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Plastics & Rubber
Plex Manufacturing Blog
How to Operationalize Quality Control on the Shop Floor
Ensuring that quality controls are in place is a never-ending task for operations and quality managers. And it’s especially hard to do if you’re using manual, paper-based documentation. The key is to tie operational performance with a production control plan and work instructions that everyone has access to, and because plans are revised and instructions may change, it's ideal to have online…
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Industry 4.0: How Advancements in Manufacturing Technology Are Transforming the Industry
In the United States, economic growth has been a bit sluggish in the past decade. When you look at global economic growth, there's one common factor with all that causes the economy to grow. It’s manufacturing. Due to a number of contributing economic, political, and market factors across the globe, there’s a significant revolution that’s underway within the manufacturing industry. ...
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Wisco Employee Enjoys Fourth of July Thanks to Inventory Planning in the Cloud
Imagine one of the biggest U.S. holidays of the summer. Your family, friends, and coworkers have lots of activities planned including picnics, BBQs, games, swimming, and of course, fireworks. Everything is decked out in red, white, and blue ready to celebrate. Even the warm weather signals that the weekend will be something to remember....
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What’s It Like at an Award-Winning Manufacturing Plant?
We are proud of our customers. They are leading the manufacturing industry into the future and we’re not the only ones noticing how awesome they are. Many have won Excellence awards for doing what they do best: make amazing things. In 2016 alone, these customers were acknowledged for their manufacturing excellence:...
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What You Don’t Know About Manufacturing Traceability Could Hurt Your Business
You likely use some type of traceability procedure to comply with customer and market mandates and/or for service, safety, and process improvement purposes. However, if you are relying on manual processes, you are likely missing critical steps in the production process where errors may occur. ...
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Why Manufacturing Traceability Is Key to Reducing Errors
Paper records are prone to errors, difficult to manage, and may be impossible to find in a timely manner, like within two hours as the FDA requires. High profile recalls have increased in recent years and culpable manufacturers have paid high costs to their businesses and their brands....
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Automotive Manufacturers See the Future in Big Data
Recently, I was thrilled to receive an invitation to participate on a panel at the recent inaugural SpeedNews AeroAuto Conference. For the past five years, SpeedNews focused its conference solely on the aerospace industry. This year, organizers brought professionals from the automotive industry together with leaders from the aerospace industry to share best practices....
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Digital Transformation: Manufacturers Need a Practical Approach—Not Hype
Technologists love to learn, write, and prognosticate about new terminology, technology trends, and ideas that will impact the future. But as I once heard someone say, “innovation without practical impact is a science project,” and this holds true for digital transformation, a topic deservedly getting a lot of coverage these days....
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Award-Winning Manufacturer, Accuride, Transforms Business with Plex
Running a profitable manufacturing business is no easy task. When faced with a decision to either invest, sell, or close up shop, it gets even tougher. Recently, I had the privilege of visiting Accuride Corporation’s Rockford, IL plant named “Gunite” in honor of a specific alloy the founder created back in 1854....
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Advanced Manufacturing Technologies Provide Endless IIoT Opportunities
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has a potential economic impact of $1.2-$3.7 trillion a year in 2015. Because of this enormous opportunity, many of metro Detroit’s technologists are talking about ways to integrate IIoT – where they can apply it, how they can benefit from it, and even how it can be used in their products and by customers....
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