Author Archive
Nov 2022
Fifty years ago, the final Apollo space mission departed the moon’s surface. With it, it carried away the last two humans to ever set foot on the lunar surface, Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt. Now, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is working hard to bring humanity back to the moon through its […]
Sep 2022
Born out of the same technology used by hovercraft and air-hockey tables, air casters from AeroGo Inc., Seattle, WA (aerogo.com), allow massive structures to float on a thin, nearly friction-less film of air. View the article EfficientPlant-AeroGo-Sept2022-1 or online here.
Aug 2022
AeroGo is showcasing their stainless steel load movement solutions specifically designed for the pharma/biotech industry. See them for yourself in Hall 3.0 stand C33 at Achema in Frankfurt, August 22-26. Preview here: https://www.aerogo.com/industries/pharmaceutical-biotech/
Feb 2022
By this point in this series, readers have probably already taken many material handling systems off the table as serious options. For example, if the load is light and travels only short distances between stations, you may have already eliminated the options that would be overkill, like cranes or even forklifts. But there’s one more […]
Feb 2021
Most machine shops end up with a production layout that’s enormously inefficient. That’s because machine tools can be prohibitively difficult to move. As a result, many just end up living wherever they’re initially placed, so the production process works around them. In other words, they become “monuments” in lean manufacturing terms. That means the production […]
Jan 2021
Cleanrooms present unique challenges for moving heavy equipment. To start, all the normal issues associated with material handling apply: how do you move very heavy and often delicate equipment in a cost-effective manner with the least amount of disruption to normal operations? But then, operators in these facilities also have to figure out how to […]
Dec 2020
Protecting factory floors – especially epoxy-coated floors – from damage when moving heavy loads is easy with air casters. Read the article in Modern Machine Shop here.
Nov 2020
Lean manufacturing relies on agility and adaptability. The ability to re-engineer, re-sequence, and re-position production lines becomes paramount to achieve and maintaining efficiency. Read more about flexible manufacturing here.
Oct 2020
Forklifts aren’t ideal in every manufacturing scenario. But what’s the alternative? Air casters are a simple and relatively inexpensive solution that can substitute for forklifts in almost every situation. Air casters yield greater material handling capacity, improved cost-efficiency, and dramatically superior flexibility. But how do they compare directly? Let’s take a closer look.
Sep 2020
Lean manufacturing is about eliminating waste in manufacturing processes. “Lean production is aimed at the elimination of waste in every area of production, including customer relations, product design, supplier networks and factory management,” says Dr. David Cochran, director of the Production System Design Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Specifically, lean manufacturing processes aim to […]