Help Seeking Batteries and Computer Chips
Demand for batteries and chips skyrockets amid global energy shortages. AM tooling and IIoT help companies realize time and cost savings.
Assembly Line
Capturing this Week's Trending Industry 4.0 and Emerging Industrial Technology Media
3D printing hits the spot: How PepsiCo is using AM to produce drink bottle tooling
Date: June 13, 2022
Topics: Additive Manufacturing
Vertical: Beverage
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Among those tools and capabilities is PepsiCo’s patented Modular Mold Set, which is compatible with most standard blow moulders and comprises an aluminium shell, dental stone, and 3D printed inserts for various bottle designs from 100ml to 3L. “The Modular Mold Set is a means for us to be able to very rapidly and quickly generate a customised mould that we can then utilise in our lab-scale or Pilot Plant scale stretch blow moulding equipment,” Rodriguez told TCT.
Previously, to get functional mould samples, PepsiCo would contract an external service provider who would leverage a subtractive manufacturing technique – CNC or EDM, depending on the complexity – and return the tool within two-to-four weeks at a typical cost of up to 10,000 USD.
Read more at TCT Magazine
How KAMAX connected their industrial machines to AWS in hours instead of weeks
Date: June 13, 2022
Authors: Praveen Rao, Adrian Weiss, Nicolas Byl, Jill Mannaioni, Philip Weber
Topics: IIoT
Organizations: AWS, KAMAX, nexineer, CloudRail
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Every manufacturing customer these days is talking about Industry 4.0, digital transformation, or AI/ML, but these can be daunting topics for manufacturers. Historically, connecting industrial assets to the cloud has been a large and complicated undertaking. Older assets increase the complexity, leaving many manufacturers with legacy equipment stalled at the starting gate. KAMAX, a player for cold forming parts in the sector of steel processing, shows that it is not only possible to transform, but can be easy when working with the right partners. KAMAX wanted a fully managed shop floor solution to acquire data from industrial equipment, process the data and make it available fast, to improve their operational efficiency. KAMAX employed their subsidiary and digital incubator, nexineer digital, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and CloudRail to help. This Industrial IoT collaboration increased manufacturing efficiency and effectiveness within their plants by automating and optimizing traditionally manual tasks, increasing production capacity, and optimizing tool changeover times (planned downtimes) of machines. This solution helped KAMAX realize quantifiable time savings of 2.5% – 3.5%.
Read more at The Internet of Things on AWS
Factories of the Future
Simulating and Optimizing an Electric Vehicle Battery Cold Plate
Date: June 14, 2022
Author: Naghman Khan
Topics: Simulation
Organizations: SimScale
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The efficient and accurate cooling of an electric vehicle battery cold plate is critical to ensure their optimum performance, battery reliability, and lifecycle return on investment. High development costs can be mitigated with access to fast and accurate simulation insights using engineering simulation in the cloud. For example, additional R&D, prototyping, and machining costs are reduced by arriving at an optimized and less complex design, earlier in the design cycle.
This article presents a design and simulation study of battery cold plate technology for electric vehicles. Engineering simulation is used to perform a fully-coupled conjugate heat transfer analysis of a cold plate for dynamic thermal management. Furthermore, using an advanced Subsonic CFD solver, a design study is performed for evaluating pressure-flow characteristics across the cold plate flow channel. Parallel simulations in the cloud are used for scenario analysis both for geometric variants and multiple coolant flow rates. In this sample case, our simulation workflows show users how to set up and run a complete heat transfer and flow analysis of a cold plate, including pressure drop and temperature at various coolant flow rates. Engineers can follow this example to learn how to quickly complete a parametric design study in SimScale and answer key design questions.
Read more at SimScale Blog
Digital twin: Empowering power systems with real-time training and predictive simulation
Date: June 14, 2022
Author: Sophie Borgne
Topics: Digital Twin, Simulation
Organizations: Schneider Electric
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Uncontrolled operation and neglected maintenance of electrical systems increase safety and financial risks in such facilities, often resulting in unplanned outages that can cause equipment damage and injuries to on-site personnel.
Consider the average cost of power outages in the following critical industries:
Oil and Gas- $800K to $3M per outage event (per Schneider Electric’s internal Voice of Customer study).
Semiconductor- $3.8M for a single electrical event
Data Center -30% of all reported outages cost more than $250,000, with many exceeding $1M
Leveraging digital twin technology, fully digitized electrical single-line diagrams can help address these concerns by boosting operational efficiency and reducing safety exposures. This is an example of the same digital twin technology used during the design phase of an electrical system being applied in the operation and maintenance phases of the lifecycle.
Read more at Schneider Electric Blog
Towards autonomous, Net Zero operations
Arkestro brings AI to ERP
Date: June 14, 2022
Author: Peter Wayner
Topics: ERP
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Arkestro is bringing a mixture of modern artificial intelligence algorithms to the world of ERP. It wants to use a combination of machine learning, game theory and behavioral science to make the supply chain more efficient and better able to withstand failures.
A large part of Arkestro’s solution focuses on allowing algorithms to help people with pricing and price discovery, a challenge that is also only growing more complex now that inflation is putting more pressure on the enterprise to charge the right amount. When prices are stable, suppliers can work together for years without renegotiating prices. But the specter of currency erosion makes it crucial for companies to find the appropriate price. Arkestro offers a predictive pricing model that tracks the relationship between both sides of the transaction while also folding in data from others in similar marketplaces. It also tracks anomalies and disruptions that can send pricing shocks.
Read more at VentureBeat
Capital Expenditure
Tracking this Week's Major Mergers, Partnerships, and Funding Events in Manufacturing and Supply Chain
Warehouse automation firm Hai Robotics closes $100M series D funding round
Date: June 15, 2022
Author: Brian Straight
Topics: Funding Event
Organizations: HAI Robotics
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Less than a year after raising $200 million, Chinese warehouse automation firm Hai Robotics has announced a $100 million series D+ funding round. The latest round was led by Capital Today and an undisclosed U.S. fund. Existing shareholders 5Y Capital, Source Code Capital, Sequoia Capital and 01VC also participated. The funding is the third round raised in the past year as the acceleration of warehouse robotics intensifies across the globe. Hai has now raised $315 million, according to Crunchbase, across six total rounds.
“This round of financing will be spent on stepping up the R&D of warehousing logistics robotic systems and on global business expansion, to provide more efficient, intelligent and flexible products to power every warehouse with robots to address labor shortages and cope with the challenges brought by the aging population,” said Richie Chen, the company’s founder and CEO.
Read more at Freight Waves Blog
Turntide Technologies Exceeds $1 Billion Valuation With $80 Million Fundraise to Accelerate Decarbonization of Buildings, Equipment, and Vehicles
Date: June 15, 2022
Topics: Funding Event, Sustainability
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Turntide Technologies (“Turntide”), developer of breakthrough electrification and sustainable operations technologies, today announced it secured $80 million in equity funding, valuing the company over $1 billion, making it one of a handful of climate tech companies to achieve unicorn status in the first half of 2022.
Addressing climate change is more urgent than ever, and we are grateful to work with an investor base that is committed to achieving meaningful, near-term emissions impact,” said Ryan Morris, Chairman and CEO of Turntide. “Even in the face of global economic uncertainty and supply chain upheaval, the market demand for Turntide’s sustainability solutions has enabled us to secure new investments. This capital will accelerate and further scale our efforts to decarbonize the world’s most energy-intensive industries.”
Read more at Turntide Press Releases
LG Energy to invest $451 mn in mass production of Tesla’s 4680 battery cells
Date: June 13, 2022
Authors: Hyung-Kyu Kim, Han-Shin Park
Organizations: LG, Tesla
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LG Energy Solution Ltd. announced Monday it will invest 580 billion won ($451 million) to manufacture battery cells for Austin-based Tesla, Inc. The battery-making arm of LG Corp. plans to add 9 gigawatt-hours (GWh) worth of production capacity for the new 4680 cylindrical batteries at its No. 2 Ochang factory. The battery maker also announced it would invest 150 billion won in the No. 1 Ochang factory to add 4 GWh worth of production capacity to manufacture the existing 2170 cylindrical battery cells. The 4680, expected to be mass produced next year, is composed of nickel, cobalt, manganese and aluminum (NCMA). The new battery has an increased nickel composition of up to 95% and added aluminum.
Read more at Korea Economic Daily
Surge Demand
Additional News Stories on the Macro Environment Across Industry
Researchers develop a “fully functional plastic processor that could be made at sub-penny prices.” The lack of oil from Russia forces some European factories to close. Worker safety laws drive extreme robotic automation in South Korea. Toyota maintains its hybrid vehicle strategy in face of pressure to go fully electric. China races to produce its own semiconductors while material bottlenecks affect chip production in Taiwan.