Plant Engineering Top 5 most read articles online, for Apr. 6-12, covered about the 2014 Product of the Year winners, measuring motor efficiency to understand VFD’s value, collaborative robots and humans, reducing lead time, and the Internet of Things and people who make things. Link to each article below.

1. 2014 Product of the Year winners announced

The 2014 Product of the Year Grand, Gold, Silver, and Bronze award winners are honored and included in the April 2015 print edition of Plant Engineering magazine.

2. Measure motor efficiency to understand VFD’s value

Multi-phase ac induction motors have traditionally dominated the electric motor industry. The industry has improved overall motor efficiency in each subsequent NEMA-MG 1 motor standard revision. To make sense of motor efficiency, one must understand what efficiency losses are attributed to. 

3. Collaborative robots and humans working together

Companies and researchers continue to work on developing robots that can work safely with humans on the factory floor without enclosures and be able to adapt and learn from human behavior. This has many potential benefits for a manufacturing industry that is becoming more specialized and seeks higher levels of automation to boost productivity. 

4. How to eat a chocolate elephant: Step by step method to reduce lead time

To reduce lead time, the first step is to prioritize the operations which will yield the most results, then review transactional history to check actual performance. 

5. What does the Internet of Things mean to people who make things?

Think: The connected machine. Industrie 4.0 and IoT in manufacturing are about connecting machines (to each other, to expert systems, and to management execution systems) to get more actionable information using intelligent devices at lower levels of the system architecture. 

The list was developed using CFE Media’s web analytics for stories viewed on plantengineering.com, April 6-12, for articles published within the last two months.

– Chris Vavra, production editor, CFE Media, cvavra@cfemedia.com.

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