PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF AUTOMATED PRECISION PARTS MANUFACTURED USING PROCESS CONTROL TECHNOLOGIES

Many repetitive machining and assembly tasks have been offshored to areas of the world with less sophisticated infrastructure and much lower labor costs. As companies work their way up the manufacturing food chain to increasingly precise parts, however, the "automate and offshore" strategy often runs into some serious problems. There is a huge difference between automating a simple "plus or minus a couple of thousandths" machining operation, and a sophisticated "plus or minus a fraction of a micron" application.

Frank Powell, product manager for the PRODAR Division in Marposs Corp., Auburn Hills, Mich., develops the matter in the Practical Applications Of Automated Precision Part Manufacturing Using Process Control Technologies article, that first appeared in the November 2010 issue of Manufacturing News Magazine.