The revolution goes by many names: machine-to-machine communication, smart manufacturing and the Industrial Internet, to name a few. In Europe, the prevailing term is Industry 4.0. In Germany, where that phrase was coined, the government is putting down €200 million to cultivate a lead in the industry. The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that its potential economic impact will be almost $4 trillion (or more) by 2025. Enthusiastic evangelists will tell you that the Industrial Internet is the most important advance in their industries that they’ve seen in their decades-long careers.

As with just about everything else in the manufacturing world — and all which that universe entails — it depends. After all, that’s why the art of manufacturing is a process — not a one-system-fits-all discipline. Yes, once that process has been properly designed and correctly implemented for a given manufacturing production need, it may well run like the astest, smoothest cookie-cutter-type operation ever devised.

There are thousands of sizes and types of standard bearings. In many applications, specifying a standard bearing yields an effective result.

Reducing losses and increasing profits by instituting a motor management plan is what this series of articles is all about. Here in Part I, we discuss how to create a motor inventory and establish repair-or-replace motor guidelines. Subsequent topics in this three-part series will address (Part II) motor failure policies and purchasing specifications, and (Part III) repair specifications and preventive and predictive maintenance, respectively.

The secondhand on the Doomsday dial ominously spins around the face, slowly but ever so surely inching the motor industry towards its inevitable terminus:

The number one question today is: are the current low oil prices a near-term or structural development?

Is there a gear software package out there that will calculate the design of spur, helical, worm, and planetary gearsets? Also, we would like a program that calculates stresses and material selection. Finally, we would like to have the program calculate bearings loads, too. Thank you for your help.

Gear, Gear Drive and Power Transmission Component Suppliers at Gear Expo 2015

With advances in modern technology reducing demand for envelopes, manufacturers are finding it increasingly hard to justify investment.

You may well have already read the following Gear Expo description on the AGMA Website.