Industrial Technology Conundrum

Additive manufacturing, Chinese automotive market, humanoid robots, and global supply chains face vexing questions. 'We Robot' highlights and battery analysis.

Oct 13, 2024

Shop Talk

Capturing this week's zeitgeist

Elon Musk and Tesla hosted its highly anticipated “We Robot” event unveiling the Robotaxi and Optimus humanoid. Optimus is your personal R2D2 / C3PO, but better and it will also transform physical labor in industrial settings.

Kaizen Blitz

📊 Survey Says
- 🦾 A Revolution in Digital Manufacturing: Integrating Machines, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Forming Technologies 2024 suggests real-time process controls are beginning to emerge for incremental forming-based manufacturing.
- ⛓️ The 2025 Prologis Global Supply Chain Outlook report reveals that business leaders across multiple sectors are preparing for what experts call a 'polycrisis'—a convergence of economic instability, fluctuating customer demands and pressing climate challenges.
- 🇪🇺 The data behind a new wave of physical technology startups and venture capital as Europe enters the new industrial age.
- 🇧🇪 State of Belgian Tech Report 2024 lists Spectricity, I-care, and Swave Photonics as top 3 most valuable manufacturing companies.
🗣️ Town Hall
- 📐 Catia CEO Olivier Sappin explains how Catia is evolving to meet today’s engineering needs.
- 🖨️ Mantle CEO Ted Sorom: 'We’re trying to build a business, not just an interesting technology.'
- 🚙 GM CEO Mary Barra assures investors more profitable days are ahead while the China conundrum culminates and the secret battery lab is revealed.

Assembly Line

This week's most influential Industry 4.0 media.

🦾 In America’s Factories, Even the Robots Are Getting Less Work

✍️ Author: Bob Tita
🔖 Topics: Industrial Robot

Manufacturers are cutting back on purchases of automation equipment, executives said, as business slows on production lines and shop floors. More human workers are lining up for work again, too. Some companies that bought robots during the pandemic-driven labor crunch underestimated the maintenance and programming skill needed to deploy them to more complicated tasks.

About 21% of manufacturers cited labor shortfalls as an impediment to full production during the second quarter, down from 45% in the same quarter in 2022, according to Census Bureau survey data compiled by Michigan State University supply management professor Jason Miller. Material shortages were cited by less than 12% of manufacturers, compared with 39% two years earlier.

🔋 Battery Analysis Pioneer: North America Has Five Years to Catch China

✍️ Author: Chris Clonts
🏢 Organizations: Volatiq

North American automakers and EV battery firms have five years to erase China’s dominance in technology and manufacturing or they may face the reality of buying batteries from China for the foreseeable future. That was the message from battery-analysis company Voltaiq CEO Tal Sholklapper at a media briefing in Detroit, MI.

Voltaiq advocates constantly monitoring data during the manufacturing process so problems can be addressed quickly before they result in delays or monetary losses. Sholklapper said that some of today’s battery factories even gather data by plugging thumb drives into machines at each step in manufacturing before collecting it in one place for analysis. Part of Voltaiq’s work is helping clients gather that data in real-time.

🖨️ AM-QUALITY - The world's first in-line quality control solution

🔋 Dürr builds an energy-efficient paint shop for Stellantis with repurposed robots

🏢 Organizations: Durr, Stellantis

Stellantis opted for Dürr’s patented RoDip® rotational dip process for pretreatment and cathodic electrocoating. This innovative method rotates the bodies around their axis, providing exceptional corrosion protection since the dip curves can be individually adapted to different body types, optimizing the immersion, flooding, and draining process. RoDip® consumes much less water, fewer chemicals, and less heating energy than other technical solutions since the conveyor system eliminates the need for inclined tank entrances and exits. This shortens the immersion tank length by up to six meters and reduces tank volume. Lower energy and material consumption also reduces operating and unit costs.

Read more at Industrial Machinery Digest

ONLY IN JAPAN. UNIMAGINABLE random process of Japan. Top 5 process.

🖨️ AM’s Business Model Conundrum

✍️ Author: Rajeev Kulkarni
🔖 Topics: Additive Manufacturing

The primary revenue source for 3D printer manufacturers is the sale of hardware. However, the demand for printers is not continuous, as businesses do not frequently replace their equipment. Additionally, new technologies and methods continually emerge, requiring significant R&D investment without guaranteed immediate returns.

Material suppliers depend on the sale of proprietary formulations essential for the 3D printing process. However, this market is highly competitive and price sensitive. Developing new materials involves substantial R&D costs, stringent safety, and certification requirements, which are expensive and time-consuming.

Software developers enable design and optimization, but the market is becoming commoditized. Customers often seek platforms that are compatible with multiple printers, reducing the opportunity for any single software provider to dominate.

New Product Introduction

Highlighting new and innovative facilities, processes, products, and services

🖨️ Instead of Going to Walmart for a Printer, Alquist Prints a Walmart

✍️ Author: Seth Price
🏢 Organizations: Alquist, Walmart

Three Dimensional Concrete Printing (3DCP) is a novel technique for producing large, structurally sound buildings through a robotic print head. This technique resembles traditional 3D printing, where the print head rasters across the foundation of the building, building layer upon layer, just as a 3D printer builds its structures. However, instead of a thermoplastic polymer, the print is a specialized concrete that holds its shape soon after printing.

Recently, Alquist partnered with Walmart to build the world’s first 3D-printed big-box store. The 8000-square-foot store, located in Athens, TN, is one of the largest such structures in the world, with walls over 19 feet high. Furthermore, the structure is seismically sound, meaning it is just as safe as a traditionally built cinder block building.

Cognite Launches 'Cognite Embedded' to Accelerate Innovation for Equipment Manufacturers and Industrial Software Builders

Cognite, the Data and AI authority for industry, announced the launch of Cognite Embedded. This new offering enables Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and Industrial Software Vendors (ISVs) to accelerate time to market, drastically reduce total cost of ownership, and future-proof their digital solutions with AI-ready architectures, all through Cognite’s leading industrial data platform, Cognite Data Fusion, and low-code industrial agent workbench, Cognite Atlas AI®.

Cognite Embedded empowers OEMs and ISVs to accelerate product development by 2-3x and reduce their total cost of ownership by up to 80% by leveraging Cognite Data Fusion’s powerful industrial data modeling features, unique contextualization capabilities that address both structured and unstructured industrial data, and built-in scalability.

Experience the Future of Welding with JobBuilder™

Path Robotics is proud to introduce JobBuilder™, an integrated web app that allows users to upload part CAD from anywhere, input simple weld specifications, and generate a part template that allows the Path cell to start welding right away. Our user-friendly interface is tailored for speed and precision, enabling you to bring new parts into production faster than ever. By empowering engineers, machine operators, and the rest of the team to easily create new part templates, JobBuilder™ boosts production output, decreases cell downtime, and drives a more productive manufacturing environment.

Business Transactions

This week's top funding events, acquisitions, and partnerships across industrial value chains.

🚛 Dave Clark launches Auger, raises $100M for the AI venture

🔖 Topics: Funding Event
🏢 Organizations: Auger, Oak HC

Dave Clark, a former Amazon and Flexport executive, announced he has embarked on a new venture with the launch of Auger, a logistics software startup. Backed by $100 million from the investment firm Oak HC/FT, Auger aims to power supply chain management operations using AI and other automation to optimize decision-making for companies of all sizes.

Despite that setback, Clark’s time at Amazon, where he led the rapid expansion of the company’s delivery network during the pandemic, allowed him to develop a deep understanding of global supply chain challenges. He explained in a LinkedIn post that Auger will leverage AI to help companies streamline supply chain processes and reduce inefficiencies, something he believes current market offerings, which rely on fragmented systems or “franken-software,” fail to achieve. A major feature of Auger’s platform will be its ability to unify data sources and provide real-time insights, enabling clients to make fast, informed decisions without needing specialized queries or extensive training.

Corvus Robotics Brings Autonomous Inventory Management System to Lights-Out Warehouses

🏢 Organizations: Corvus Robotics, S2G Ventures, Spero Ventures

Corvus Robotics, a provider of autonomous inventory management systems, announced an updated version of its Corvus One system that brings, for the first time, the ability to fly its drone-powered system in a lights-out distribution center without any added infrastructure like reflectors, stickers, or beacons. The newest generation product is supported by an $18 million Series A round and seed funding led by S2G Ventures and Spero Ventures.

Using computer vision and generative AI to understand its environment, the fully autonomous Corvus One drone system operates in both very narrow aisles (minimum width of 50 inches) and in very wide aisles. With obstacle detection at its core, the light-weight drone safely flies at walking speed without disrupting workflow or blocking aisles and can preventatively ascend to avoid collisions with people, forklifts, or robots, if necessary. Its advanced barcode scanning can read any barcode symbology in any orientation placed anywhere on the front of cartons or pallets.

♻️ Molg Raises $5.5 Million in Seed Funding to Tackle Electronics Waste Through Circular Manufacturing

🏢 Organizations: Molg, Closed Loop Partners

Molg Inc. announces the closing of $5.5 million in seed funding to scale the company’s circular manufacturing processes for electronics and electrical components. Closed Loop Partners’ Ventures Group led the round, with participation from Amazon Climate Pledge Fund, ABB Robotics & Automation Ventures, Overture, Elemental Impact and Techstars. The company plans to use funding to scale production capacity and meet growing customer demand for circularity and automation.

Molg is tackling the e-waste challenge through a comprehensive circular manufacturing process powered by robotics and design. Its robotic microfactories can autonomously disassemble complex electronic products to recover valuable components for reuse, remanufacturing or recycling. The team also partners with leading manufacturers to design electronics with circularity in mind—ensuring one product’s end is another’s new beginning.

🛞 baCta secures €3.3 million to revolutionize natural rubber production

🏢 Organizations: baCta, OVNI Capital, INSERM

baCta, a startup making biosynthetic carbon-negative natural rubber produced using engineered microorganisms and renewable feedstocks, has successfully raised €3.3 millions in pre-seed funding. The round was led by OVNI Capital, and with participation from Kima Ventures, Sharpstone Capital, another.vc and prominent business angels such as Thibaud Elziere and members of the Hexa team and Nicolas Morin, co-founder of Gourmey.

baCta’s breakthrough technology leverages a synthetic organelles platform developed at INSERM, along with the ability to diversify sources of feedstock to decrease cost and obtain a negative carbon footprint. They also take advantage of the latest advances in lab automation, AI and protein modeling to collect proprietary data at an unprecedented pace, and process it to model organisms and bioreactors, enabling industrial bio-production.

⛏️ Rio Tinto to acquire Arcadium Lithium

🔖 Topics: Acquisition
🏢 Organizations: Rio Tinto, Arcadium Lithium

Rio Tinto and Arcadium Lithium plc (NYSE: ALTM) (ASX: LTM) announced a definitive agreement under which Rio Tinto will acquire Arcadium in an all-cash transaction for US$5.85 per share. The Transaction represents a premium of 90% to Arcadium’s closing price of $3.08 per share on 4 October 2024, a premium of 39% to Arcadium’s volume-weighted average price (VWAP) since Arcadium was created on 4 January 2024, and values Arcadium’s diluted share capital at approximately $6.7 billion.

The Transaction will bring Arcadium’s world-class, complementary lithium business into Rio Tinto’s portfolio, establishing a global leader in energy transition commodities – from aluminium and copper to high-grade iron ore and lithium.

QAD Acquires Phenix Software Inc. to Bolster Its Advanced Scheduling Capabilities for Adaptive Enterprises

🏢 Organizations: QAD, Phenix Software

QAD Inc., a leading provider of next-generation manufacturing and supply chain solutions in the cloud, has closed the acquisition of Phenix Software Inc. to help manufacturers improve productivity and accelerate factory performance. The solution, now called QAD Advanced Scheduling, optimizes production decisions by determining what products to make on each production line in the best possible sequence to minimize changeovers, optimize inventory, and align cost and service goals.

To improve competitiveness and profitability, manufacturers seek technology to become more efficient, agile and resilient. QAD Advanced Scheduling helps in these areas by scheduling related products together, in the best sequence, with visibility to inventories, capacity, product attributes and changeover costs. This improves the synchronization of manufacturing processes, resource utilization and on-time delivery, while also helping to reduce inventory levels and waste.

🚛 J.B. Hunt and UP.Labs Unite to Establish Logistics Venture Lab to Fuel the Next Wave of Innovation in Logistics and Freight

🔖 Topics: Partnership
🏢 Organizations: JB Hunt, UP Labs, Logistics Venture Lab

At the UP.Summit, J.B. Hunt Transport Inc., one of the largest supply chain solutions providers in North America, and UP.Labs, a first-of-its-kind venture lab unlocking the future of transportation and mobility, announced their establishment of the Logistics Venture Lab (LVL).

The logistics and freight-focused lab will aim to launch as many as six startups over the next three years to solve core strategic challenges within the industry. The startups, the first of which the companies target to begin launching in 2025, are inspired by opportunities to drive efficiency and solve common problems faced by providers in the logistics and freight transportation space. They will focus on key industry service areas such as brokerage, dedicated, intermodal and truckload, among others.

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