end” of the semiconductor manufacturing supply chain: packaging, assembling and testing chips. But it has ambitions to move up to the front end of a $520bn global industry that powers everything from televisions to smartphones and electric vehicles. That includes higher value activities such as wafer fabrication and integrated circuit design.
Developing Malaysia’s semiconductor industry and workforce into this higher value manufacturing is a “critical goal,” says prime minister Anwar Ibrahim in an interview with the Financial Times.
The Government of India is open to give opportunities to any state that would like to focus on the semiconductor industry, Union Minister of Railways, Communications and Electronics & Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw said at the inauguration of the Qualcomm design center in Chennai. His comments come a day after the ground breaking ceremonies for three semiconductor projects, including the Tata Group’s $11 billion semiconductor fab facility in Dholera in Gujarat, the Rs 27,000 crore chip assembly, testing, marking and packaging facility at Morigaon in Assam and Murugappa Group’s CG Power’s Rs 7,600 crore chip assembly facility at Sanand in Gujarat.
Also, one of the reasons that these regions were being selected for the manufacturing units was because of the chemical hub situated in Dahej in Gujarat, Vaishnaw said.
The Tennessee Lithium project, announced on September 1, 2022, will focus on converting lithium hydroxide to power the cathodes in lithium-ion vehicle batteries. Tennessee was selected for its central role in America’s “Battery Belt” and as a key contributor to the U.S. electrification economy. “It came down to multiple factors, the first being the quality of the site,” said Blair. The North Etowah Industrial Park has excellent rail access and is near other EV battery component manufacturers in the “battery belt.” Etowah City Manager Russ Blair told the local paper in September 2022 that Piedmont planned to invest nearly $600 million into the county.
“Shortly after we announced the location for Tennessee Lithium, we were honored to be selected in October 2022 for a $141.7 million U.S. Department of Energy grant to support project construction,” said Piedmont spokesperson Erin Sanders.
This week's top funding events, acquisitions, and partnerships across industrial value chains.
Applied Intuition, Inc., a vehicle software supplier for automotive, trucking, construction, mining, agriculture, and other industries, has raised a $250 million Series E financing round at a $6 billion valuation. The round was led by Bilal Zuberi at Lux Capital (Series C lead investor), Elad Gil (Series D lead investor), and strategic investor Porsche Investments Management S.A. representing the well-known successful sports car manufacturer from Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen. Applied Intuition also announced the following new and existing investors: Andreessen Horowitz (Series A lead investor), General Catalyst (Series B lead investor), Mary Meeker at BOND, Human Capital, Henry Kravis, Mustafa Suleyman, Ray Dalio, John Quinn, and Nico Rosberg.
Applied Intuition has maintained sustainable triple-digit percentage growth year-over-year, profitably. It has expanded beyond its Silicon Valley headquarters to Detroit, Washington, D.C., Germany, Korea, and Japan and has customers worldwide, including 18 of the top 20 automotive OEMs.
The company will use the financing to make significant investments in generative AI to unlock substantial value for customers and partners. With recent advancements in large language models (LLMs), Applied Intuition is uniquely positioned to help its customers revolutionize the vehicle software development process. The company will continue to recruit the world’s best software and AI engineers to further expand its offerings that enable its customers to have the world’s most advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and automated driving (AD) solutions.
Luminary Cloud, a pioneer in realtime engineering, announced its official launch out of stealth. A computer-aided engineering (CAE) SaaS platform, Luminary empowers smarter and faster design cycles, allowing engineers to develop better products in a fraction of the time. Backed by Sutter Hill Ventures, which led its $115 million funding, Luminary’s customers span industries including aerospace and defense, automotive, sporting goods, industrial equipment, and more.
Luminary’s platform makes it possible to run high-fidelity simulations 100 times faster than legacy vendors by leveraging the raw speed of GPU- and cloud-based processing. Its proprietary simulation platform is powered by massively parallel NVIDIA GPU clusters in the cloud. With hyper-fast and accurate simulations, engineers can iterate and test a variety of scenarios, answer more questions, and use these insights to optimize product design.
Nozomi Networks Inc., the worldwide leader in OT and IoT security, announced a $100 million Series E funding round to help accelerate innovative cyber defenses and expand cost-efficient go-to-market expansion globally. This latest round includes investments from Mitsubishi Electric, a global leader in digital manufacturing, electronics and electrical equipment and Schneider Electric, a global leader in digital automation and energy management. They join a growing list of OT original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) who have invested in Nozomi Networks, including previous investors Honeywell and Johnson Controls.
The company will use this latest investment to help scale product development efforts as well as its go-to-market approach globally. With criminal and nation-state cyber threats to industrial and critical infrastructure on the rise, the need for Nozomi Networks solutions has never been greater. At the same time, recent consolidation in the OT and IoT security space is driving a new need for full-featured solutions that aren’t limited to single-vendor support, but rather are able to holistically address the cybersecurity requirements of the vast majority of industrial and critical infrastructure organizations who must protect complex, multi-vendor environments.
Bear Robotics, a Silicon Valley trailblazer in service robotics and artificial intelligence solutions, announced the completion of a $60 million Series C funding round. This round is exclusively led by LG Electronics, a global leader in technology and innovation. This strategic infusion propels Bear Robotics into new territories, targeting emerging markets such as smart warehousing and supply chain automation, where the company is poised to unveil its next-generation robotics platform, featuring autonomous navigation systems and adaptive learning algorithms, meticulously designed to meet the complex demands of modern supply chains and manufacturing processes.
Quaise Energy, the company unlocking terawatt-scale geothermal, announced the closing of a $21 Million Series A1 financing round led by Prelude Ventures and Safar Partners. Mitsubishi Corporation and Standard Investments are among several new investors participating in the round. This latest funding will enhance Quaise field operations and strengthen the company’s supply chain position, while ongoing product development will continue with pre-existing capital.
Quaise is uniquely positioned to harness deep geothermal energy worldwide at 3-20 km below the Earth’s surface. To achieve such a feat, the company has advanced a novel technique to vaporize rock using high-power microwaves in the millimeter range, based on more than a decade of research at MIT and recent testing at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The original MIT experiments have now been scaled up 100x, with field demonstrations commencing this year.
Furno, a startup dedicated to decarbonizing the cement production industry, announced the close of an oversubscribed $6.5M seed funding round and introduced its revolutionary, end-to-end cement production unit, the Furno Brick. Furno’s oversubscribed round was led by Energy Capital Ventures (ECV) and joined by O’Shaughnessy Ventures, Cantos and Neotribe. Breakthrough Energy participated in earlier, non-dilutive funding of the company. This funding will enable the company to continue to scale its technology, provide more customers with samples to garner feedback and, perhaps most significantly, aid in the development of the Furno Brick.
Furno addresses the immediate need for change and innovation in the cement sector with the world’s first modular and carbon-neutral cement plant that scales on demand, drastically reducing the barrier to entry and unlocking local or small-scale cement production. The company’s novel kiln and combustion technology allows for efficient cement production using gas-based versus solid fuels, which dramatically reduces CO2 emissions and eliminates nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulfur oxides (SOx) entirely. Furno’s innovative design also allows producers to build cement plants that are compact and cost-efficient, and enables them to add incremental capacity as needed.
Fluent Metal is developing production-grade liquid metal printing to remove barriers to entry into metal additive manufacturing, while allowing for unmatched scalability and process tunability. The company is launching out of stealth with an additional $3.2M in venture capital funding, led by E15 with participation from Pillar VC and industry angels, bringing the total funding to $5.5M. Fluent Metal’s drop-on-demand approach is compatible with most metals, including refractories, and enables the creation of parts in a single-step process, minimizing variability. It is energy efficient: using less starting material and producing no waste–making it far more sustainable than current powder-based metal 3D printers.
Berlin-based Quantistry, a provider of cloud-native chemical simulation platforms, announced on Tuesday that it has secured €3M in a fresh funding round led by Ananda Impact Ventures. Other investors, including Chemovator, the business incubator of BASF, IBB Ventures, and a Family Office, also participated in the round. The capital injection will boost Quantistry’s efforts to transform chemical and material R&D with Quantum and AI.
Quantistry offers an intuitive cloud-native chemical simulation platform tailored to designing and discovering new sustainable materials. The company does this through its computational platform, which integrates quantum technologies, physics-based simulations, and machine learning. By leveraging quantum-based simulations, multiscale modelling, and AI-driven insights, the company’s tool enhances the optimisation, discovery, and design of innovative materials, offering unprecedented benefits to industries seeking sustainable solutions.
LG Business Solutions USA is collaborating with SVT Robotics, a leading software provider that empowers IT teams to seamlessly integrate, monitor, and scale automation, to deploy LG’s new CLOi CarryBot autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) in U.S. warehouse environments. By leveraging the SOFTBOT® Platform from SVT Robotics, prebuilt integrations easily enable the LG CLOi CarryBot AMRs to connect to virtually any warehouse management solution.
LG’s CLOi CarryBot, offers warehouses a powerful, easy-to-use solution that can move up to 1.2 meters per second with 18 hours of runtime and a 6-hour charge time. Up to 100 CarryBots can operate in unison, enabling use in organizations and spaces of any size and complexity. A convenient, intuitive 9.2-inch color touchscreen provides info and control options.
Capturing this week's zeitgeist
MODEX 2024 is set to feature over 1,175 exhibitors, 200 sessions, and keynotes this week at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta!
Three planned demonstrations caught my eye:
This week's most influential Industry 4.0 media.
MIT researchers have developed a safety check technique which can prove with 100 percent accuracy that a robot’s trajectory will remain collision-free (assuming the model of the robot and environment is itself accurate). Their method, which is so precise it can discriminate between trajectories that differ by only millimeters, provides proof in only a few seconds.
The researchers accomplished this using a special algorithmic technique, called sum-of-squares programming, and adapted it to effectively solve the safety check problem. Using sum-of-squares programming enables their method to generalize to a wide range of complex motions.
In 2020, IoT Analytics questioned whether we were witnessing the start of the machine-outcome decade (the 2020s), where assets are not purchased as capital expenditures (CapEx) but, instead, are paid for on an outcome basis as operational expenses (OpEx). Moving from CapEx to OpEx helps companies with limited access to capital access equipment without a large upfront investment, and assets with unpredictable usage could be more cost-effective since the companies would only pay for what they use.
According to our latest research on the topic—the 147-page Equipment as a Service Market Report 2024–2028—the concepts of “equipment as a service” and “pay-per-use” have not taken off as much as expected, even though the greater subscription economy has. IoT Analytics’ estimates the adoption of “as-a-service” models is less than 1%—meaning that less than 1% of equipment sales in 2023 (machines, electronics, electrical equipment, etc.) was achieved with EaaS contracts.
Atomic-scale manufacturing of carbon-based quantum materials with single-bond precision holds immense potential in advancing tailor-made quantum materials with unconventional properties, which are crucial in developing next-generation spintronic devices and quantum information technologies. On-surface chemistry approaches, including surface-assisted synthesis and probe-assisted manipulation, are impeded by challenges in reaction selectivity control or restricted by scalability and production efficiency. Here we demonstrate the concept of the chemist-intuited atomic robotic probe by integrating probe chemistry knowledge and artificial intelligence, allowing for atomically precise single-molecule manipulation to fabricate single-molecule quantum π-magnets with single-bond precision. Our deep neural networks not only transform complex probe chemistry into machine-understandable tasks but also provide chemist intuition to elusive reaction mechanisms by extracting the critical chemical information within the data. A joint experimental and theoretical investigation demonstrates that a voltage-controlled two-electron-assisted electronic excitation enables synchronous six-bond transformations to extend the zigzag edge topology of single-molecule quantum π-magnets, triggered by phenyl C(sp2)–H bond activation, which aligns with initial conjectures given by the deep neural models. Our work represents a transition from autonomous fabrication to intelligent synthesis with levels of selectivity and precision beyond current synthetic tools for improved synthesis of organic quantum materials towards on-chip integration.
Highlighting new and innovative facilities, processes, products, and services
The J.Laverack Aston Martin .1R uses a flawless fusion of parametrically designed, 3D printed titanium lugs and sculpted carbon fibre tubes. This ensures a frame that not only delivers an exceptional blend of response and comfort, but also sets new standards of elegance and beauty on two wheels. The smooth unions of the lugs and tubes are truly innovative and the herringboned weave of the carbon fibre on display is immaculate, despite the intricacy involved in manufacturing.
Plataine, a leading innovator of AI-based manufacturing optimization solutions, introduces its Autoclave Scheduler Solution, part of Plataine’s Total Production Optimization (TPO) solution suite. Operating autoclaves is associated with significant expenses, a high carbon footprint, and often creating a bottleneck in production processes. The complexity of handling multiple recipes, part & machine profiles, and designated tools has historically led to inefficient utilization, with autoclaves running well below capacity.
Plataine’s AI-driven Autoclave Scheduler optimizes autoclave operations, considering real-time production factors, such as autoclave volume and capacity, part recipes, vacuum-port & daisy-chaining restrictions and considerations, digital management of physical assets (Tokenization), tool variations, human capacity, shifts and availability, and the overall production situation up- and down-stream from the autoclaves to automatically generate optimized and practical plans. The plans adhere to all restrictions, requirements, capacities, and availabilities of relevant resources and demand sets. They follow business rules, machine profiles and material recipes and priorities, ensuring due dates are met while optimizing each autoclave run to its fullest potential.
How governments are shaping the future industrial landscape.
At the ministries involved, an operation has now been rigged under the name ’ Beethoven ’, initiates tell De Telegraaf. There, the cabinet is examining what it takes to keep the chip machine manufacturer here. The company is said to have placed a number of wishes with the cabinet and have also put them on the table that expanding elsewhere is also an option, for example in France. The Hague speaks of a big puzzle.
Moving ASML parts, or expanding abroad alone, would be an extremely sensitive blow to the Netherlands, after multinationals Shell and Unilever previously moved their headquarters to the United Kingdom. Concerns about the Dutch business climate are boiling now that ASML is also threatening to take the neighborhood abroad. The company is not only of great economic value, but also strategically of great value.
Belgium-based Imec, a world-leading research center in microelectronics, has soured on China. Imec has “drastically reduced” its Chinese partnerships, the Flemish Economy Ministry, which oversees the microchips research center, told POLITICO. The research center will continue to phase out ongoing obligations on more mature technology.
Imec’s rollback is the latest example of how “China” has become a tainted word in the chips industry. European governments are closely scrutinizing the contacts that their chip companies have with China — mostly pressured by the United States, which aims to cut off China’s access to advanced chips.
In the United States, the rise of the economic-climate agenda and green industrial policy has coincided with growing attention to supply chain resilience, economic security, and a deteriorating U.S.-China relationship. As a consequence, the interaction between trade, geopolitics, domestic economic policy, and climate policy demands a new holistic approach from policymakers and civil society to find more politically sustainable and effective policy solutions. More consideration should be given to the specifics of U.S. climate strategy when it comes to trade and international relations and how to integrate climate strategy with the Inflation Reduction Act and green industrial policy efforts.
Regardless of current imports, policymakers in Washington are increasingly concerned that Chinese-made vehicles may enter the market over the next few years thanks to their extraordinary cost competitiveness. A company such as BYD sells in China and around the world a variety of models priced under $30,000. By comparison, the average price of an EV in the United States is $47,000 according to recent reporting. It is conceivable that a firm such as BYD may decide it can compete with U.S. domestic EVs despite current tariff levels—especially if more North American–made models become ineligible for tax credits because they fail to comply with supply chain requirements for battery components, critical minerals, or FEOCs.
UK Research and Innovation’s MSI Challenge, delivered by Innovate UK, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, and the Economic and Social Research Council, has awarded grants to 11 late-stage robotics and automation projects. The projects have a focus on developing solutions to improve productivity, sustainability and resilience within factory production areas.
The main objective of this program is to enhance research and innovation capacity and to introduce advanced technologies. Five innovation campuses in the region have received financial support: TU Delft Campus and Leiden Bio Science Park have received €900,000, while Biotech Campus Delft, NL Space Campus, and Erasmus MC Campus have each been awarded €400,000.
This week's top funding events, acquisitions, and partnerships across industrial value chains.
The German electrolyzer manufacturer announces a significant financial milestone with EUR 215 million raised in a Series E equity financing round, further complemented by a term loan of up to EUR 100 million provided by the European Investment Bank (EIB). In addition, Sunfire has access to approx. EUR 200 million from previously approved, undrawn grant funding to support its growth. This makes Sunfire one of the best capitalized electrolyzer manufacturers in the industry.
Sunfire’s pressurized alkaline and high-temperature solid oxide electrolysis technologies are a key enabler of the transition to renewable energy, offering a scalable and efficient means of producing green hydrogen. The company targets installing several gigawatts of electrolysis equipment by 2030 in large-scale green hydrogen projects, securing a leading position in the fast-growing global electrolyzer market.
Claroty, the cyber-physical systems protection company, announced it has secured $100 million in strategic growth financing. Participants include lead equity investor Delta-v Capital, as well as AB Private Credit Investors at AllianceBernstein, Standard Investments, Toshiba Digital Solutions, SE Ventures, Rockwell Automation, and Silicon Valley Bank, a division of First Citizens Bank. Combined with Claroty’s existing $635 million in funding to date, this new financing further establishes the company’s leadership position in the critical infrastructure cybersecurity market.
The funds will be used to scale Claroty’s platform approach to cyber-physical systems (CPS) protection across key verticals including the public sector and heavily regulated critical infrastructure industries, expand in emerging regions across the Americas, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific, fuel research and development for core and adjacent technologies including secure remote access, and double down on new and existing strategic partnerships.
RIOS Intelligent Machines, a leader in AI-powered robotics for the manufacturing industry, is excited to announce the successful completion of a $13 million Series B funding round. This significant milestone was co-led by Yamaha Motor Corporation and IAG Capital Partners, marking a continued and strengthened partnership in advancing manufacturing and automation technologies.
This new round of funding will fuel RIOS’s growth in three key industry segments: wood products, beverage distribution, and packaged food products. The company will continue to roll out highly differentiated AI and vision-driven robotics solutions, starting with a groundbreaking product in the lumber and plywood handling sector.
Nextron, a climate tech that connects renewable energy generators to consumers through subscriptions, raised R $26 million in a Series A round, led by Vox Capital and Copel Ventures. The new investment will serve to expand the startup’s operations nationally in addition to scaling the proprietary customer acquisition platform, totaling more than 50 thousand subscribers by the end of 2024.
Reshape Automation has raised $1.7 million in pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Schematic Ventures and included Bee Partners. There was also a contribution from Oliver Cameron, who started the autonomous vehicle company Voyage in 2017 and sold it to Cruise in early 2021. Other robotics companies funded in part by Schematic Ventures include Plus One Robotics, Outrider, Root AI, which was acquired by AppHarvest for $60 million in 2021, and SVT Robotics.
Reshape Automation wants to make it easier for the U.S. manufacturing and logistics industries to adopt automation. At the core of the platform is an AI-powered marketplace. Reshape’s marketplace will launch with autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), robot arms, and various components and solutions from brands like Fanuc, Yaskawa, Robotize, Peer Robotics, Item, Nova Automation, Genba, OnRobot, Doosan, Fairino, and more.
Olis Robotics, a leader in the remote error recovery for industrial robots, announces a new partnership with Kawasaki Robotics Inc., a leading supplier of industrial robots and automation systems, to offer their customers the ability to restart production faster, reduce troubleshooting and downtime costs by up to 90%, and gain access to expert support quickly.
At Kawasaki’s booth #C5475 at MODEX 2024 in Atlanta, GA, March 11 - 14, Kawasaki and Olis Robotics will showcase their partnership by joining forces with CRG Automation, a Louisville, KY-based integration house. The partners will demonstrate a state-of-the-art robotic corner board system, integrated with a mixed palletizing and depalletizing cell, featuring a Kawasaki RS007L robot, that automates placing corner boards on pallets being wrapped, ensuring overall load stability.
Price has now teamed up with a pair of Manitoba companies to design an artificial intelligence-enabled manufacturing execution system (MES) that will take advantage of efficiency technologies that do not currently exist in the market today.
Along with Mode40 (a manufacturing software design shop out of Steinbach) and Innovair (a Winnipeg distributor of robotics equipment for the manufacturing industry), Price is working on the project partially funded by NGen, the country’s advanced manufacturing supercluster. Called “Discrete Manufacturing Assembly Transformation,” the four-year project is expected to be transformational for Price.
Capturing this week's zeitgeist
From the industrial floors to automation’s lair, Thy presence is felt, ubiquitous and fair. In the language of ones and zeros, thou speak, Binding machines together, strong and sleek.
From “An Ode to Industrial Standards”
This week's most influential Industry 4.0 media.
Borkowski maintains and updates equipment at the innovation center’s pilot plant at Colworth Science Park in Sharnbrook, England. The company’s food scientists and engineers use this small-scale factory to experiment with new ice cream formulations and novel production methods. Much of Borkowski’s work involves improving the environmental impact of ice cream production by cutting waste and reducing the amount of energy needed to keep products frozen.
In 2022, he was temporarily transferred to one of Unilever’s ice cream factories in Hellendoorn, Netherlands, to uncover inefficiencies in the production process. He built a system that collected and collated operational data from all the factory’s machines to identify the causes of stoppages and waste. It wasn’t easy. Some of the machines were older and no longer supported by their manufacturers. Also, they ran legacy code written in Dutch—a language Borkowski doesn’t speak.
While working in production can sometimes be stressful, “There’s a deep pride in knowing the machines that we’ve programmed make something that people buy and enjoy,” Borkowski says.
This time last year, the end was approaching for Omnirobotic. Technology market conditions were deteriorating and the venture-backed startup had failed to secure Series A financing. Even after laying off a third of its staff, the Laval, QC-based company was still running dangerously low on cash.
In an interview with BetaKit, Omnirobotic co-founder and CEO Francois Simard said it took three months to accept that he was not going to be able to raise new funding to fuel the company’s recurring revenue platform strategy and half a year for Omnirobotic to secure the buy-in required to restructure and reinvent itself as a maker of autonomous industrial robots.
While this pivot from an artificial intelligence (AI) software firm into a less scalable but more sustainable machine builder seemed like the best path forward for Omnirobotic, Simard acknowledged that it was still a gamble with no guarantee of paying off.
TsFile is a columnar storage file format designed for time series data, featuring advanced compression to minimize storage, high throughput of read and write, and deep integration with processing and analysis tools such as Apache projects Spark and Flink. TsFile is designed to support a “high ingestion rate up to tens of million data points per second and rare updates only for the correction of low-quality data; compact data packaging and deep compression for long-live historical data; traditional sequential and conditional query, complex exploratory query, signal processing, data mining and machine learning.”
TsFile is the underlying storage file format for the Apache IoTDB time-series database. IoTDB represents more than a decade of work at China’s Tsinghua University School of Software. It became a top-level project with the Apache Software Foundation in 2020.
Getting 800 robots to and from their destinations efficiently while keeping them from crashing into each other is no easy task. It is such a complex problem that even the best path-finding algorithms struggle to keep up with the breakneck pace of e-commerce or manufacturing.
The researchers built a deep-learning model that encodes important information about the warehouse, including the robots, planned paths, tasks, and obstacles, and uses it to predict the best areas of the warehouse to decongest to improve overall efficiency. Their technique divides the warehouse robots into groups, so these smaller groups of robots can be decongested faster with traditional algorithms used to coordinate robots. In the end, their method decongests the robots nearly four times faster than a strong random search method.
The technique also streamlines computation by encoding constraints only once, rather than repeating the process for each subproblem. For instance, in a warehouse with 800 robots, decongesting a group of 40 robots requires holding the other 760 robots as constraints. Other approaches require reasoning about all 800 robots once per group in each iteration.
In 2021, systems integrator CRG Automation successfully completed an unprecedented project to automate the process of disarming, disassembling and destroying 70,000 aging rockets filled with deadly nerve agents. The project was so successful that the Army came back to us with another task: Create an automated system to disassemble and destroy thousands of mortar rounds filled with highly toxic mustard agent. The rounds were stored at the Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant (PCAPP) in Pueblo, CO, and would have to be destroyed by the end of 2023.
The system was designed virtually using computational fluid dynamics, quickly proving that the concept would work. This was essential given the finished technology involved five subsystems and more than 2,000 parts.
CRG sent a series of engineers to the Colorado plant prior to installation to train the employees who had been unable to visit during the development. “They lived in our plant,” says Jackson, who had anticipated the installation process would take 60 days. Instead, because of the constant collaboration and the team’s approach, it took just 21. That’s faster than the industry standard of 42 days for just a simple conversion of existing equipment. “We’re talking about brand new systems here,” Ankrom says.
Software Defined Networking, or SDN, involves digitizing all moving parts of the network, so the entire thing can be joined up and controlled through a single user interface. Changes and updates can be made consistently across the network, at the push of a button. With SDN, the entire factory and its IIoT (Industrial IoT) network can be dynamically managed and configured using a single SDN controller, handling all the elements that make a network work and adapting without users even noticing: network monitoring, packet forwarding, networking devices status checks, load balancing, queue management, scheduling and quality of experience (QoE) awareness. SDNs also have far fewer problems than networks made of physical switches and gateways, reducing time spent on troubleshooting and reconfiguring. That creates a network that is flexible, scalable, efficient, secure, and resilient.
The manufacturing factory layout planning process is commonly supported by the use of digital tools, enabling creation and testing of potential layouts before being realised in the real world. The process relies on engineers’ experience and inputs from several cross-disciplinary functions, meaning that it is subjective, iterative and prone to errors and delays. To address this issue, new tools and methods are needed to make the planning process more objective, efficient and able to consider multiple objectives simultaneously. This work suggests and demonstrates a simulation-based multi-objective optimisation approach that assists the generation and assessment of factory layout proposals, where objectives and constraints related to safety regulations, workers’ well-being and walking distance are considered simultaneously. The paper illustrates how layout planning for a logistics area can become a cross-disciplinary and transparent activity, while being automated to a higher degree, providing objective results to facilitate informed decision-making.
Highlighting new and innovative products and services
BASF has joined a consortium including SABIC, a Saudi chemicals firm, and Linde, a European engineering firm, to develop an electric furnace that can generate heat intense enough for the chemical reactions that are their bread and butter. These firms are not the only recent converts to the electrification of industry. On February 8th Rio Tinto and bhp, both gargantuan mining firms, announced a joint effort to build Australia’s first electric smelter for iron ore. Fortescue, another mining giant, is introducing all-electric excavators and mining lorries, while Spain’s Roca Group recently unveiled the first electric industrial tunnel kiln for ceramics. Such innovations offer a new path to slowing global warming which may in many cases prove quicker and easier than approaches based on ccs and hydrogen.
Some companies are betting that what works in the home can work in the factory, too. One such is AtmosZero, a startup that aims to reduce emissions at New Belgium Brewing, an American beermaker. AtmosZero is installing a heat pump that will soon replace one of the gas-fired boilers at New Belgium’s brewery in Fort Collins, Colorado. Like most industrial firms over the past 150 years, New Belgium burns fossil fuel to produce steam, which in its case then heats the ingredients required to make beer. AtmosZero’s heat pump will allow it to produce that steam without any burning. Since the electricity used to run the pump will be renewable in the future, that eliminates most greenhouse-gas emissions from the process. It is also more efficient, consuming less energy overall. And because the heat pump transfers warmth to water, just as in a conventional boiler, the equipment can be slotted into New Belgium’s existing factory, without the need for a complete overhaul.
Bechtel, a global leader in engineering, procurement, construction, and project management, announced the sustained pilot operations of its proprietary Low Energy Ejector Desalination System (LEEDS) – a long-awaited economic solution that creates a valuable new supply of water for customers and communities, which in turn reduces stress on limited freshwater resources.
LEEDS is an efficient, cost-effective, end-to-end solution that converts produced water from oil and gas fields into usable, end-marketable products. The recovered water can be used for agriculture or grassland irrigation, feedstocks for industrial uses such as hydrogen production, fertilizers for agricultural uses, and clean water for industrial and community applications. By transforming a costly byproduct into a useful resource, LEEDS allows customers to handle produced water responsibly while also alleviating water scarcity.
Tracer, a solution in the OpreX™ Transformation lineup that targets the carbon footprint management needs of companies in the process manufacturing industries. OpreX Carbon Footprint Tracer is a cloud service that calculates CO2 emissions based on measurement data and other types of primary information collected from instrumentation systems, power monitors, and other systems, and a consultation service that aids in the formulation of strategies for calculating and reducing CO2 emissions. This is a total solution for the process manufacturing industries that enables the visualization and reduction of CO2 emissions.
For the calculation of CO2 emissions, this service realizes seamless integration with the SAP® Sustainability Footprint Management service and ERP solutions offered by SAP, enabling the visualization and management of product carbon footprint (PCF) based on European standards. The support for European standards and linkage with the SAP Sustainability Footprint Management service is a world first, giving companies in the process manufacturing industries the ability to both visualize and manage their PCF.
Onto Innovation Inc. and its Tucson subsidiary 4D Technology today announced they’ve been named winner of FANUC America’s prestigious 2024 Innovative System of the Year award for the 4Di InSpec automated metrology system (AMS). The system enables automated surface defect and feature metrology for aviation, aerospace and other applications in the industrial manufacturing market. The patented, vibration-immune technology enables the unique capability of using non-contact, three-dimensional optical metrology on the production floor, providing new levels of defect inspection with micrometer-level resolution. In partnership with OptiPro Systems, the 4Di InSpec AMS systems were delivered in the second half of 2023 to several leading aerospace engine manufacturers.
The HEINEKEN Company in Spain has officially launched the largest industrial solar thermal plant in the world using ‘Fresnel’ technology, at its brewery site in Valencia. The park is composed of highly reflective mirrors that use sunlight to heat water, following the sun’s path. All light is concentrated onto a tube that heats the water in the circuit up to an exceptional 220 degrees Celsius, generating the necessary steam for making beer. With this solar thermal plant, almost half of the energy used to produce beer in Valencia will be renewable - a crucial step towards having all four of our breweries in Spain run on 100% renewable energy.
How governments are shaping the future industrial landscape.
Global steel production today accounts for at least 7 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. In Germany, it emits more than a quarter of the country’s total industrial carbon dioxide. Salzgitter has said that once its revamped steel plant is run entirely on green hydrogen, its annual CO2 emissions, which currently stand at 8mn tonnes, will drop by a staggering 95 per cent.
German authorities have pledged more than €6bn in subsidies to steelmakers in a bid to shore up Europe’s largest industrial base, which is already struggling with high energy prices and falling global demand for its cars and machinery. The full implementation of the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism, a tariff regime intended to give Europe’s basic industries protection from cheaper, dirtier imports while they decarbonise their own operations, has opened a window of opportunity for such heavy investment.
The U.S. Energy Department said on Thursday it gave preliminary approval for nearly $710 million in loans to electric vehicle (EV) technology manufacturing ventures, although the Biden administration still has $221.8 billion in loan capacity to fund clean-energy projects.
South Korean company SK Siltron CSS is set to receive $544 million to expand a plant in Bay City, Michigan that produces high power silicon carbide wafers used in electric vehicles. Those components are critical EV drivetrains, including inverters, and electrical distribution systems, the department said. American Battery Solutions separately received conditional approval for a $165.9 million loan to expand its EV battery pack assembly operations in Springboro, Ohio and Lake Orion, Michigan. Both facilities could employ up to 460 people.
Japan said it will give TSMC up to 732 billion yen ($4.86 billion) more in subsidies to help it build a second chip fabrication plant as the Taiwanese company on Saturday marked the opening of its first Japanese factory. The latest financial commitment, which will add to money given to the world’s biggest chipmaker for its first factory, could push taxpayer-funded subsidies for TSMC beyond 1 trillion yen.
When completed, monthly capacity across the two factories will exceed 100,000 12-inch wafers that TSMC will supply to technology firms and carmakers including Sony and Toyota Motor.
The NSW Labor Government is announcing $275 million in grants under the Net Zero Manufacturing Initiative, to secure NSW as the place to develop and manufacture clean technology and create new jobs in the process.
The Net Zero Manufacturing Initiative will offer the following grants:
A funding package has been agreed to secure an estimated £350 million inward investment project for Scotland from Sumitomo Electric UK Power Cables Ltd (SEUK), a subsidiary of Japanese company Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd (SEI). Now the Scottish Government, along with Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and Scottish Enterprise, have approved up to £24.5 million in public sector support to secure the project. This comprises £19.37 million in Scottish Government funding, £4.6 million from HIE and £530,000 from Scottish Enterprise.
The £25.4 million in funding will support the project as it begins to invest in its plant and equipment, construction of a new purpose-built factory, and long-term land leasing and associated costs.
From April 1, 2024 at the latest, private sector employers in Belgium with at least 20 full-time employees (FTE) are legally required to provide at least 5 training days/year for each employee. Meanwhile, employers with 10-19 FTEs must allocate at least 1 training day/year.
Azumuta’s Skill Matrix & Training is a suitable employee training tool for fulfilling your organization’s FLA requirements. The Skill Matrix & Training module keeps track of your employees’ training activities – and gathers them into individual employee reports. You no longer have to spend hours compiling this data and drafting an individual employee report for each employee.
This week's top funding events, acquisitions, and partnerships across industrial value chains
Amazon’s $1bn industrial innovation fund is to step up investments in companies that combine artificial intelligence and robotics, as the ecommerce giant seeks to drive efficiencies across its logistics network. The industrial innovation fund is seeking to invest in start-ups that can support the ecommerce group’s aims of becoming “more efficient, safer for our associates, and increase the speed of delivery to our customers”, Bossart said.
Amazon has innovated in robotics before: in 2022, the company said it had invested more than €400mn in technologies that include industrial robotics and sorting systems in its European warehouses. It has deployed 750,000 mobile robots across its operations network.
Figure is announcing an astonishing US $675 million Series B raise, which values the company at an even more astonishing $2.6 billion. Figure is one of the companies working toward a multipurpose or general-purpose (depending on whom you ask) bipedal or humanoid (depending on whom you ask) robot. The astonishing thing about this valuation is that Figure’s robot is still very much in the development phase—although they’re making rapid progress, which they demonstrate in a new video posted this week.
This round of funding comes from Microsoft, OpenAI Startup Fund, Nvidia, Jeff Bezos (through Bezos Expeditions), Parkway Venture Capital, Intel Capital, Align Ventures, and ARK Invest. Figure says that they’re going to use this new capital “for scaling up AI training, robot manufacturing, expanding engineering head count, and advancing commercial deployment efforts.” In addition, Figure and OpenAI will be collaborating on the development of “next-generation AI models for humanoid robots” which will “help accelerate Figure’s commercial timeline by enhancing the capabilities of humanoid robots to process and reason from language.
Fervo Energy, the leader in next-generation geothermal development, announced that it has raised $244 million in new funding led by Devon Energy, a pioneer in shale oil and gas. This financing will unlock Fervo’s next phase of growth, deploying proven technology adapted from the oil and gas industry at scale to deliver commercially viable 24/7 carbon-free energy. Galvanize Climate Solutions, John Arnold, Liberty Mutual Investments, Marunouchi Innovation Partners, Mercuria, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries also joined the round alongside existing investors Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund, Congruent Ventures, DCVC, Elemental Excelerator, Helmerich & Payne, and Impact Science Ventures.
Since its last fundraise, Fervo has successfully brought its first commercial project online, establishing Fervo’s system as the most productive enhanced geothermal system (EGS) in history. Fervo has also begun drilling at Cape Station, a 400 MW project in Beaver County, Utah. Early drilling results show reduced drilling times and lower costs that significantly exceed Department of Energy expectations for EGS. The fundraise will support Fervo’s continued operations at Cape Station, which will begin delivering clean electricity to the grid in 2026.
Tsubame BHB Co., Ltd., which strives for the social implementation and commercialization of small, distributed ammonia production plants, has announced that it has undertaken capital procurement on a total scale of approximately 5.3 billion yen in a Series C round of financing through third-party allocation of shares to both new and existing investors worldwide. In the second round of this Series C funding, capital procurement was undertaken with Heraeus Beteiligungsverwaltungsgesellschaft mbH as the first overseas investor receiving shares, and with Yokogawa Electric Corporation and Energy & Environment Investment, Inc. as new investors receiving shares in Japan.
The synthetic ammonia catalysts offered by Tsubame BHB, which are produced at low temperatures and low pressures using electride catalysts, can be manufactured at small ammonia production plants, and so can be produced and consumed locally. Transport and storage processes are reduced in comparison to current procurement methods involving high-volume production at petrochemical complexes, enabling a substantial reduction in CO2 emissions.
RobCo, a provider of affordable and connected robotics automation solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), has secured $42.5M (approximately €39.17M) in a Series B round of funding. The investment came from global VC firm Lightspeed Venture Partners along with existing investor Sequoia Capital. Kindred Capital and Promus Ventures also participated in this round.
RobCo facilitates SMEs’ entry into automation and addresses challenges such as skilled labour shortages, production scalability, and the transition to Industry 4.0. The company’s platform allows remote configuration, implementation, and management of robots via a digital twin, using a low-code approach that eliminates the need for complex programming or specialised personnel. In addition, RobCo combines its proprietary patented platform approach with a novel business model – Robot-as-a-Service (in short: RaaS).
RaaS allows small and midsize manufacturers to pay for robotic services on a monthly basis instead of buying hardware. Manufacturers see an immediate return of automation, while avoiding large upfront investments, and they’re able to transform robotics budgets from CapEx to OpEx.
Elevated Signals Inc., a company pioneering modern manufacturing software, is pleased to announce that it has secured CAD$7.9 million in Series A funding. The investment was led by Yaletown Partners, with participation from Third Kind Venture Capital, WGD Capital, Colin Harris, Raiven Capital, and Pareto Holdings.
Elevated Signals’ cloud-based platform automates and simplifies the capture of real-time manufacturing data, providing a unified source of truth that is accessible company-wide. This data also lays the foundation for companies to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) for continued process optimization. Elevated Signals serves a growing list of sectors ranging from controlled environment agriculture to natural health product manufacturing, critical minerals recovery, mining, and more. Its technology was pioneered in one of the most regulated industries in the world, setting it apart in the market with its real-time precision and flexibility to support new process innovation.
Assemblio, a software company that helps to intelligently plan assembly and generate fully automatic assistance systems for production, has completed a €2.1 million seed funding round. The lead investor is LEA Partners, joined by Mätch VC, Cross Atlantic Angels, Silver Scale, and Integra, as well as other business angels. The Assemblio team plans to use the fresh capital to expand further and drive forward product development. The big goal is to make assembly processes easier, faster, and more cost-efficient.
Assemblio offers an AI-based software solution for time- and cost-efficient assembly planning. Its Assembly Information Models reduce the planning effort from weeks and months to a matter of minutes, actively contributing to cost reduction. This has already convinced various large industrial customers such as Krones and Bosch.
Sonichem, an East Midlands-based startup that converts low-value forestry by-products into high-value, renewable biochemicals, has secured €1.4 million in Pre-Series A funding including a follow-on investment by ACF Investors. The investment will be used to further develop its technology and finalise plans for a biorefinery plant — the first of its kind.
Only 55% of logs that enter a sawmill become usable construction timber. The other 45% end up as low-value by-products such as woodchips and sawdust. Sonichem breaks down this feedstock through its novel patent process — combining chemistry and ultrasound technology — into three main constituent natural bio-based chemicals: sugars, cellulose and lignin. For every £1 of sawdust, Sonichem’s technology can create £8 worth of bio-based sustainable chemicals.
Spirit has hired bankers to explore strategic options and has had preliminary discussions with its former owner, according to people familiar with the matter. The talks might not result in a deal. Spirit is also exploring selling operations in Ireland that make parts for Boeing’s chief rival, Airbus.
A deal would be a strategic reversal. Boeing sold the Wichita plant in a push to focus on final assembly. In recent years, that facility has been plagued by production problems and quality lapses that have slowed production and left the plane maker short of jets it promised to deliver to airlines.
Capgemini and Unity (NYSE: U), the world’s leading platform for creating and growing real-time 3D (RT3D) content, announced an expansion of their strategic alliance that will see Capgemini take on Unity’s Digital Twin Professional Services arm. Per the agreement, Unity’s Digital Twin Professional Services team will join and embed within Capgemini, forming one of the largest pools of Unity enterprise developers in the world. The transaction will accelerate the iteration and implementation of the market leading real-time 3D (RT3D) visualization software for the industrial application of digital twins. It will allow end users to envision, understand, and interact with physical systems – a key enabler for intelligent industry. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2024.
NTT DATA, a global leader in IT infrastructure and services, and Schneider Electric, a pioneer in digital transformation for energy management and automation, have unveiled a first-of-a-kind co-innovation that empowers enterprises to harness the power of edge computing. The strategic partnership introduces a unique solution that seamlessly integrates Edge, Private 5G, IOT, and Modular Data Centers, providing unparalleled connectivity and supports the computational demands of Generative AI applications deployed at the edge.
The joint offering combines NTT DATA’s Edge as a Service, which includes fully managed Edge to Cloud, Private 5G, and IoT capabilities, with Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure, a modular data center that fuses OT solutions with the latest in IT technologies. This powerful combination enables companies to maximize energy efficiency and meet the demands of compute-intensive tasks such as machine vision, predictive maintenance, and other AI inferencing applications at the edge.
Cosmo Tech announces it has been selected by Michelin North America, Inc. to help improve its supply chain simulation and optimize operations. The overall aim of bringing onboard Cosmo Tech’s solution is to help supply chain and marketing managers anticipate the impact of variable demand and predict the future state of Michelin’s complex supply chain, with the objective of improving supply chain agility and efficiency.
Capturing this week's zeitgeist
Quartr breaks down most of the key logic board chip suppliers for Apple’s new Vision Pro. Texas Instruments, onsemi, and Apple themselves dominate the board.
This week's most influential Industry 4.0 media.
Hadrian is targeting high-precision CNC machining, a manufacturing process where parts frequently require tolerances down to the micron level (a single human hair is anywhere from 50-120 microns in thickness). Power said the company is focused on automating the core, labor-intensive steps that start when the customer orders a part to that part being shipped — which includes programming the CNC cutting and inspection machines but extends well beyond that, to many other aspects of factory operations: scheduling, task management, paperwork.
The idea is to leverage software as much as possible up to around 80-90%, and leave the rest to humans, possibly forever; according to Power, this strategy still gives humans what are essentially superpowers without having to wait years to solve the hardest problems.
In a networked IT/OT environment, threats can infiltrate CNC machines even without direct access from an attacker. IT users engaging with vulnerable websites or falling victim to phishing emails can introduce threats into the corporate network, ultimately spreading to the OT side and affecting individual machines.
To safeguard CNC machines in networked IT/OT environments, several immediate steps can be implemented. Firstly, conducting a comprehensive inventory of all CNC tools is essential to maintain a clear and up-to-date understanding of the network’s composition. Segregating the CNC machine network into its own segment is advisable, allowing for more straightforward monitoring of traffic flows, with the ability to cut off access if necessary. Additionally, deploying intrusion prevention systems (IPS) and firewalls adds an extra layer of protection to enhance overall security.
Gearbox manufacturer SEAT Componentes needed to automate the unloading of 18,000 machined gears a day at its plant in Spain to guarantee the quality of the parts. The company integrated 10 collaborative robots from Universal Robots using only internal resources.
This formula made it possible for SEAT to keep know-how on cobot configuration in-house, eliminating extra programming and maintenance costs. The do-it-yourself installation was done without changing the existing factory layout, allowing new applications to be configured in less than 1 hour. As a result, the company has reduced errors, improved worker safety, and now has a team prepared to take on new automation projects.
The Connected Frontline Workforce (CFW) applications space is diverse, dynamic, and fragmented. Players range from early-stage start-ups backed by venture capital to publicly traded global tech giants. The vendors in this space offer a wide range of products and go-to-market strategies.
CFW initiatives have become a strategic imperative for many as manufacturers seek to solve critical labor shortages, skills gaps, and retention issues in frontline operations. CFW-enabling technology has been proven to help companies meet frontline workforce challenges while optimizing operational performance across safety, quality, and productivity dimensions. However, navigating the relatively immature and highly fragmented CFW Applications market to capture the opportunity fully can be challenging.
OpenPLC provides a control engineering development platform that transforms various microcontrollers into programmable logic controllers. OpenPLC is compatible with platforms including the Arduino Uno, ESP32, and RP2040, and even single-board computers like the Raspberry Pi can be used as a PLC with the editor, a runtime engine, and a web server. This project article will explain the steps used to create a PLC with a Raspberry Pi using OpenPLC.
Highlighting new and innovative products and services
Small Modular Reactor (SMR) construction shifts into high gear, as UK company Sheffield Forgemasters welds a full-size nuclear reactor vessel in under 24 hours instead of the usual 12 months. The rollout of this game-changing tech could be massive.
The problem is that there are bottlenecks in how to build reactors of any size. One is welding the vessels used to contain the reactor core, isolating it from the outer environment. Using conventional techniques, this can take over a year, but Sheffield Forgemasters have reduced this to under a day using what is called Local Electron-Beam Welding (LEBW) to complete four thick, nuclear-grade welds.
LEBW is a revolutionary method to weld two pieces of metal together using a high-energy density fusion process centered on a high-powered electron gun operating in a local vacuum. This melts and fuses components to one another and allows for an efficiency of 95%, deep penetration, and a high depth-to-width ratio.
Skechers USA, a leading global footwear and apparel company, turns to Hai Robotics (“Hai”), a leading global provider of Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (ASRS), as they launch their new distribution center in Minato City, Tokyo, Japan. Using Hai’s automated goods-to-person system, Skechers is maximizing warehouse operational efficiency, fulfillment speed, and order accuracy.
Within Skechers’ facility, the HaiPick System covers 139,705 square feet and is operated by 69 HaiPick Autonomous Case-handling Mobile Robots (ACRs), which are integrated with Manhattan Associates’ cloud-native warehouse management system (WMS). ACRs are highly intelligent, tall pieces of equipment that autonomously navigate narrow aisles of an ASRS constructed of almost any industry-standard racking or shelving with a vertical reach extending up to 32 feet. The robots pick containers off the shelving — transporting up to 8 at any given time for maximum order-batching efficiency — and deliver them to human-operated workstations.
The OSARO® Robotic Depalletizing System is a direct replacement for manual pallet unloading — even complex mixed-case pallets. The system combines OSARO SightWorks™ Perception with advanced robotics hardware to automate the incoming inventory process and improve safety, boost efficiency, reduce labor costs, and minimize inventory shrinkage.
Procedures, working methods, systems, processes, control, collaboration: a lot is new at the Kapfenberg special steel plant. In the old plant, work was spread out over several stations, but now many people can work together in one room: melters, crane operators, plant operators. Technology and control are centralized in one place. The use of robots and manipulators means less physical effort, but digitalization comes with other challenges.
How governments are shaping the future industrial landscape.
Saudi Arabia’s new $100 billion investment firm announced a string of deals Tuesday, including partnerships with SoftBank Group Corp. and a Chinese surveillance equipment maker to set up local manufacturing facilities, as part of the kingdom’s efforts to transform itself into an industrial powerhouse.
The new vehicle, Alat, and SoftBank will invest as much as $150 million to establish a fully-automated manufacturing and engineering hub in Riyadh. The venture will build industrial robots based on intellectual property developed by SoftBank, with the first factory set to open in December.
The Biden-Harris Administration announced that the U.S. Department of Commerce and GlobalFoundries (GF) have signed a non-binding preliminary memorandum of terms (PMT) to provide approximately $1.5 billion in direct funding under the CHIPS and Science Act to strengthen U.S. domestic supply chain resilience, bolster U.S. competitiveness in current-generation and mature-node (C&M) semiconductor production, and support economic and national security capabilities. The proposed funding would support a new state-of-the-art facility, significant capacity expansion, and the modernization of GF’s U.S. manufacturing sites in New York and Vermont, which produce essential automotive, communications, and defense semiconductor technologies.
In September 2022, Pratt & Whitney announced the intent to establish the technology accelerator in collaboration with the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB). STA has since delivered over 30 innovations which will maximize the productivity in MRO processes. STA is also working with more than 20 Singapore companies to develop new, relevant technologies in the global commercial aviation sector.
This week's top funding events, acquisitions, and partnerships across industrial value chains
CORE Industrial Partners (CORE), a manufacturing, industrial technology, and industrial services-focused private equity firm, is pleased to announce the closing of $887 million in capital commitments between its $685 million flagship fund, CORE Industrial Partners Fund III, L.P. (Fund III) and $202 million in its new offering, CORE Industrial Services Fund I, L.P. (Services Fund I) with both funds exceeding their targets. In the past five years, CORE has raised more than $1.58 billion of total limited partner commitments dedicated to investing in the industrial sector.
Fund III will continue CORE’s existing flagship strategy of acquiring manufacturing and industrial technology businesses that CORE believes can benefit from its deep investment and operating experience to accelerate growth and create long-term value for investors, business owners and management teams.
CORE’s newest fund strategy, Industrial Services Fund I, brings a more concentrated focus to the highly fragmented industrial services sector that CORE believes is experiencing strong growth due to reshoring and proliferation of advanced technologies with the adoption of Industry 4.0 applications in North America.
Antora Energy, a leader in zero-emissions industrial heat and power, raised a $150 million Series B funding round led by Decarbonization Partners, a partnership between BlackRock and Temasek. This financing round will enable Antora to ramp production of its factory-made thermal batteries to deliver billions of dollars of zero-emissions energy to industrial customers. Emerson Collective, GS Futures, The Nature Conservancy, and a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources, LLC also participated in this round, alongside existing investors Trust Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, BHP Ventures, Overture VC, and Grok Ventures.
Antora is unlocking zero-emissions industrial energy, cheaper than fossil fuels. Antora leverages renewable electricity to heat blocks of solid carbon—a low-cost, earth-abundant, and safe storage medium that’s used extensively across industries—to glowing hot temperatures in an insulated module. The stored heat is then reliably delivered at the scale and temperatures that large industrial operations demand. Additionally, Antora’s thermal battery can output electricity at breakthrough efficiencies using Antora’s thermophotovoltaic (TPV) technology, which converts the stored heat directly into electricity without the drawbacks of a conventional heat engine.
Niron Magnetics, the company pioneering the world’s first high-performance, rare earth-free permanent magnets, announced it has received $25 million in new strategic funding. This round was led by Samsung Ventures, which has the investment mandate to closely track the strategic priorities of leading consumer electronics manufacturer Samsung and encompasses investments in consumer electronics, semiconductors, telecommunications, and more. Allison Ventures, the venture capital arm of Allison Transmission, leading designer and manufacturer of vehicle propulsion solutions, was also part of this funding round, along with one of the world’s largest automotive suppliers, Magna. This investment will strengthen Niron’s ability to expand its production facilities and scale manufacturing capacity for exclusive customer programs and initial sales of the Clean Earth Magnet.
With this new funding, Niron will expand its pilot production facilities, enhancing its ability to serve diverse clientele and support customer prototyping programs. The company will also scale up manufacturing capacity to meet growing demand and accelerate research and development efforts to drive continuous improvement in performance and efficiency.
Monumo, a deeptech company blending artificial intelligence (AI) with traditional engineering, has emerged from stealth with groundbreaking advancements in electric motor design. The company’s patented technology, based on simulation, optimisation, and prototype frameworks, has achieved a 50% reduction in torque ripple in SRMs. Monumo’s innovative approach signifies a breakthrough in motor efficiency, making it smoother and quieter, thus more appropriate for use in EVs.
Novity®, the provider of the TruPrognostics™ AI, a truly predictive maintenance AI for process industry clients, is pleased to announce the successful closure of $7.8 million in financing. The investment will accelerate Novity’s mission to transform how industries manage and optimize their maintenance operations. On the heels of Novity’s commercial traction, which includes Fortune 1000 (F1000) customers, the investment was led by WERU Investment in a global consortium of investors including Myriad Venture Partners and METAWATER, Co., Ltd.
After spinning its team and technology out of Xerox PARC in 2022, Novity is now serving a growing number of Fortune 1000 clients who recognize the transformative potential of truly predictive maintenance. The TruPrognostics AI has been instrumental in reducing unplanned downtime, maintenance costs, and operational disruptions across various industries, including manufacturing, oil and gas, and chemicals.
Conservation Labs, an artificial intelligence (AI) company that developed a groundbreaking platform that decodes audio data into actionable insights in the built environment to reduce carbon emissions and energy and water usage, announced that it has raised a $7.5-million Series A funding round. The round was led by RET Ventures’ Housing Impact Fund and included the participation of Sustain VC.
To further its mission, Conservation Labs employed its AI platform to develop Sustainable Machines™, a product suite that assesses the condition of machinery. By interpreting a machine’s sound profile, the product delivers operational insights and predictive maintenance recommendations, thereby reducing maintenance costs and extending the machinery’s life. With early adopters of Sustainable Machines™ generating an ROI over 100% through increased maintenance efficiency and improved uptime, the company has already sold nearly 10,000 sensors across the country.
Align Capital Partners announced that its portfolio company SEAM Group has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by ABB. SEAM Group is a provider of energized asset management and advisory services to over 3,000 customer sites across the industrial and commercial building markets. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and expected to close in Q3 2024.
Headquartered in Beachwood, Ohio, SEAM Group provides customers holistic advisory, training and technology solutions including electrical safety, predictive maintenance programs, reliability consulting and repair services; each supported by patented software systems ensuring program metrics. ACP’s initial investment in the SEAM Group platform came via the acquisition of Lewellyn Technology in 2017. During the partnership, SEAM Group experienced strong organic growth and scaled operations through three add-on acquisitions.
By implementing Gideon’s AI-powered autonomy software stack on Toyota vehicles, the market will get solution to some of the unsolved automation problems through significantly shortened project implementation timelines, focusing primarily on collaborative case picking for retail order fulfilment and autonomous truck unloading and loading.
Capturing this week's zeitgeist
Mardi Gras is known for its carnival atmosphere, partying, and ‘throws’. The throws are usually beaded necklaces, doubloons, and other trinkets that are tossed to spectators from floats in parades. Some of the most famous U.S. Mardi Gras parades are in New Orleans. Thermo Fisher takes a look at the “Metals of Mardi Gras”
Over at Disney, small, lightweight robots that are surprisingly tough enable new levels of creative freedom in the design and execution of a show.
According to A3, 2023 North America Robot Orders Down 30% Over Record 2022 In 2023, the strongest demand for robots from non-automotive companies came from the metal industry, followed by semiconductor & electronics/photonics; food & consumer goods; life sciences, pharmaceutical and biomedical, plastics & rubber, and others. The Robot Report asked A3’s president, Jeff Burnstein, for more insight.
ProGlove’s 2024 survey on Leadership Insights for Retail Warehouse Management is out. The Robot Report highlights the optimism about automation in retail.
The AI agent wars continue with Google’s Gemini 1.5 and OpenAI’s Sora released. Sora’s text-to-video generation “renders a richly detailed video.”
This week's most influential Industry 4.0 media.
The AIA applications usually integrate with internal or external platforms, data connectors, and edge-to-cloud agents that facilitate data connectivity, modeling, and contextualization techniques required for effective analysis. Built on this data foundation, the applications then use several statistics, such as first principle, physics-based, and machine learning (ML) algorithms, to provide insights of varying levels of sophistication across the descriptive–prognostic spectrum.
Finally, these applications should ideally deliver value across several industrial use cases – including (but not limited to) asset performance, quality, manufacturing, productivity, process optimization, EHS, sustainability, etc., and target multiple user personas, such as engineers (industrial, process, reliability engineers), business users (cross-functional operations, quality, supply-chain, EHS personnel), and data scientists (data engineers, wranglers stewards, scientists, software engineers).
The Norwegian multinational energy company Equinor has made Volve dataset, a set of drilling reports available for research, study, and development purposes. (When using external data, be sure to abide by the license the data is offered under.) The dataset contains 1,759 daily drilling reports—each containing both hourly comments and a daily summary—from the Volve field in the North Sea. Drilling rig supervisors tend to use domain-specific terminology and grammar when describing operations in both the hourly comments and the daily summary. This terminology is standard in the industry, which is why fine-tuning a foundation model using these reports is likely to improve summarization accuracy by enhancing the LLM’s ability to understand jargon and speak like a drilling engineer.
Generative AI has the potential to improve efficiency by automating time-consuming tasks even in domains that require deep knowledge of industry-specific nomenclature and acronyms. Having a custom model that provides drilling engineers with a draft of daily activities has the potential to save hours of work every week. Model customization can also help energy and utilities customers in other applications that involve the generation of highly technical content, as is the case of geological analyses, maintenance reports, and shift handover reports.
The company’s focus on Cubefabs, its AI-enabled chip factory. These “highly compact” facilities can be built in most climates and geographies around the world, and are increasingly viable alternatives to traditional megafactories, according to Nanotronics.
Cubefabs produce chips using gallium oxide, a material five times more efficient and versatile than silicon, with lower production and resource requirements, according to Globus.
Using electrochemistry, University of Oregon researchers have developed a way to make iron metal for steel production without burning fossil fuels. The series of chemical reactions turns saltwater and iron oxide — cheap and abundant ingredients — into pure iron metal.
If scaled up, the process could help decarbonize one of the largest and most emissions-intensive industries worldwide. It might someday replace the carbon-spewing industrial blast furnaces currently used to produce the iron that feeds steel manufacturing. Importantly, the byproducts of the chemical reaction can all be repurposed. The sodium hydroxide that’s generated can go back into the reactor or be collected and used in carbon-capture technology. And chlorine is valuable in other industrial processes.
Composite manufacturing demands mould tooling to produce dimensionally accurate parts, adding substantial capital costs to their production. Recent developments in advanced manufacturing of fibre-reinforced polymer composite elements have seen the implementation of mould-free technologies that can produce complex shaped parts off a flat tool. This paper presents eccentric fibre prestress as a novel mould-free method for producing curvatures within carbon fibre and glass fibre laminates. Tailoring the flexural rigidity along the primary orientation of the laminate is shown to result in predictable compound curvature profiles with a low average root mean square error of 1.39 across the four geometries tested. An analytical model based on Euler–Bernoulli beam theory is proposed and proven to correlate closely with the experiential laminates. Finally, an inverse design approach based on a genetic algorithm is demonstrated to design an accurate laminate configuration, achieving the top surface of a NACA 4412 aerofoil section with a low root mean square error of 1.98 using the proposed eccentric fibre prestress.
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Honeywell announced that ENEOS, a leading energy company in Japan, will develop the world’s first commercial scale Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carrier (LOHC) project using Honeywell’s solution at multiple sites. The LOHC solution enables the long-distance transportation of clean hydrogen and can help meet the growing requirements for hydrogen use across various industries by leveraging existing refining assets and infrastructure. The project supports Honeywell’s alignment of its portfolio to three compelling megatrends in automation, the future of aviation and energy transition.
va-Q-tec, an expert in thermal energy efficiency and temperature-controlled supply chains, presents a new solution for the transport of temperature-sensitive goods in pharmaceutical air and sea freight. The so-called Thermal Coat, which is equipped with innovative va-Q-gel technology, solves challenges with its ability to coat temperature-sensitive goods directly and in a space-saving manner. The va-Q-gel consists of gelled phase change material (PCM), which is particularly leak-proof due to its composition. It can be individually pre-conditioned for the ranges +2 °C to +8 °C or +15 °C to +25 °C and then requires no further external energy supply. With a qualified performance of up to 24 hours, the Thermal Coat outperforms conventional solutions. This improves autonomous performance and buffer times during transportation and therefore the safety of the goods being transported.
Food solutions company SpartanNash announced plans to implement Simbe’s autonomous inventory robot Tally in 60 additional Company-operated stores across the Midwest. This opportunity to generate actionable, real-time inventory insights represents SpartanNash’s continued investment in technology to enhance the store guest and Associate experiences.
Simbe’s Store Intelligence platform informs product stocking, ordering, merchandising, and e-commerce fulfillment with real-time inventory insights across every store area. This data precision empowers Associates to ensure items are available for store guests with accurate location and price, while freeing up their time for more engaging, guest-facing work. As part of SpartanNash’s commitment to customer-focused innovation, this Tally expansion follows the Company’s investment in other food technology solutions Upshop Magic™ and Flashfood.
AutoStore™, the leading robotic technology company specializing in automated storage and retrieval systems, announces that the world’s first in-store solution equipped with an AutoStore PickUpPort™, enabling fully automatic delivery of goods to customers, is now operational at thansen’s brand-new store in Copenhagen, Denmark. This cutting-edge technology is made possible through AutoStore, in collaboration with our esteemed partner, Element Logic.
This innovative AutoStore solution, implemented by Element Logic, features 14 robots and over 18,000 bins, optimizing storage space for more than 32,000 of thansen’s 200,000 items. The warehouse’s modest size doesn’t compromise the range of goods available to customers, as items are directly accessible in the store without the need to be ordered from a central warehouse.
How governments are shaping the future industrial landscape.
Start-ups developing future forms of transport such as space planes, drones and flying cars are emerging in central Japan’s Aichi prefecture, home to Toyota Motor and its suppliers, driven by a sense of urgency to foster industrial momentum amid challenges from the arrival of electric vehicles.
The local government hopes to build on that momentum as it prepares to open a start-up incubation centre, Station Ai, in the prefectural capital of Nagoya in October. The facility, built and operated by SoftBank, plans to accommodate about 1,000 start-ups.
This week's top funding events, acquisitions, and partnerships across industrial value chains
Point2 Technology, a leading provider of ultra-low-power, low-latency mixed-signal SoC solutions for multi-terabit interconnect, announced a $22.6 million Series B extension from Bosch Ventures, a leader in deep tech investments, and Molex, a global electronics leader and connectivity innovator, with participation from other investors. This Series B extension validates the demand for Point2’s technology in AI/ML data center applications and the potential to disrupt network interconnect in the broad automotive sector.
Point2 is also partnering with Molex, a strategic investor, to commercialize its E-Tube technology, a scalable interconnect platform that uses RF data transmission over plastic dielectric waveguide to enable multi-terabit active cables with 80% lower weight and 50% less bulk than copper cables. Compared to optical cables, E-Tube is expected to reduce power consumption and costs by 50%, with picosecond latencies that are three orders of magnitude better. Shattering the “copper or optics” paradigm for high-speed cable interconnect, E-Tube breaks the barriers of copper and optical cabling and is poised to become the next-generation multi-terabit interconnect technology.
Sage Geosystems announced the first close of $17 million in Series A funding led by Chesapeake Energy Corporation and joined by technology investor Arch Meredith, Helium-3 Ventures and with continued support from existing investors Virya, LLC, Nabors Industries Ltd., and Ignis Energy Inc. The proceeds will fully fund the first of its kind 3MW commercial Geopressured Geothermal System (GGS) facility, which will be built in Texas.
The 3MW commercial facility, called EarthStore™, will use Sage Geosystems’ innovative technology that harvests energy from pressurized water stored deep underground. The facility will be able to store energy for short and long duration periods and can be paired with intermittent renewable energy sources, including wind and solar, to provide baseload, dispatchable power, and inertia to the electric grid.
Quilter announced it raised $10 million, saying it would use artificial intelligence to reduce the time to design components that power electronics in rockets, computers, smartphones and other devices. The $10 million Series A round was led by one of Silicon Valley’s most storied venture capital firms, Benchmark.
Celadyne, the decarbonization and hydrogen solution company, announced that they have raised $4.5M in seed investment funding. The round was co-led by Maniv and Dynamo Ventures, with major participation from EPS Ventures.
Specifically, Celadyne’s materials and technologies replace the proton exchange membrane to create fuel cells that are more durable, and electrolyzers that are more compact and efficient. This newfound durability allows fuel cells to be utilized as an environmentally-friendlier alternative to diesel engines, and makes electrolyzers that produce low cost green hydrogen as fuel.
Renesas Electronics Corporation, a supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, and Altium Limited a global leader in electronics design systems, today announced they have entered into a Scheme Implementation Agreement (“SIA”) for Renesas to acquire Altium by way of a Scheme of Arrangement under Australian law (“Scheme”).
Together, Renesas and Altium, under a shared vision, aim to build an integrated and open electronics system design and lifecycle management platform that unifies these steps at a system level. The acquisition brings together Altium’s sophisticated cloud platform capabilities with Renesas’ strong portfolio of embedded solutions, combining high-performance processors, analog, power and connectivity. The combination will also enable integration with third-party vendors across the ecosystem to execute all electronic design steps seamlessly on the cloud. The electronics system design and lifecycle management platform will deliver integration and standardization of various electronic design data and functions and enhanced component lifecycle management, while enabling seamless digital iteration of design processes to increase overall productivity. This brings significantly faster innovation and lowers barriers to entry for system designers by reducing development resources and inefficiencies.
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation and HACARUS Corporation announced today that they have agreed to expand their collaboration in the development of AI-based visual-inspection applications for manufacturing. As part of the agreement, Mitsubishi Electric will take an equity stake in HACARUS.
The strategic partnership will leverage the resources and technologies of both companies to increase synergies aimed at maximizing mutual technological and business potential. By leveraging HACARUS’ expertise, Mitsubishi Electric expects to accelerate its development and provision of integrated and automated AI-based visual-inspection solutions that will enable customers to improve manufacturing quality and overall productivity. For HACARUS, the collaboration will provide access to Mitsubishi Electric’s extensive sales infrastructure in Japan and overseas.
HACARUS Check is a visual-inspection solution equipped with a unique, compact AI. In addition to AI development, HACARUS also specializes in integrating AI with various factory automation (FA) devices. In December 2023, Mitsubishi Electric released MELSOFT VIXIO, an AI-based visual-inspection software equipped with the company’s proprietary Maisart AI technology to automate visual-inspection processes for improved manufacturing quality and to address the problem of Japan’s shrinking labor force.
Capturing this week's zeitgeist
Diagram of committed and expended costs during new product introduction by TheManufacturingGuy on X.
This week's most influential Industry 4.0 media.
This is Flexiv’s “Grav Enhanced” gripper, which uses a combination of pinch grasping and high friction gecko adhesive to lift heavy and delicate objects without having to squeeze them. When you think about a traditional robotic grasping system trying to lift something like a water balloon, you have to squeeze that balloon until the friction between the side of the gripper and the side of the balloon overcomes the weight of the balloon itself. The higher the friction, the lower the squeeze required, and although a water balloon might be an extreme example, maximizing gripper friction can make a huge difference when it comes to fragile or deformable objects.
In the rubber-mixing stage, the recipe of various raw material constituents like rubber, chemicals, carbon, oil, and other additives plays a vital role in the control of process standards and final product quality. In the current schema of things, parameters like Mooney viscosity, specific gravity, and Rheo (the level of curing that can be achieved over the compound) are fairly manual and offline. In addition, the correlation of these parameters is conducted either on a standard spreadsheet solver or statistical package. Because of the delay in such correlation and interdependency, the extent of control a process engineer has on the deviation (such as drop temperature, mixing time, ram pressure, injection time, and so on) are limited.
There are four steps to operationalize, the first being data acquisition and noise removal—a process of 3–6 weeks with the built-in and external connectors. Next is model tuning and ascertaining what is fit for our purpose. Since we are considering a list of defect types, we are talking about another four weeks for training, validating, creating test sets, and delivering a simulation environment with minimum error. The third step is delivering the set points and boundary conditions for each grade of compound.
For example, the process digital twin cockpit has three desirable sub-environments:
The final step is ascertaining the model outcome and computing the simulation result (bias, Sum of Squares Error (SSE), deviation, and so on) with respect to the business outcome like defect percentage, speed of work, overall accuracy, and so on.
A technology called electrical signature analysis (ESA) makes reliable, remote monitoring of submerged pumps possible. ESA measures the current and voltage being supplied to the motor driving the pump. Because it captures the electrical signals, ESA sensors are current and voltage probes that are installed in the motor control cabinet. This bypasses the need to install sensors on, or even near, submerged pumps.
One solution utility operators are increasingly deploying to improve the energy efficiency of pumps are variable frequency drives (VFDs). VFDs are a type of motor controller that drive an electric motor by varying the supply frequency. By matching fluctuating load and demand requirements, organizations can operate pumps more efficiently, saving energy and extending their lifetime.
With the ever increasing number of active satellites in space, the rising demand for larger formations of small satellites and the commercialization of the space industry (so-called New Space), the realization of manufacturing processes in orbit comes closer to reality. Reducing launch costs and risks, allowing for faster on-demand deployment of individually configured satellites as well as the prospect for possible on-orbit servicing for satellites makes the idea of realizing an in-orbit factory promising. In this paper, we present a novel approach to an in-orbit factory of small satellites covering a digital process twin, AI-based fault detection, and teleoperated robot-control, which are being researched as part of the “AI-enabled Cyber-Physical In-Orbit Factory” project. In addition to the integration of modern automation and Industry 4.0 production approaches, the question of how artificial intelligence (AI) and learning approaches can be used to make the production process more robust, fault-tolerant and autonomous is addressed. This lays the foundation for a later realisation of satellite production in space in the form of an in-orbit factory. Central aspect is the development of a robotic AIT (Assembly, Integration and Testing) system where a small satellite could be assembled by a manipulator robot from modular subsystems. Approaches developed to improving this production process with AI include employing neural networks for optical and electrical fault detection of components. Force sensitive measuring and motion training helps to deal with uncertainties and tolerances during assembly. An AI-guided teleoperated control of the robot arm allows for human intervention while a Digital Process Twin represents process data and provides supervision during the whole production process. Approaches and results towards automated satellite production are presented in detail.
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ASML Holding NV is showing off its latest chipmaking machine, a €350 million ($380 million) piece of equipment that weighs as much as two Airbus A320s. The machine can print lines on semiconductors 8 nanometers thick, 1.7 times smaller than the previous generation. The thinner the lines, the more transistors you can fit on a chip. And the more transistors you can fit on a chip, the higher the processing speeds and memory. That’s why, ASML executives said, the system will prove essential for AI, a technology that is notorious for the intensity of the processing it requires.
Dexory, a leading provider of cutting-edge AI and robotics solutions, has announced its strategic expansion into the North American market. Dexory is set to disrupt the market through its autonomous robotics and AI-powered analysis solution, DexoryView. The company is already working with global partners with a significant US presence such as DB Schenker, Menzies Aviation, Maersk and ID Logistics.
To lead the expansion, Todd Boone has joined the team as its Head of North American business. Boone joins Dexory from Zebra Technologies, where he served as Director of product management in robotics and automation. With Zebra Technologies he held several leadership roles and worked closely with Fetch, an established AMR provider in North America.
MicroAI, a pioneer in the development of Endpoint and Edge AI products and solutions for companies in the manufacturing, telecom, automotive, and industrial industries, today announced the launch of AIStudio, a next-generation data modeling and visualization platform. AIStudio provides data-scientists and developers the capability to rapidly ingest their asset data, fine-tune and execute AI models, visualize the impact of those models, and utilize the resulting insights to optimize IT and OT asset performance and security.
How governments are shaping the future industrial landscape.
During the past year, the world’s biggest solar companies, all of which do the bulk of their manufacturing in China, have quietly launched plans to set up or expand panel factories in locations from Ohio to Texas—part of a rush to build in the U.S. following the introduction of generous production subsidies with the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022.
China-based companies are behind nearly a quarter of the roughly 80 gigawatts in new solar-panel capacity that has been announced since that legislation, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal. That positions them to be big beneficiaries of government subsidies as well—as much as $1.4 billion a year collectively if the panel factories announced so far are built, according to Journal calculations.
The European Tech Champions Initiative (ETCI) is excited to mark its one-year anniversary with close to €1 billion of investments aimed at mobilising up to €6 billion, to reinforce its commitment to investing in cutting-edge companies and driving digital transformation across the continent.
ETCI has supported four funds to date, including one at the final stage of closing:
Japan’s industry ministry said Tuesday it will help fund the mass production of cutting-edge memory chips by Kioxia Holdings and Western Digital (WD).
The two companies’ investment totals 729 billion yen ($4.9 billion), and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry will provide up to 243 billion yen in funding. The plan is to supply the chips for use in data centers, demand for which is likely to grow, driven by the increasing use of generative artificial intelligence applications.
NGen has announced over $32.3 million in Global Innovation Cluster funding for 15 new advanced manufacturing projects. With industry contributions of $54.4 million, the 15 projects are valued at a total of $86.7 million. The announcement was made during NGen’s inaugural N3 Summit, a new showcase and strategy event to promote Canadian leadership in advanced manufacturing.
This week's top funding events, acquisitions, and partnerships across industrial value chains
ZEDEDA, the leader in edge management and orchestration, announced the closing of $72 million in growth capital, with the Series C round led by Smith Point Capital, founded by former Salesforce Co-CEO Keith Block. The latest funding enables ZEDEDA to further expand sales and marketing activities and accelerate research and development to meet the rising demand for edge computing.
Aizon, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) SaaS provider that transforms pharmaceutical manufacturing operations, today announced that it has closed $20 million in Series C funding led by NewVale Capital, a growth equity fund that invests in proven, revenue-generating service businesses in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. Existing investors Atlantic Bridge, Crosslink Capital, and Uncork Capital also participated in the round. This infusion of capital, combined with the continued support of key investment partners, will enable Aizon to significantly scale, accelerate its development pipeline, and better serve its customers.
Aizon leverages advanced predictive analytics, artificial intelligence, and other smart factory technologies to provide the most powerful and accessible GMP AI platform for pharmaceutical manufacturers. With Aizon, customers unlock next-generation insights and enhanced decision-making capabilities and can discover new optimisation paths, reduce costs, predict deviations, and enhance their manufacturing systems. Aizon prioritises rigorous quality and compliance and follows GAMP5 for GMP processes to ensure compliant data acquisition, storage, and consumption.
Trinity Capital, leading provider of diversified financial solutions to growth-stage companies, announced the commitment of $20 million in equipment financing to Formlogic, a provider of autonomous precision manufacturing services intended for space companies. Formlogic has factories located in Pittsburgh spanning over 50,000 square feet. This growth capital will enable the company to acquire new CNC machines and continue to scale operations.
Formlogic is changing how precision parts are sourced and manufactured by separating engineering from physical labor. Through a combination of remote AI-based planning and autonomous production, the company has created software that performs the simulations needed to produce effectively, replacing the guess-and-check method usually done by a skilled worker.
Daedalus, a technology company building the world’s most advanced factories using AI, announced that it has secured $21M (approximately €19.4M) in a Series A round of funding.
The funding round was led by NGP Capital, with further participation from its existing investors, including Addition and Khosla Ventures. The German company will use the funds to develop its proprietary Manufacturing AI Platform and scale its production facilities in Germany.
The company uses its proprietary Manufacturing AI Platform to automate the entire manufacturing process, from quoting to delivery, for high-precision and high-mix parts. Daedalus’ production facilities utilise software to control and holistically optimise shop floor operations. Additionally, AI automates manual tasks involved in production.
AZUL Energy, a clean chemistry startup that develops catalysts for next-generation energy systems, announced that it has raised ¥475 million in Series A funding. The company has developed a high-performance catalyst that offers the same performance as rare metal catalysts (such as platinum) but without the high costs or significant resource constraints. They intend to implement it in various applications to promote a decarbonized and recycling-oriented society.
This new round of funding was led by Spiral Capital, Inc., with participation from TOHOKU University Venture Partners Co., Ltd., JMTC Capital LLC, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital Co., Ltd., Governance Partners Inc., and existing investor Spurcle Inc., totaling six companies in a third-party allotment of new shares.
Oslo-based deep tech startup OTee has successfully closed an investment round of €1.25 million marking the largest first funding round out of Antler Norway. The investment was led by Norwegian venture capital fund RunwayFBU and Estonian fund Superangel.
Founded in 2022, OTee provides an industrial-grade engineering platform for designing, deploying, and managing virtual control systems based on open architecture and standards. At its core, the OTee platform is a potential game-changer enabling cheaper, faster, more sustainable, and secure industrial control systems for millions of automation engineers worldwide. OTee’s CEO and Co-founder, Henrik Pedersen, with 11 years of experience at ABB, firmly believes that a disruption of the Industrial automation (OT) domain is at our doorstep.
OTee’s applications range across almost all industries, showcasing the company’s limitless market potential. Focused on virtual Programmable Logic Controllers (vPLCs), OTee distinguishes itself by offering a SaaS platform built on a cybersecurity zero-trust architecture, that decouples the software and the hardware. This is making it possible to modernize an old control system with no physical intervention and remove the vendor lock-in.
SQCDP, a Newcastle-based startup focusing on the improvement of manufacturing performance, has announced that it has secured £200,000 from London’s Q Ventures as part of a larger, still open and ongoing funding raise.
Offering a viable alternative to the costly and hardware-centric solutions prevalent in the market, SQCDP streamlines the process of collecting factory floor data, and provides access via mobile devices, tablets, and desktops, essentially rendering spreadsheets, forms, and whiteboards obsolete.
O’Shaughnessy Ventures LLC (“OSV”), a family office that invests in ambitious seed and pre-seed startups, announced that it has invested in Furno Materials Inc. (“Furno”). Founded in 2020 by Gurinder Nagra, Furno is building modular cement plants that are more carbon-efficient, cheaper to build, and less space-intensive than traditional plants.
Cement is the second most-consumed commodity in the world (behind water), and it produces 8% of global carbon dioxide emissions. Traditional cement plans are large and must be custom-built. Furno’s modular cement plants burn natural gas instead of coal. This means they release less carbon dioxide than traditional cement plants and can be heated and cooled more efficiently. Furno’s plants are designed to fit inside a shipping container, meaning they are portable and take up minimal space, which is ideal for building in developing markets.
Bollegraaf, the world’s largest builder of recycling plants, has entered into a strategic partnership with Greyparrot, a pioneer in AI waste analytics, to transform global waste management. As part of the agreement, Bollegraaf will transfer its AI vision business to Greyparrot and also make a cash investment, for a total value of $12.8M, in Greyparrot, obtaining a non-controlling stake in the company. It will also serve as a worldwide distributor and strategic partner for Greyparrot’s Analyzer, which currently provides 100% visibility into waste streams at recycling plants across 14 countries using AI camera systems.
The deal includes Greyparrot acquiring Bollegraaf’s vision-based computing intellectual property (IP) and esteemed AI development team. Greyparrot will also open its first office in mainland Europe in the Netherlands.
With this groundbreaking partnership, both companies aim to retrofit thousands of existing Materials Recovery Facilities (MRFs) and Plastics Recovery Facilities (PRFs) with advanced AI capabilities to significantly boost recycling rates and quantify material emissions. The collaboration will bring forth revolutionary smart recycling plants that are fully automated and agile, unlocking new value in waste streams while diverting millions of tonnes of waste away from landfills, oceans, and incinerators. In a development set to transform waste management, this marks a momentous acceleration in the global shift from a linear to a circular economy. Together, Greyparrot and Bollegraaf commit to developing further products that combine the strengths of both companies to make the vision of fully automated and intelligent sorting facilities a reality.
VLM, or Viscous Lithography Manufacturing, is a completely different 3D printing process that doesn’t use a vat of resin, as most resin processes do. Instead VLM uses a transparent film to carry a single layer of resin to the build chamber. This process repeats to build entire objects. The advantage is that VLM can produce objects using vastly thicker resins, hence the “viscous” in the process name. They say the resins can be up to 100X more viscous than typical 3D print resins.
The benefit comes from the ability to infuse different additives into the resin that could not be used by non-viscous processes. This has opened up a very wide range of possible materials, which BCN3D could exploit in the future. VLM sounds very promising, yet it is utterly different from their traditional FFF process. The process is different, the materials are very different, the applications are different, and therefore the customers will be different. Because of this divergence from the FFF trajectory, BCN3D has decided to spin off their VLM business into an entirely new and separate entity, Supernova.
Ares Management Corporation (NYSE: ARES) announced the launch of Automated Industrial Robotics Inc., a newly formed industrial automation company designed to capitalize on increasing global demand for manufacturing automation solutions. An Ares Private Equity fund has invested substantial equity capital to support AIR’s acquisition and organic growth strategy.
AIR is focused on acquiring and facilitating the growth of differentiated industrial automation companies serving diverse end markets with strong operational histories and tenured management teams. Grounded in a culture of safety, transparency and pursuit of excellent customer experience, AIR seeks to leverage complementary teams and technologies to deliver innovative, cost-competitive solutions to address the complex and challenging needs of global businesses. AIR will seek to grow through strategic investments in the technologies of the future, in pursuit of delivering excellence in automation.
In connection with the launch of AIR, the Company has acquired two foundational companies, Totally Automated Systems (“TA Systems”) and Modular Automation (“Modular”). Based in Detroit, Michigan, TA Systems has a more than 45-year history of designing and manufacturing fully integrated and stand-alone assembly machines for automotive, home appliances and other sectors. Based in Shannon, Ireland, Modular has been operating for nearly 40 years and is a leading automation solutions provider in the medical technology industry. These two companies bring a strong cultural and technological alignment as well as deep industry vertical knowledge and experience.
Capturing this week's zeitgeist
Check out ASML’s short film and how it was made:
The film was made with 1,963 natural language prompts that yielded 7,852 images, which were edited and then rendered by more than 900 computers. These renders were then processed with various generative AI techniques with the total film covering 25,957 frames at 1,000 MB per frame. The trickiest scene was Isaac Newton and his apple among the planets. It took the team more than 20 attempts to get Newton’s scene right, producing more than 9,800 frames.
This week's most influential Industry 4.0 media.
The LNS Research Reference Architecture is a future-looking framework that categorizes the technological capabilities needed to deliver for all personas involved in manufacturing operations. While previous frameworks have been focused on core functions such as operations, quality, asset performance management, IT, and OT, our research shows that companies that successfully transform include a broader set of functional areas. Industrial operations have moved from a pure focus on cost reduction to a more extensive scope around profitability, sustainability, and the Future of Industrial Work (FOIW) lifecycle to achieve the vision of Operation 2030 and the Journey to Zero+.
Thermoforming, a technology that is more than a century old, uses sheet plastic that is heated to become soft so it can be vacuum-formed in or around a mold. Excess plastic is then cut off to create final products with dimensions that range from a few inches to the size of a room.
When Kal Plastics needed to replace a CNC machine that was nearing the end of its life, Goff was presented with an opportunity. She set out to research the use of cobots for her own business and agreed to share her findings at the organization’s national conference. “I did my homework and found that Universal Robots was the global leader in the collaborative robot space,” Goff said. “They came out and gave us a demonstration, and when I looked at the numbers, they were really attractive. I was looking at getting another five-axis CNC router, and at the time it would have been a $250,000 investment and I would have waited 12 months to take delivery. When I met with UR, I was quoted two weeks to get the equipment, and the entry point was a quarter or a fifth of the cost.”
Collaborative workplaces are increasingly used in production systems. The possibility of direct collaboration between robots and humans brings many advantages, as it allows the simultaneous use of human and robotic strengths. However, collaboration between a collaborative robot and a human raises concerns about the safety of the interaction, the impact of the robot on human health, human efficiency, etc. Additionally, research is unexplored in the field of the collaborative robot’s audio-visual effects on the worker’s efficiency. Our study results contribute to the field of studying collaborative robots’ audio-visual effects on the worker’s behavior. In this research, we analyze the effect of the changing motion parameters of the collaborative robot (speed and acceleration) on the efficiency of the worker and, consequently, on the production process. Based on the experimental results, we were able to confirm the impact of robot speed and acceleration on the worker’s efficiency in terms of assembly time. We also concluded that the sound level and presence of a visual barrier between the worker and robot by themselves have no effect on the worker’s efficiency. The experimental part of the paper clearly identifies the impact of visualization on work efficiency. According to the results, the robot’s audio-visual effects play a key role in achieving high efficiency and, consequently, justifying the implementation of a collaborative workplace.
In just six months, Liebherr-Transportation Systems completely reconstructed two manufacturing lines, significantly upgrading them in the process. “The facility was divided into these three manufacturing lines because the three areas require very different manufacturing steps, and need to handle components of differing sizes,” Ahmad said.
The manufacturing lines – apart from the E-Box manufacturing – were first set up and tested in Korneuburg. What was especially pleasing to the two responsible persons in Korneuburg was the fact that many previously absent technologies were being used. A Kanban material delivery system and semi-automatic test steps were developed, the manufacturing became paperless, and the issue of safety gained an entirely new importance as it was able to be completely revisited.
The new production lines use, among other things, the intelligent deTec safety light curtains, TR110 Lock safety switches with locking function, various safety command devices (like emergency stop, reset, and enabling switches), signal lamps, various safety switches, and the versatile, programmable Flexi Soft safety controller.
Crack detection plays an important role in the industrial inspection of stamped metal products. While supervised learning methods are commonly used in the quality assessment process, they often require a substantial amount of labeled data, which can be challenging to obtain in a well-tuned production line. Unsupervised learning has demonstrated exceptional performance in anomaly detection. This study proposes an unsupervised algorithm for crack detection on stamped metal surfaces, capable of classification and segmentation without the need for crack images during training. The approach leverages the Vector Quantized-Variational Autoencoder 2 (VQ-VAE2) based model to reconstruct input images, while retaining crack details. Additionally, latent features at different scales are quantized into discrete representations using a codebook. To learn the distribution of these discrete representations from non-crack samples, the study utilizes PixelSNAIL, an autoregressive model used for sequential modeling. In the testing stage, the model assigns low probabilities to discrete features that deviate from the non-crack distribution. These potential crack candidate features are resampled using vectors in the codebook that exhibit the highest dissimilarity. The edited representations are then fed into the decoder to generate resampled images that have the most significant differences in the crack area from the original reconstruction. Crack patterns are extracted at the pixel level by subtracting resampled images from the reconstruction. Prior knowledge that crack patterns often appear darker is leveraged to enhance the crack features. A robust classification criterion is introduced based on the probability given by the autoregressive model. Extensive experiments were conducted using images captured from stamped metal panels. The results demonstrate that the proposed technique exhibits robust performance and high accuracy.
Many robotics applications have real-time requirements, which means that they must be able to execute sections of code within a strict deadline. A control loop is one such example - failure to complete the control loop in time may cause controller instability or trigger protective stops! For ROS applications, ros2_control is a framework that can be used for real-time control of robots using ROS 2. Whether writing a real-time application with ros2_control, or your own custom real-time application, real-time code requires a specific set of concerns around ensuring latency is controlled and deadlines are met.
In this blog post, we’re going to discuss priority inversion, which is a potential source of unbounded latency that needs to be avoided in your real-time code. Priority inversion is very much a concern for robotics: a famous example is that priority inversion caused a failure on the Mars Pathfinder!
Here are all >120 Giga Press Orders
— Luca Greco (@lucagrecoita) January 29, 2024
As you can see the vast majority of them are from Chinese T1 suppliers.
Very few are from European OEMs or suppliers.
The real number of orders is between 170 and 180.
I was able to track between 120 and 150 orders, which is not bad given… pic.twitter.com/7Afn2ojbg8
Highlighting new and innovative products and services
First unveiled in mid-October, Canon’s nanoimprint lithography — a technology under development for more than 15 years but which the company says is only now commercially viable — stamps chip designs on to silicon wafers rather than etching them using light. The process, says Canon, will be “one digit” cheaper and use up to 90 per cent less power than Netherlands-based ASML’s market-dominating and light-based extreme ultraviolet (EUV) technology.
The range of tasks that is being carried out by robots has become limitless. It includes gripping, holding as well as manipulations such as clamping and screwing through to foaming and welding. And when it comes to standardized mass production, specialized robots can be used, which perform the same tasks day and night. But many processes require flexibility, such as when it comes to batch size 1. This is also important to save on investment costs. The greater the range of tasks that a robot can carry out, the better.
This is where the TKX tool changer comes in. Mounted to the end of the robot arm, it is able to remove a variety of different tools from a rack. For example, it enables the robot to first grip and position a workpiece, then to process it with tools, and finally to check and document the quality with a contour sensor or a camera. For this, the adapter needs suitable feedthroughs for the corresponding tool functions. The TKX series offers all conceivable options here, plus several lateral screw-on surfaces for additional modules. But the main task of the tool changer is to securely lock the tool when it is picked up, and to quickly and consistently release the lock again when it is set down after use.
South Korean shipbuilding giant HD Hyundai Co. marked a major milestone in the maritime industry on January 28, christening the world’s first mega methanol-fueled container ship at its Ulsan shipyard. The Ane Maersk, named after Ane Mærsk Mc-Kinney Uggla, the chairman of AP Moller Holdings and mother of Robert Mærsk Uggla, holds the distinction of being the first such vessel with a capacity exceeding 10,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs).
BYD, the Chinese electric-vehicle maker, has been particularly good at expanding into different, related businesses. Not only can it make high-performing and safe batteries for cars, but it also does almost everything in house, from designing car chips to mining lithium and other materials. The fact that it has subsidiaries in every step of the EV supply chain enables the company to keep its costs down and sell cars at more competitive prices.
Now, to pull that off once again, BYD is starting a sea freight business. As I just wrote in a story published today, the company is assembling a fleet of at least eight car-carrier ships that will transport BYD cars from factories in China to sell in Europe, South America, and other markets.
GITAI USA Inc. (GITAI), the world’s leading space robotics startup, is pleased to announce that its 1.5-meter-long autonomous dual robotic arm system (S2) has successfully arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket (NG-20) to conduct an external demonstration of in-space servicing, assembly, and manufacturing (ISAM) while onboard the ISS. The success of the S2 tech-demo will be a major milestone for GITAI, confirming the feasibility of this technology as a fully operational system in space.
How governments are shaping the future industrial landscape.
Japanese telecom carrier NTT will develop technologies to mass-produce next-generation semiconductors that drastically reduce power consumption by utilizing optical technology, in partnership with U.S. chipmaker Intel and other semiconductor companies. SK Hynix of South Korea is also expected to participate in the initiative, which eyes countering China by cooperating in research and development of cutting-edge strategic technologies. The Japanese government will provide about 45 billion yen ($305 million) in support.
Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation: the Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (1944) starts with an appropriately jarring first sentence: “Nineteenth-century civilization has collapsed.” While perhaps not as readable as Polanyi, the Department of Defense’s first-ever National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS), released on January 11, 2024, also begins rather succinctly: “A robust and resilient industrial base provides the enduring foundation for military advantage.”
20th century civilization had collapsed. 21st century civilization is still in the process of forming. Its formation is being accelerated by the full-scale reemergence of industrial policy.
The Australian Government’s $200m grant to upgrade Australia’s steel industry is a crucial early step to realising Australia’s potential as a global green steel powerhouse, according to the Australian Workers’ Union.
The federal government has announced the first round of the Powering the Regions Fund (PRF) will provide funding to BlueScope Steel Limited and Liberty Steel Australia. Bluescope will use $136.8m to upgrade of its No. 6 Blast Furnace at the Port Kembla Steelworks. LIBERTY has also been awarded $63.2m towards the purchase and commission of a low carbon electric arc furnace to replace its blast furnace at the Whyalla Steelworks.
This week's top funding events, acquisitions, and partnerships across industrial value chains
Inari announced the completion of a $103 million fundraise, bringing its cumulative equity raised to more than $575 million. The successful investment round signals confidence in Inari’s ability to develop and commercialize higher-yielding seeds that require fewer resources, using AI-powered predictive design and multiplex gene editing.
The fundraise received strong support from existing investors, including Hanwha Impact, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), Rivas Capital, NGS Super, State of Michigan Retirement System and company founder Flagship Pioneering. The company also welcomed several new investors including RCM Private Markets fund, advised by Rokos Capital Management (US) LP.
Boston Metal, a global metals technology solutions company, today announced a $20 million Series C2 investment from Tokyo-based Marunouchi Innovation Partners. The new funding brings the series total to $282 million.
With this new capital, Boston Metal expands its presence in Asia, a market accounting for more than 70% of the world’s steel production. Additionally, the funding will accelerate the company’s path to commercialization and support its ongoing growth by attracting and retaining top industry talent.
Boston Metal’s Molten Oxide Electrolysis (MOE) technology is a direct, one-step process that can produce high-quality steel from abundant medium- and low-grade iron ores. This flexibility is unique and positions MOE to meet the growing demand for environmentally sustainable steel in various industries. As a platform technology, MOE also allows for the extraction of high-value metals from previously unusable low-concentration materials, like mining waste.
Tau Group, a leading technology company driving energy transition and decarbonization efforts, is establishing a new global standard in electric motor insulated wire. Tau has successfully closed a €11 million extension to its Series-B funding round. CDP Venture Capital and Santander Alternative Investments (through Santander InnoEnergy Climate Fund) took the lead in this round, with continued support from existing investors. This strategic funding aligns with Tau’s concurrent expansion of production capacity in a new facility, geared towards fulfilling long-term supply agreements recently inked with automotive industry partners.
Belgian logistics SaaS scale-up Peripass announced it has secured €7.5 million in funding to accelerate its global expansion. Welvaartfonds led the financing round, which builds on previous investments from the Van Overstraeten Group. With the capital raised, Peripass will focus on building a global partner network and strengthening its existing commercial teams in France, the UK, and Germany.
By digitally streamlining trailer movements, Peripass successfully reduces driver waiting times by up to 70 percent.
German semiconductor tech company SEMRON announced it has secured €7.3 million in seed funding. Join Capital, led the current funding round, which saw participation from new investors SquareOne, OTB Ventures, and Hermann Hauser (Onsight Ventures).
SEMRON crafts powerful energy-efficient computer chips designed to enhance AI performance in compact smart devices. The company’s innovative approach utilises a three-dimensional space in chip design, allowing for unprecedented improvements in efficiency.
SEMRON has achieved a significant breakthrough in developing the world’s most energy-efficient semiconductor technology for AI inference. This proprietary technology, named CapRAM™, employs a novel semiconductor device architecture that calculates using a variable capacitor (‘memcapacitor’) instead of relying on currents like resistive approaches and transistors.
Energy Source has caught attention overseas and has raised $1.2 million from InMotion Ventures, the investment arm of JLR (Jaguar Land Rover). This signifies InMotion Ventures’ inaugural venture into the Brazilian market.
Energy Source intends to use the fresh funds to capitalise on the growth of the country’s burgeoning startup ecosystem and broaden its focus beyond the UK and the US. It will use the capital to accelerate growth and expand operations, enabling it to continue catering to global clients in the future, such as JLR, from their 4,500 m2 industrial plant in São João da Boa Vista.
ABB Robotics and METTLER TOLEDO, a global supplier of precision instruments and services, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to offer an innovative solution that seamlessly integrates ABB’s robots with LabX™, METTLER TOLEDO’s laboratory instrument management software.
With the collaboration, METTLER TOLEDO’s LabX software will seamlessly integrate into ABB’s OmniCore ™ robot controllers, enabling LabX to orchestrate robotic lab workflows. By combining the flexibility, ease-of-use and precision of ABB robots with the secure data capture, method control and instrument management of LabX, customers can increase lab productivity, reduce system complexity, fulfill data quality, and safety and regulatory requirements. This also relieves scientists and lab technicians of mundane, repetitive tasks; eliminating common errors; and optimizing productivity – providing lab professionals additional time to pursue higher-value activities, such as data analytics.
Cognite, a globally recognized leader in industrial software, and ANYbotics, a globally leading robotics company specializing in the development of advanced four-legged robots for industrial inspection, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) where they will enter a non-exclusive collaboration aimed at delivering cutting-edge products and services to global customers. The parties seek to leverage the unique strengths of both companies to offer customers an integrated robotics inspection solution, enabling unmanned operations by providing real-time autonomous data collection in industries such as Oil & Gas, Power & Utilities, Chemicals, and Metals.
ANYbotics’ autonomous robotic inspection, driven by an automated end-to-end workflow, and Cognite’s specialized industrial DataOps platform, Cognite Data Fusion®, complement each other seamlessly and will fuel AI robotics innovation and deployment across current and prospective customers to improve the safety of operations and reduce operational expenditures.
Honeywell announced it will team up with Hai Robotics to deliver flexible, high-density storage and retrieval solutions to distribution centers (DCs). The alliance couples Hai’s innovative robotics technology with Honeywell’s Momentum Warehouse Execution Software, enhanced cybersecurity capabilities and experience integrating robotics solutions. Additionally, it supports Honeywell’s portfolio alignment to three compelling megatrends: automation, the future of aviation and energy transition.
Hai Robotics solutions integrate with Honeywell’s Momentum Warehouse Execution Software, enabling DC operators to analyze real-time operating information across a DC and prioritize and redirect work as it is performed by both robotic systems and people, allowing for reduced costs and greater customer service levels.
This week's most influential Industry 4.0 media.
“Moving from 200mm to 300mm wafers increases the size 1.5 x 1.5,” explains Taniguchi. “A simple calculation of the area shows that we have a 2.25 times increase in production. So if you ask how Toshiba is responding to the growing demand for power semiconductors accompanying progress towards carbon neutrality and energy savings, the answer is with increased supply capacity. The introduction of production lines that can handle 300mm wafers became an initiative for everybody in our department. Seeing the entire organization working together heightened my sense of responsibility, as well as excitement from being involved in a new technology. Working out how to set up processes using 300mm manufacturing equipment – it’s a project that exhilarated me.”
Taniguchi knows all about this. “Investing in equipment is front and center in power semiconductor manufacturing, and there is a strong sense of excitement about pioneering technology. You ask yourself if there is a way to increase the productivity of the equipment, to manufacture more power semiconductors, and improve the quality…I’ve spent all day in a clean room fine-tuning the movement of the wafers and devising ways to stabilize the temperature. I got really excited when, after a lot of trial and error, I managed to adjust the conditions to get stable production.
Splunk and Bosch Rexroth have joined forces to help manufacturers elevate their resilience and take advantage of new market trends and agile operating models leveraging OT + IT + AI/ML.
Bosch Rexroth has developed an Intelligent Factory Floor which is above all smart and flexible. Roof, walls and floor are fixed, everything else can be adapted to new orders, production methods or business models. As such, it is easy to reconfigure machinery and to scale up or scale down production lines according to requirements. The multi-color LED visualization in the floor can flexibly adjust walkways, and define safety zones and logistics areas. The Intelligent Floor collects data such as weight and distance via built-in sensors.
These rich data sources are ingested into Splunk’s data analytics platform leveraging AI capabilities. As a result, possible business outcomes not only include an optimized, agile production performance but also an elevated security posture including IT / OT cybersecurity. Predictive Analytics such as Predictive Maintenance and Predictive Quality based on the Splunk Machine Learning Toolkit can be implemented. Factory managers can finally bring cost-efficient lot size one production to life.
AI-powered stationary outside-in safety platforms, which monitor activity across many distributed machines or robots, can predictively and proactively orchestrate consistent safety policies. Machines and robots equipped with inside-out reactive safety can detect any specific interaction within their workspace and take appropriate measures.
If the worker continues or crosses the stop safety zone, the FORT safety stack on IGX commands (WiFi) the FORT endpoint (embedded in the machine) to activate the emergency stop (reactive safety). The Protex edge computer vision app uses NVIDIA DeepStream 6.2 and the Protex model has been trained with NVIDIA TAO Toolkit and quantized with NVIDIA TensorRT.
This document provides a detailed guide for using Visual Studio Code (VSCode) to build and execute ROS 2 projects efficiently with C++ and Python. It covers a range of topics, including initializing VSCode, remote development over SSH, development using Docker, sourcing ROS dependencies, and building with Colcon. The document also delves into specific techniques for working in C++ and Python within the ROS 2 environment, offering valuable insights and tips to enhance the development process.
CNC detective breakthrough! Looks like Apple is using Haas DC-1 machines to make the Vision Pro. This machine was just announced on 1/16/24, and it was a bit of a mystery why they would replace their DT/DM line with a machine whose main difference is just the chips coming out the… pic.twitter.com/VyJMhrT2vp
— Pete Oxenham (@peteoxenham) January 24, 2024
Highlighting new and innovative products and services
Lectra supports the transformation of fashion, automotive and furniture players by providing them with technological solutions that accelerate their transition to a more efficient and more sustainable Industry 4.0. The Group announces the launch of its enhanced Furniture On Demand by Lectra offer. This solution automates, streamlines and gives total visibility over on-demand production – unitary and series – of furniture products, enabling smarter and more sustainable manufacturing. The Group is also launching a new generation of smart and connected furniture cutting equipment, VectorFurniture Q2 and VectorFurniture iX2.
This eco-designed equipment consumes 30% to 40% less energy than the previous generation, already renowned for its energy performance, maximizing efficiency. It is more compact and 200 kilograms lighter, significantly reducing environmental impacts during production, transport and use. Ergonomics and operator protection, Lectra’s key concerns, have been completely redesigned with the integration of motion detection sensors, the reduction of equipment noise levels and the introduction of new standards for circuit boards.
Precision Livestock Technologies (PLT), a leading provider of software and hardware solutions related to livestock feeding and health, today announced the introduction of the first system that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to predict cattle feed intake and make feeding recommendations. The system generates daily quantitative feeding predictions based on hundreds of data points gathered from PLT’s machine vision Bunk Management System and external data sources, taking into account feeding rates, feeding times, feeding cycles, cattle behavior, ration type, weather, and other factors. The company developed its AI-based algorithms through machine learning techniques, based on over 150,000 discrete pen days.
BASF and Inditex jointly announce a breakthrough in their efforts for boosting recyclability in the textile industry. With the launch of loopamid®, a polyamide 6 (PA6, also known as nylon 6) made from 100 percent textile waste, BASF is providing the first circular solution for nylon apparel made entirely from textile waste. Zara has turned the material into a jacket made from 100 percent loopamid. Following a “design for recycling” approach, all parts, including fabrics, buttons, filling, hook and loop and zipper are made from loopamid.
The new KR FORTEC is now available – including with an extended arm that handles loads of 240 kg across a reach of 3700 mm. Technically, this heavy-duty robot fits between the KR QUANTEC and KR FORTEC ultra. Cross-model modularization ensures a high transmissibility of robot series components. “We developed the KR FORTEC to achieve a lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and to launch a resource-saving product on the market. The KR FORTEC is up to 700 kg lighter than its predecessor,” explained Maximilian Pettkuhn, Portfolio Manager at KUKA. For customers, modularization means lower costs for spare part storage.
Intel celebrated the opening of Fab 9, its cutting-edge factory in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. The milestone is part of Intel’s previously announced $3.5 billion investment to equip its New Mexico operations for the manufacturing of advanced semiconductor packaging technologies, including Intel’s breakthrough 3D packaging technology, Foveros, which offers flexible options for combining multiple chips that are optimized for power, performance and cost.
In a pivotal moment in the commercialization of hydrogen fuel cell systems, GM and Honda today announced the start of production at their 50-50 joint venture production facility, FCSM. FCSM is the first large-scale manufacturing joint venture to build fuel cells. FCSM was established in Brownstown, Michigan, in January 2017 based on a joint investment of $85 million. The 70,000-square-foot facility has already created 80 jobs. The world-class hydrogen power solutions built at FCSM will be used by both companies in various product applications and business ventures.
How governments are shaping the future industrial landscape.
Everything that has happened since the arrival of the Covid pandemic has pointed to a new paradigm: some call it de-globalisation, others call it – perhaps more accurately – “glocalisation”. An ugly term, glocalisation is not the global free market, and it is not autarky (a nation that operates in a state of self-reliance), but something in between. It involves shorter supply chains, an emphasis on building back domestic manufacturing capacity, and a more strategic role for government. As with any form of mixed economy, the degree of glocalisation varies from country to country.
300 businesses have now secured £6.5m matched funding from the government-funded, industry-backed initiative, adopting technologies as diverse as sensors, robotics, 3D printing and artificial intelligence (AI). Among the latest wave of businesses starting their journey with Made Smarter to benefit their bottom line and the environment are food and drink manufacturers: Harbourside Products, Northern Pasta Company, Brightside Brewing Company, Just Bee Honey, Studio Bakery and Chandley Ovens.
Australian global green energy, metals, and technology company Fortescue chooses Michigan for its U.S. Advanced Manufacturing Center, citing state’s automotive leadership, strong engineering talent. Germany-based provider of EV charging stations EcoG establishing U.S. headquarters in Corktown neighborhood of Detroit, building on region’s mobility innovation ecosystem. Logistics provider Fifth Wheel Freight creating flagship headquarters in Michigan, creating 352 jobs
This week's top funding events, acquisitions, and partnerships across industrial value chains
H2 Green Steel signs definitive debt financing agreements for €4.2 billion in project financing and increases the previously announced equity raised by €300 million. Total equity funding to date amounts to €2.1 billion. The company has also been awarded a €250 million grant from the EU Innovation Fund. H2 Green Steel has now secured funding of close to €6.5 billion for the world’s first large-scale green steel plant in Northern Sweden.
H2 Green Steel has also raised close to €300 million more from investors, bringing the equity in the project to a total of €2.1 billion. New shareholders include Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund, Mubea and Siemens Financial Services. Additionally, IMAS Foundation and Just Climate are some of the existing shareholders which are increasing their investments in H2 Green Steel.
One of Europe’s leading providers of high-performance portable battery systems, Instagrid, announced a Series C funding round of €87 million. The round was led by Teachers’ Venture Growth (TVG), with participation from Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s (MSIM) 1GT climate private equity strategy. Existing investors Energy Impact Partners, SET Ventures, blueworld.group, and Hightech Gründerfonds, as well as the chair of the advisory board, Pierre-Pascal Urbon, also contributed to the round.
Instagrid’s flagship Instagrid ONE is lightweight and mobile enough to be used in the most remote locations and powerful enough to match the performance of the grid, making it possible to use electricity from renewable sources in any location. On a single charge, the Instagrid ONE portable battery is powerful enough to run welding equipment for an entire day’s work, pump over 55,000 litres of water with a large submersible pump or cut through hundreds of metres of concrete with heavy duty equipment, as well as a host of other commercial applications.
Instagrid is building on their proven technology to offer a full range of mobile battery solutions. Their upcoming large-scale system will power entire film sets or construction sites at a fraction of the size and emissions of comparable systems. Instagrid products boast zero exhaust emissions, as well as up to 97% lower carbon footprints and 82% lower lifetime costs compared to generators.
Sion Power Corporation, a leading technology developer of next-generation batteries for electric vehicles (EV), announces that it has secured $75 million in Series A funding. The round was led by leading global battery manufacturer LG Energy Solution (the investment to be executed through LG Technology Ventures and Bricks Capital Management) and repeat participation from mathematician Jim Simons’ Euclidean Capital. The company also secured new investment from former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt’s Hillspire LLC.
Sion Power is the developer of LicerionTM technology. This technology uses compression in a lithium metal battery to enhance safety, lifetime and recharging rates. It is the Sion Power belief that any lithium metal system will require compression to have a viable energy storage system. The company has developed very robust intellectual property around this concept. LicerionTM has been successfully demonstrated in large energy capacity battery cells (up to 20Ah) and it is currently in development to reach 56Ah.
With this new capital, Sion Power will achieve technical and market validation of its technology. The company plans to build a fully automated manufacturing line to produce high quality large format lithium-metal cells for testing and market development by automotive OEMs and cell manufacturers.
GreenSpark Software, a modern software platform for the metal recycling industry, announced it has raised $9.4 million in new funding, bringing GreenSpark’s total financing to ~$19 million. The investment was led by Zero Infinity Partners and Third Prime with participation from Bienville Capital and select strategic individuals. This round of fundraising positions GreenSpark to expand its product suite and employee base while continuing to help metal recyclers optimize their operations and drive profitability.
UK additive manufacturing company Wayland Additive announced a £4.2 million fundraise to enable continued growth of global customers. A Huddersfield-based company, Wayland designs, develops, makes and sells industrial Calibur3 metal additive manufacturing machines, utilising cutting-edge electron beam 3D printing technology. It has successfully rolled out its technology to various buyers across different sectors, including aerospace, mining, engineering, medical, motorsport and military and defence, with operations across North America and Europe. This latest fundraising will allow Wayland to continue to expand its growing global customer base.
Cnergreen, a Calgary-based startup manufacturing stable foams for CO2 injection in enhanced oil recovery (EOR), has secured a $2M Seed funding round led by Rhapsody Venture Partners, a US-based venture capital firm that specializes in hard-tech investments.
Cnergreen’s patent-pending ArmorFoamTM technology, developed at the University of Calgary, enables underground foams to remain stable for months at high pressures, temperatures, and salinities. The first application is improving CO2 enhanced oil recovery (CO2 EOR) in the oil and gas industry. For years, oilfield operators have seen an opportunity to use CO2 injection as a way to enhance oil recovery in active wells, while also permanently sequestering CO2 in geologic reservoirs. Because of the large volumes of CO2 required, CO2-EOR provides a near-term pathway for scaled carbon sequestration, while lowering the carbon footprint of produced oil.
Taqtile, Inc., maker of Manifest®, the leading spatially-enabled work-instruction platform serving the industrial and defense sectors announces the addition of Scout Ventures as an investor. Taqtile will also add Scout Founder and Managing Partner, Brad Harrison, as a Board Observer. Scheduled to close in early 2024, this new financing will support strategic initiatives, including ramping up essential marketing programs, expanding support and sales staff, and bolstering engineering and development efforts.
Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC) and United Microelectronics Corporation (NYSE: UMC; TWSE: 2303) (“UMC”), a leading global semiconductor foundry, announced that they will collaborate on the development of a 12-nanometer semiconductor process platform to address high-growth markets such as mobile, communication infrastructure and networking. The long-term agreement brings together Intel’s at-scale U.S. manufacturing capacity and UMC’s extensive foundry experience on mature nodes to enable an expanded process portfolio. It also offers global customers greater choice in their sourcing decisions with access to a more geographically diversified and resilient supply chain.
Accenture and Mujin, a leader in intelligent robotics for manufacturing, logistics and supply chain operations, have established Accenture Alpha Automation, a joint venture for the manufacturing and logistics industries. Accenture Alpha Automation will help companies automate their management infrastructure with data-driven solutions that seamlessly combine data from manufacturing and logistics operations with management data. The joint venture is 70% owned by Accenture and 30% by Mujin.
The joint venture will combine Mujin’s experience in industrial robotics and automation with expertise from Accenture’s digital engineering and manufacturing service, Industry X. Accenture Alpha Automation’s solutions will integrate previously disconnected operational data from manufacturing and logistics sites with business management data, such as the company-wide supply chain status, financial information and market information. Accenture and Mujin will bring these solutions to clients to help them make faster, better decisions and hyper-automate their manufacturing and logistics processes.
Jacobi Robotics, a new company pioneering AI-driven motion planning for robot systems, and Formic, a leading robotics-as-a-service provider accelerating the adoption of automation across American manufacturing, today unveiled a strategic partnership to bring high-performance AI-powered robotics to manufacturers. Jacobi’s technology empowers robot solution providers like Formic to program and deploy the next wave of automation technology in less than one day compared to one month with existing tools, setting a new benchmark for operational efficiency.
The Jacobi-Formic alliance initially targets robotic palletizers that stack cases onto pallets for storage or shipment. More than $400 billion worth of American trade is exported annually on pallets. But the physically demanding task of manual palletizing ranks as the leading cause of worker compensation claims in the manufacturing sector. This challenge, coupled with a daunting labor shortage, drives the growing demand and deployment of robotic palletizers.
ABB announced it has agreed to acquire a majority of software service provider Meshmind to expand its research and development capabilities in AI, Industrial IoT and machine vision. Through this acquisition ABB will integrate engineering talent, AI and software knowledge to form a new global R&D hub to further accelerate the development of innovative automation solutions within its Machine Automation division (B&R).
The integration of Meshmind’s approximately 50 employees will expand collaboration with B&R teams in a range of R&D projects, including deep learning vision systems, AI-enabled engineering tools, and IoT app development, from their office in Sarajevo, Bosnia, which will serve as B&R’s new global hub for AI and software development. Financial details of the transaction that is expected to close in Q1 2024 were not disclosed.
An affiliate of Angeles Equity Partners, LLC (“Angeles”), a private investment firm focused on value creation through operational transformation, announced the acquisition of Acieta LLC (“Acieta”), a Midwest-based industrial robotics manufacturer and integrator, from Mitsui & Co. (U.S.A.), Inc. (“Mitsui”). This transaction marks the fourth strategic acquisition by Angeles in the robotics integration sector, complementing its current platform consisting of RōBEX, Mid-State Engineering, and +Vantage. Acieta further expands the business’ equipment tending, welding, and palletizing capabilities across a broader set of end markets including agriculture, foundry and die, welding and fabrication, and construction and building products.
Capturing this week's zeitgeist
Marcus Kane breaks down the “Making Vision Pro” manufacturing process frame-by-frame.
This week's most influential Industry 4.0 media.
The Cadillac CELESTIQ integrates 115 metal and polymer 3D printed components, including a metal laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) steering wheel, 3D printed window switches, grab handles, decorative parts, and structural seatbelt D-rings, which holds the title of being GM’s first 3D printed safety-related part. It’s no surprise that the new low-volume vehicle represents the broadest integration of 3D printed production parts for GM. And we wanted to understand how the company got there; how it has pursued AM so successfully and where it’s going with the technology.
While GM uses a wide array of additive processes across its business, there are a few specific processes that have really excelled for the company’s production applications: metal binder jetting, metal LPBF, and HP’s Multi Jet Fusion.
Tesla has been a leader in factory robotization, putting pressure on competitors to follow suit. Last year, executives at the world’s most valuable automaker said introducing more automated equipment was a crucial tool in its goal to cut the cost of making future models by 50%.
Dozens of new battery factories and electric-vehicle plants in the works will also open the door to broader use of high-tech systems, analysts say. It is easier and less costly to install robots in a new facility versus retrofitting an existing one. Plus, it is more streamlined to have updated systems that “speak” to each other smoothly, as opposed to popping in a new machine among older ones.
There are multiple signals inside a safety switch - even more than inside standard E-stop buttons. Four of the terminals are dedicated to sensing the condition of the switch internally, both the solenoid’s position and the actual position of the lock. Two terminals provide control power to the solenoid (supplied from another safety circuit). Two other terminals provide an auxiliary monitor for the status of the lock. Finally, the last two terminals provide a selectable input, either to provide power to an indicator LED or to monitor the position of the solenoid.
Highlighting new and innovative products and services
Cognite, a globally recognized leader in industrial software, today announced the beta launch of a generative AI-powered Remote Operations Control Room (ROCR) at the Celanese facility in Clear Lake, Texas. Celanese, a global chemical and specialty materials company, plans to use the ROCR to deliver full visibility into the real-time operation of its sites worldwide, thereby expediting workflows and gaining operational insights orders of magnitude more efficiently.
By integrating generative AI into a Remote Operations Control Room, Cognite will increase visibility to our site leaders and their teams and enable a multitude of possibilities – from monitoring equipment performance to enhancing root cause analysis to streamlining and enhancing our processes,” said Brenda Stout, vice president of Acetyls Manufacturing at Celanese.
Fairway Methanol LLC, a US-based 50-50 joint venture between Mitsui & Co., Ltd. (Tokyo) and Celanese Corp. (Dallas, Tex.), has begun the production of methanol by using carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted from plants surrounding the joint venture’s facility. Fairway Methanol is expected to capture 180 thousand metric tons of CO2 and produce 130 thousand metric tons of low-carbon methanol per year, which leads its annual production capacity to 1.63 million metric tons per year.
Jetway has recently introduced a new motherboard, the JF35-ADN1, which is set to significantly impact the field of industrial robotics, including the technology used in Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV). This advanced motherboard is designed to support complex machine vision systems and secure payment solutions, powered by the robust Intel Processor N97 CPU. It stands out with its exceptional connectivity and display options, making it a key player in the realm of industrial automation.
After decades of trying, consumer electronics companies are rolling out a solar technology that mimics photosynthesis in plants. It lets devices charge indoors and, in some cases, can eliminate batteries entirely. This new tech is based on principles first explored by chemists in the 1960s and turned into workable solar cells in the 1980s. It’s taken until now for versions of these cells tough enough for consumer applications to be manufactured on the scale required for mainstream adoption.
Now, companies including Ambient Photonics and Exeger are offering solar cells of this kind, known as a “dye-sensitized solar cell.” They are lightweight, bendable, made from common materials, and can be manufactured cheaply, in a type of printing process. Sharp is also working on dye-sensitized solar cells, although its version is rigid, and made with the same equipment used to make LCD panels.
IHI announces it and several domestic partners jointly developed the world’s first one-megawatt-class (see note 1) electric motor (note 2) mounted inside a jet engine tail cone (note 3). This achievement is one fruit of the company’s More Electric Architecture for Aircraft and Propulsion (MEAAP) project. This technological innovation initiative aims to optimize the overall energy management of aircraft systems, including engines, to help cut their carbon dioxide emissions.
In a vitally important supply-chain niche, the Autonomous Yard Tractor (AYT) space is steadily gaining momentum. Truck Specialized Information Services (TSIS) has chosen RRAI to deploy Automated Vehicle tech in their partner’s Oasis Trucking Centers (Oasis) bustling trailer storage yard in Detroit, Michigan. TSIS and Oasis teamed up to develop this TSIS Detroit truckport, with AYT operations beginning last August with initial deployment of two vehicles.
How governments are shaping the future industrial landscape.
The European Commission to approve a €902 million German state aid measure to retain Germany as the location of Northvolt’s new EV battery manufacturing plan. In line with the Green Deal Industrial Plan, the Commission approved the aid under the State aid Temporary Crisis and Transition Framework. Without the funds, Northvolt would establish its plant in the United States, with the backing offered through the Inflation Reduction Act.
Under growing pressure from increased imports of cheap Chinese and Japanese steel products, South Korean steelmakers are considering filing an anti-dumping complaint with the Seoul government against their rivals in the two neighboring countries.
POSCO Holdings Inc., the parent of Korea’s top steelmaker POSCO, and Hyundai Steel Co. are reeling from heavy inflows of steel products from China and Japan, which are also struggling to cope with rising inventories amid weak demand at home.
Italy’s government could put the former Ilva steel plant under special administration after its main shareholder ArcelorMittal rejected a state-backed plan to keep the site afloat. ArcelorMittal, the world’s second-largest steelmaker, took control of Acciaierie d’Italia (ADI) formerly known as Ilva in 2018. It currently owns 62% of ADI, while public investment agency Invitalia has the remaining 38%.
Bogged down by an increase in energy prices and a drop in rolled steel coil prices, the steel plant has long been short of cash and has accumulated a huge debt pile with suppliers, including energy giant Eni.
This week's top funding events, acquisitions, and partnerships across industrial value chains
INERATEC, a pioneering e-Fuel company, announced it has raised over $129 million in its Series B funding round, led by Piva Capital with additional participation from HG Ventures, TDK Ventures, Copec WIND Ventures, RockCreek, Emerald, Samsung Ventures as well as the increased support from current investors, including global corporates like ENGIE New Ventures, Safran Corporate Ventures and Honda.
INERATEC’s technological advancement is a scalable patented technology that enables the production of ‘drop-in’ e-Fuels. The process involves two main steps: first, turning CO2 and hydrogen into synthesis gas, then using a second reactor to turn the synthesis gas into liquid and solid hydrocarbons. The e-Fuels are compliant with standards targeted for industries heavily relying on fossil fuels, such as aviation, shipping, road transport, and the chemical industry.
Since it was founded in 2016, INERATEC has built and operated numerous pilot plants and is engaged with over 30 customers in the respective fields of application. Additionally, the company has been recognized with several key awards, including the German Founders Award, the Next Economy Award, and the EARTO Award and was recently selected as Top Innovator by UpLink, the Innovation platform of the World Economic Forum.
International Battery Company (IBC), a product and technology company that specializes in the creation of eco-friendly, large-sized rechargeable Prismatic Li-ion NMC batteries, is announcing it has raised USD 35 Million. This includes a Pre-Series A round, led by RTP Global, and contributions from a broader investment base, which includes Beenext, Veda VC, and other strategic Korean and US Investors. The investment marks an important moment in IBC’s journey to revolutionize the global EV landscape.
IBC is channeling this investment into a 50MWh capacity ramp manufacturing plant and has developed United Nations 38.3 and BIS-certified, ready-for-delivery battery cells for the Indian market, reflecting the growing needs of India’s EV and energy storage sectors. These batteries will meet the region’s distinctive requirements, such as the need to operate safely in high temperatures, support fast charging capability, and offer an extended lifecycle, with a 7–10-year warranty. Furthermore, its highly eco-friendly products use components that are fully recyclable and reusable, supporting India’s push towards a greener future and closed-loop manufacturing, where materials are repurposed and reused, minimizing waste and reducing environmental impact.
weavix, the Wichita-based technology firm specializing in frontline communication and efficiency solutions, announced today it has successfully raised $23.6 million in its latest Series B funding round. The investment was led by global software investor Insight Partners, with participation from Four More Capital, The Friedkin Group, and Perkins Coie. As strategic partners and leaders in the industrial world, they now join Koch Disruptive Technologies, which previously invested $10 million in Series A funding in January 2022.
With this new funding, weavix intends to expand its product offerings and strengthen its market presence in industries such as manufacturing, construction, food and beverage production, hospitality, and energy. The funds raised will be primarily allocated to rapidly scale operations across the United States to meet demand and secure the position as the leading frontline worker platform benefiting the hands-on workforce through employee communication to drive engagement, enablement, and retainment.
ZymoChem, creators of the world’s most carbon-efficient bio-manufacturing platform, closed a $21 million Series A round. The investment is led by Breakout Ventures with participation from new investors including lululemon athletica, inc. and Toyota Ventures, and existing investors including GS Futures, KdT Ventures, and Cavallo Ventures. By pairing this financing with existing revenues from commercial partnerships and funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, ZymoChem will launch its first high-performance material and advance its first partnered product to commercial scale.
3DEO, a Los Angeles-based leader in design, engineering and metal additive manufacturing (AM), today announced a significant investment from the Development Bank of Japan Inc. (DBJ) and Seiko Epson Corporation (EPSON). This partnership marks a pivotal step in 3DEO’s expansion and underscores the confidence in its proprietary end-to-end 3D printing technology. The investment will propel 3DEO’s growth strategies in North America and Japan, expanding opportunities for partnership in the semiconductor, aerospace, medical devices and equipment, and industrial sectors.
3DEO’s unique approach focuses on a specialization in complex metal 3D printed components/assemblies and advanced Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM), and is underpinned by a differentiated portfolio of 18 patents. 3DEO’s purpose-driven vision empowers customers to innovate and design competitively positioned products, while its end-to-end solution, encompassing proprietary software, metal 3D printers, robotics, and materials, streamlines the production process. This integration significantly reduces the complexity for clients, allowing them to scale up without the burden of mastering AM processes themselves, supported by 3DEO’s comprehensive DfAM training and expertise.
Element Zero, a green materials platform company, announced today that it has raised US$10 million in seed funding led by Playground Global. The company has developed a novel approach to cost-effectively convert metal ores, such as iron, nickel, and other future-facing materials, to pure metals with zero carbon emissions. The low energy consumption and the ability to operate using intermittent renewable energy underpins the company’s capability to reduce carbon emissions on a global scale. Element Zero will use the funding to grow R&D, engineering, and project development teams and scale the development of a pilot iron plant. Peter Barrett, Co-Founder and General Partner at Playground Global, has joined the company’s board of directors.
READY Robotics, a pioneer in operating systems for automation and robotics, is collaborating with Toyota Motor Corporation and NVIDIA to bring a significant leap forward in industrial robotics. Toyota will employ READY ForgeOS in tandem with NVIDIA Isaac Sim, a robotics simulator developed on NVIDIA Omniverse, to build a state-of-the-art simulated robotic programming environment for its aluminum hot forging production lines.
This groundbreaking collaboration is set to enhance safety and efficiency in Toyota’s manufacturing processes. Typically, programming robotic systems for forging necessitates that the metal parts remain hot during programming, presenting significant safety challenges. By integrating NVIDIA Isaac Sim — an extensible application developed on the Omniverse platform for simulating, developing and testing robots — with ForgeOS, programming can now be accomplished seamlessly in a simulated environment, eliminating the risks associated with hot parts.
Figure, a California-based company developing autonomous humanoid robots, announced that it has signed a commercial agreement with BMW Manufacturing Co., LLC to deploy general purpose robots in automotive manufacturing environments.
Under the agreement, BMW Manufacturing and Figure will pursue a milestone-based approach. In the first phase, Figure will identify initial use cases to apply the Figure robots in automotive production. Once the first phase has been completed, the Figure robots will begin staged deployment at BMW’s manufacturing facility in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Long-time partners Microsoft and Cognite have successfully delivered digital transformation value to industrial customers in energy, industrial carbon management, manufacturing, and renewables globally. In a landmark new collaboration, Cognite and Microsoft are excited to announce an expansion of their strategic partnership to bring enterprise data operations to the generative AI era, from the shop floor all the way to the top floor. For the first time, enterprise and industrial—information technology (IT), operational technology (OT), and engineering technology (ET)—converge for data operations and AI value.
Deere said it would tap SpaceX’s satellite fleet to propel the tractor maker’s digital farming push and help automate planting and harvesting in remote locations. The world’s largest farm machinery manufacturer signed a deal with SpaceX’s Starlink business to connect tractors, seed planters, crop sprayers and other equipment in areas that lack adequate internet service, allowing them to use Deere’s digital products.
Chip design software maker Synopsys, opens new tab said it would buy Ansys, opens new tab in a $35 billion cash-and-stock deal. The transaction will create a massive new player in a sector of the business software industry that is already highly consolidated, which Wells Fargo said in a note creates regulatory uncertainty. After the news, Synopsys shares were up 3.8% to $513, but Ansys shares were down 4.8% to $329.86.
Capturing this week's zeitgeist
Not everything can be shipped economically, especially industrial goods. One Londoner figured out how to move a brewhouse from California to London.
A brewhouse—a four-vessel 50–beer barrel (50bbl) system that included six fermenters, brite beer tanks, water tanks, a gristmill and more
That reminded me of the time a few years ago, after a fire at one of their suppliers, Ford had to use a huge plane to move 19 die tools to get their F-150 line back up and running.
This week's most influential Industry 4.0 media.
Briquettes are dense blocks created by compressing certain materials. For instance, charcoal and water softener salt are prepared as briquettes using charcoal dust and sodium chloride, respectively. These blocks can be compressed in cantilevered removable cutting rolls like those machined by K.R. Komarek, a Wood Dale, Illinois, company whose founder, Gustav Komarek, patented briquetting processes in the early 1900s to make coal less dusty and easier to transport.
With a wide variety of briquette designs, sizes and materials, machining these rolls is a demanding task for machine tools and, in particular, tooling. To overhaul a lengthy, hands-on process, Komarek paired a Mazak turn-mill machine with Ceratizit ISO-P-grade tooling to reduce production cycles and eliminate an arduous hand-grinding process.
Employees who formerly would have been tackling manual tasks on the briquetting roll production line can now work in Komarek’s reconditioning and repair department. These new processes also eliminated the potential for human error from hand-ground pockets, and by previewing milling paths through simulation features within Mastercam, Komarek is seeing less than a thousandth of an inch of variance in pockets. Tool life has also become much more predictable.
Robots, separated from the software and sensors that give them perception and intelligence, aren’t terribly complex (conceptually at least). They’re a collection of control systems, motors, and gearboxes mounted to lever arms that make it possible to move things around in particular ways in 3D space. They can have different end effectors mounted to them for tasks like grasping, welding, or painting. One possible axis of improvement for robotic hardware is cost: if robots get cheaper over time, it becomes possible to cost-effectively use them in more locations.
So, overall, robots have fallen substantially in cost since the 1980s, while simultaneously getting more precise. A robot with a 1-meter reach and 10 kg payload capacity would cost anywhere from 2 to 3 times as much in the 1980s as it does today, even before considering the rise of cheap Chinese robot arms, which seem poised to make prices fall even more. And the modern industrial robot is roughly 100 times more accurate, and far more capable at smooth, continuous motion, than robots in the past.
One key factor that has enabled the success of generative AI in the digital world is a foundation model trained on a tremendous amount of internet-scale data. However, a comparable dataset did not previously exist in the physical world to train a robotics foundation model. That dataset had to be built from the ground up — composed of vast amounts of “warehouse-scale” real-world data and synthetic data.
Covariant’s robotics foundation model relies on this mix of data. General image data, paired with text data, is used to help the model learn a foundational semantic understanding of the visual world. Real-world warehouse production data, augmented with simulation data, is used to refine its understanding of specific tasks needed in warehouse operations, such as object identification, 3D understanding, grasp prediction, and place prediction.
Nature evolves creatures with a high complexity of morphological and behavioral intelligence, meanwhile computational methods lag in approaching that diversity and efficacy. Co-optimization of artificial creatures’ morphology and control in silico shows promise for applications in physical soft robotics and virtual character creation; such approaches, however, require developing new learning algorithms that can reason about function atop pure structure. In this paper, we present DiffuseBot, a physics-augmented diffusion model that generates soft robot morphologies capable of excelling in a wide spectrum of tasks. DiffuseBot bridges the gap between virtually generated content and physical utility by (i) augmenting the diffusion process with a physical dynamical simulation which provides a certificate of performance, and ii) introducing a co-design procedure that jointly optimizes physical design and control by leveraging information about physical sensitivities from differentiable simulation. We showcase a range of simulated and fabricated robots along with their capabilities.
Today, the ever-increasing technological capabilities of computers equipped with high performance processors mean we can digitize the concept of modeling, raising it to new, dynamic levels. Now, instead of simple physical replicas, we can build Digital Twins (DTs)—data sets that simulate not only the physical attributes of entities (such as shape, color, and size) but also more abstract characteristics (such as strength, elasticity, conductivity, and many more). Plus, once created, Digital Twins of different objectives can be combined into Digital Twin systems, their behavior mimicking that of their real-world counterparts. That behavior can be recorded, analyzed, tested, and revised cyclically. Intel® Automated Factory Solutions is a suite of products that embody the experience Intel has gained implementing Digital Twins. Designed specifically for high-end technical manufacturers, these products are custom-fit to meet each customer’s unique operational challenges.
Here’s a story of how Krzysztof Urban, an engineer and Zortrax employee, used Zortrax 3D printers to restore his 2006 BMW e91 330d car.
Due to the high quality of both 3D printers and materials, the parts did not require much post-processing. The engineer just used a mini grinder to smooth the 3D prints only where necessary. He then painted the elements with black structural spray paint, choosing such techniques of applying the paint to achieve a structure like that of the factory elements.
Metal polymer composites combining low density, high strength composites with highly ductile and tough metals have gained traction over the last few decades as lightweight and high-performance materials for industrial applications. However, the mechanical properties are limited by the interfacial bonding strength between metals and polymers achieved through adhesives, welding, and surface treatment processes. In this paper, a novel manufacturing process combining additive manufacturing and compression molding to obtain hybrid metal polymer composites with enhanced mechanical properties is presented. Additive manufacturing enabled deposition of polymeric material with fibers in a predetermined pattern to form tailored charge or preform for compression molding. A grade 300 maraging steel triangular lattice is first fabricated using AddUp FormUp350 laser powder bed system and compression overmolded with additively manufactured long carbon fiber-reinforced polyamide-6,6 (40% wt. CF/PA66) preform. The fabricated hybrid metal polymer composites showed high stiffness and tensile strength. The stiffness and failure characteristics determined from the uniaxial tensile tests were correlated to a finite element model within 20% deviation. Fractographic analyses was performed using microscopy to investigate failure mechanisms of the hybrid structures.
Scientists at PNNL are testing a new battery material that was found in a matter of weeks, not years, as part of the collaboration with Microsoft to use advanced AI and high-performance computing (HPC), a type of cloud-based computing that combines large numbers of computers to solve complex scientific and mathematical tasks.
As part of this effort, the Microsoft Quantum team used AI to identify around 500,000 stable materials in the space of a few days. The new battery material came out of a collaboration using Microsoft’s Azure Quantum Elements to winnow 32 million potential inorganic materials to 18 promising candidates that could be used in battery development in just 80 hours. Most importantly, this work breaks ground for a new way of speeding up solutions for urgent sustainability, pharmaceutical and other challenges while giving a glimpse of the advances that will become possible with quantum computing.
Highlighting new and innovative products and services
Leveraging four decades of expertise, the GX-B Series robots are built to meet precise automation demands that help manufacturers tackle the most demanding tasks. Offering multiple arm configurations, handle payloads up to 10 and 20 kg, high throughput and high payloads, the GX10B and GX20B’s versatile features empower machine builders to conquer challenging applications with leading-edge precision.
The GX10B and GX20B are now available through Epson Robots’ channel of distributor partners.
Driving Doosan Robotics’ versatility within the robotics field is its introduction of Dart-Suite, a next generation robot ecosystem redefining the robot experience. The scalable platform enhances the capabilities of cobots by effortlessly incorporating AI, all while making the advanced technology accessible to the general public.
Utilizing Integrated Development Environment (IDE), Dart-Suite allows consumers to create modules tailored to their needs, much like mobile device apps. The robust software platform dramatically reduces the development time by up to 80%. Working with Dart-Suite is comparable to the ease and usability of smartphones, shaping the user experience for a new era of robotics.
Historically, product configurators have been bundled within other systems, such as CPQ and PLM. By decoupling the “C” in configure, price, and quote solutions, manufacturers can truly scale their operations as products continue to become more complex.
By choosing a vendor-agnostic configuration solution like Configit Ace®, which frees the product configurator from the CPQ bundle, manufacturers can not only expand their role to include unassisted sales channels such as websites and dealer portals, but also scale their manufacturing and engineering operations through a centralized hub of accurate, up-to-date configuration data.
With NVIDIA Omniverse, a platform for developing and deploying advanced 3D applications and pipelines based on OpenUSD, manufacturers across industries can deliver hyper-realistic simulations for an immersive 3D buying experience.
RJG Inc. has announced a new feature for its CoPilot process control system called MAX, the process advisor. MAX uses advanced, AI technology powered by Master Molder techniques to provide molders with real-time, expert guidance to optimize their injection molding processes, including reducing waste during production and assisting in bridging the skills gap.
This smart assistant monitors process parameters in real time and offers troubleshooting advice to help molders rapidly resolve issues and improve productivity. RJG’s Molding Automation Xperience, or MAX for short, marks a significant enhancement to the CoPilot system, demonstrating the company’s commitment to leveraging AI to deliver molders a high level of control, efficiency and quality.
How governments are shaping the future industrial landscape.
India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu has received investment pacts from Tata Electronics Pegatron, Hyundai Motors, Vinfest and others. Tata has committed USD 1.45 billion for mobile phone assembly operations, while Pegatron has pledged USD 1.2 billion to expand production. Auto major Hyundai Motors committed USD 740 million, and Vietnamese EV maker VinFast has assigned up to USD 2 billion to set up its first manufacturing facilities in India. TVS Group, Mitsubishi and Ashok Leyland are among the other other supporting firms.
French industrial gas manufacturer Air Liquide is pressing Mexico for answers after the government took over operations at a hydrogen processing plant in Hidalgo state. Mexico ordered the temporary occupation of Air Liquide’s hydrogen plant at the Miguel Hidalgo refinery in the town of Tula on Dec. 29. The plant will be operated by Pemex’s refining arm known as Pemex Transformación Industrial, which will be responsible for paying compensation to the Paris-based company.
In line with the European Union’s push for a green transition, Volvo Car Corporation and the European Investment Bank (EIB) have signed a €420 million financing agreement in support of the Swedish carmaker’s decision to become fully electric and carbon neutral. The operation is expected to contribute to the decarbonisation of road transport, a major source of emissions and pollution globally.
PSMC Chairman Frank Huang pointed out that, based on the data they have, the cost of building a fab in Japan is 1.5 times higher than in Taiwan, with construction costs being 2.5 times higher and operational costs 50% more expensive than in Taiwan. It would take 7 to 8 years for the combined construction and operation to become profitable, meaning the factory would only start making money three years after its establishment. In contrast, PSMC’s Fab P5 in Tongluo Science Park is expected to break even this year.
PSMC had already disclosed plans to assist India in technology transfer for building a fab in early 2023. Huang explained that because South Korea and the United States are unwilling to teach others how to make semiconductors, neither TSMC nor UMC are offering such assistance, leaving PSMC as the go-to option for those seeking guidance in semiconductor manufacturing.
This week's top funding events, acquisitions, and partnerships across industrial value chains
Custom manufacturing platform Karkhana.io has raised $6.3 million in a Series A funding round led by Arkam Ventures and Susquehanna Asia Venture Capital. Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India, an existing investor, also participated in the round. The funds will be deployed to fuel expansion of the company’s supplier network, establish an electronics supply chain, and drive scaling efforts in the United States and Europe.
Resynergi, a pioneering leader in plastic recycling technology, announced it has raised $6.4M in series B funding co-led by Transitions First (T1ST), an international industrial deep tech seed-stage venture capital fund, and Lummus Technology, a global provider of process technologies and value-driven energy solutions. The funding will allow the company to scale production of its modular Continuous Microwave Assisted Pyrolysis (CMAP) technology that converts plastic waste into reusable materials at a rate 20 times faster than traditional pyrolysis methods. The company also plans to expand its executive team to drive growth and further cement the company’s position as a leader in plastic circularity.
Atomic-6, a leading innovator in advanced composite manufacturing for Aerospace, Ballistic, and Hypersonic applications, is pleased to announce the successful completion of its first two funding rounds. With an infusion of dilutive funding ($4.95M) and non-dilutive Small Business Innovation Research contracts ($4.24M) awarded by the United States Air Force and Space Force, the company has secured a total of $9.2M to further its innovative pursuits. The funding will bolster the company’s ability to build upon these advancements and further its commitment to delivering superior aerospace and defense solutions.
Xaba, developer of the first AI-powered cognitive software solution to automate programming and deployment of robotics and CNC machines, announced it has raised US$2 million in a seed extension round of funding to bring to market AI-driven fabrication processes and intelligent autonomous machines. The funding round was led by BDC Capital’s Deep Tech Venture Fund with participation from Hitachi Ventures and existing investor Hazelview Ventures. The investment will be used to establish and staff a new robotics lab and accelerate the delivery of two Xaba manufacturing platforms.
Xaba is augmenting industrial robots and cobots with xCognition, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered software solution. xCognition leverages innovative proprietary machine learning algorithms to model the elasto-mechanical-dynamic behavior of industrial robotics and cobots, as well as workpiece variances. This includes variances in location and shape, using proprietary rule-based language models to eliminate coding of robotics programs. xCognition solves the challenges of deploying industrial robots by completely automating how they are programmed and adopted. This solution not only increases accuracy, consistency, and throughput, but also significantly reduces the time and costs of robotics deployments.
Swedish deep technology company N-ink was announced as the winner of a science challenge by Voima Ventures, an early-stage investor based in Helsinki and Stockholm. N-ink was founded in 2020 by scientists at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics, Linköping University in Sweden.
The company provides high-performing, scalable conductive polymers that boost battery and solar cell performance and are useful in Printed Electronics, IoT and Bioelectronics. N-Ink addresses this challenge by formulating and supplying n-type inks with unprecedented performance. Its patented n-Inks are highly conductive, easy to handle, stable, printable, and on par with commercial p-type inks.
ABB announced that it has acquired Swiss start-up Sevensense, a leading provider of AI-enabled 3D vision navigation technology for autonomous mobile robots (AMRs). Sevensense was founded in 2018 as a spin-off from Swiss technical University, ETH Zurich.
Sevensense’s pioneering navigation technology combines AI and 3D vision, enabling AMRs to make intelligent decisions, differentiating between fixed and mobile objects in dynamic environments. Once manually guided, mobile robots with Visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (Visual SLAM) technology create a map that is used to operate independently, reducing commissioning time from weeks to days and enabling the AMRs to navigate in highly complex, dynamic environments alongside people. Maps are constantly updated and shared across the fleet, offering instant scalability without interrupting operations and greater flexibility compared to other navigation technologies.
Maersk Tankers has acquired Penfield Marine to create a large-scale crude and product tanker company offering pool partners and cargo customers a wider range of services. The combined company will manage around 240 vessels, including approximately 45 vessels owned by affiliated companies.
JBT Corporation (NYSE: JBT) (“JBT”), a leading global technology solutions provider to high-value segments of the food & beverage industry, announced that the Financial Supervisory Authority of the Central Bank of Iceland (the “FSA”) has granted an extension to the deadline for JBT to announce its final decision on whether to make a voluntary takeover offer for all of the outstanding common stock of Marel hf. (“Marel”) (the “PUSU Deadline”) in relation to JBT’s non-binding proposal originally submitted to the Board of Directors of Marel on November 24, 2023, and subsequently revised on December 13, 2023. In accordance with Article 102 of the Icelandic Takeovers Act no. 108/2007, JBT was required to announce its intentions by no later than January 5, 2024. This announcement follows Marel’s disclosure that the FSA has extended the PUSU Deadline to January 19, 2024.
Realtime Robotics, the leader in collision-free autonomous motion planning for industrial robots, today announced that Valiant TMS, a full-service Industry 4.0 system integrator, has partnered with the company to apply its innovative Optimization-as-a-Service solution to customers’ manufacturing operations.
The combination of Valiant TMS’ years of manufacturing industry expertise with Realtime Robotics’ proprietary optimization software and experienced robotics engineering insights presents customers with an easy way to improve the efficiency and productivity of their automation operations. Realtime’s solution rapidly generates and tests hundreds of thousands of potential robot paths, determining the best motion sequences based on target sequences, robot reach, and other customer-desired parameters.
In fact, in a recently completed multi-robot application, Valiant TMS used Realtime’s optimization solution to design motion plans with more efficient motion paths, better interlocks, and a faster execution time, ultimately reducing a customer’s robot cycle time by 17% and cutting robot programming time in half.
Siemens Digital Industries Software announced its collaboration with Voltaiq to accelerate battery manufacturing, by combining their strengths to offer unparalleled capabilities for battery manufacturing-focused companies. This collaboration aims to bring together the production-proven capabilities of both Siemens’ Insights Hub™ and Voltaiq’s Enterprise Battery Intelligence™ (EBI), customers can gain access to unparalleled capability specific to battery-domain companies to help rapidly scale operations smoothly, from initial testing to full-scale production lines.