Michelin Going Automated and Electric for Logistics

Michelin Going Automated and Electric for Logistics

Michelin is implementing a new approach for transporting goods within and between some of its faciliites in France: using autonomous, electric vehicles.

The first test flight on a Boeing autonomous passenger air vehicle, January 23, 2019. (Image: Boeing)

The Transformation of Transportation

We are at the start of a stage where there will be potentially profound changes in transportation as we know it, with the very real possibility that there is going to be cross-town travel being performed in flying, autonomous Ubers.

Tires Can Advance Autonomy

Tires Can Advance Autonomy

Say a few years from now you’re riding in an autonomous vehicle and it gets a flat. Are you going to change it?

Additive series production at BMW Group, the coordinating organization of the IDAM project, which will leverage automation and Industrial Internet of Things technology to improve metal additive production throughput.

Speed Metal

The grail of metal additive manufacturing is the ability to keep pace with full automotive production. The quest continues.

Why Detroit Needs the Valley—and Vice Versa

Anyone can see the looming changes facing global automakers who are grappling with new technologies, stricter emissions standards, and apps that are turning car buyers into renters (or simply riders). Automobiles are increasingly becoming connected, electrified, and autonomous supercomputers on wheels.

The BMW Individual M850i Night Sky.

BMW and Additive Tech

BMW is using additive manufacturing technology in ways that are both anticipated and somewhat more, well, usual.  

Versalis 2019 is the Lectra CNC system for cutting leather for car interiors. .

CNC Interior Leather Cutting System; Mobile App for CNC Monitoring; Long-stroke Gripper for Cobots

CNC Interior Leather Cutting System; Mobile App for CNC Monitoring; Long-stroke Gripper for Cobots

Tool carriers are arranged around the spindles of an MS22-6L so that two tools can be used at each of the six spindles.

Flexible Turning

Lathe maker Index designs to get more types of operations out of each machine.

The multi-criteria positioning in CoreTechnologie 4D_Additive aims to orient a part. The right side of this image shows the part in position #6, overlaid with information, including the computed values for position #6 and the criteria for that position. The criteria (surface quality, volume of support, time, and cost of material) are each given a “weight” (low, medium, medium-high, high) by the user. The left side of the image shows two graphs of the computed scores for the cost and time to produce the part in 36 positions based on the weighted criteria. In this example, time was unimportant (low weight) and cost was critical (high), so part positions 14 and 32 (runner-up: 22) look best given the weighted criteria.

The Fourth Dimension in Additive Manufacturing

A new software suite for 3D printing analyzes, repairs, and prepares 3D models using the native file formats of a variety of CAD systems, saving the conversion to STL for last.

Advance and Retract

“It speaks a lot of the advantages of having a tremendous amount of vertical integration to allow you to do concurrent engineering.”