Design World Staff

 27,300 engineers are missing from the future The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) predicts that 114,800 new jobs will be created in the U.S. semiconductor industry by 2030. However, it expects more than half of those jobs to go unfilled. Of the 67,000 vacancies, nearly 27,300 are pegged for engineers at the bachelor’s, master’s, and…

What will manufacturing look like this year? Although it may seem to some that manufacturing rarely changes these days, being a relatively mature fixture of American life, there are definite fits and starts. Over the past few decades, we’ve seen globalization, trade deals like NAFTA, offshoring, reshoring, supply chain crunches, local-for-local manufacturing, and other political…

What are the top workplaces for engineers? We’re going to find out! Over the past year, we’ve been busy working with our new sister publication Engineering.com, striving to create more meaningful content to help you in your engineering career. We’ve always brought you exceptional technical engineering content and pertinent industry news, but we’ve had feedback…

  The devil is in the details Design World’s annual Casebook is one of our favorites. After all, there are few things more satisfying than a well-detailed application story about how a certain set of components and systems solved a specific set of requirements. Such case studies are notoriously hard to procure, in large part…

CNC machining is one of the most widely used prototyping and manufacturing methods today, especially for metal parts. Most of the details, such as tooling, spindle speed, cutter type, and depth of cut, are taken care of at the machine shop, but there are some things you can do while designing your product to not…

In this special edition: Kawasaki works with partners on CL Series cobot applications Kawasaki Robotics (USA) Inc. demonstrated the latest additions to its portfolio, including the CL Series collaborative robots, at IMTS. Plus One introduces dual armed InductOne; Pitney Bowes automates parcel induction As they pass through warehouses and other facilities, many items are handled…

Congratulations to this year’s LEAP Award winners It’s that season when we recognize and celebrate engineering innovations through our annual LEAP (Leadership in Engineering Achievement Program) Awards. Each year, we receive a sample of the outstanding contributions engineers make to industries worldwide. Our esteemed judging panel, which includes experts from various fields in academia and…

The importance of the ally When I was young, a certain celebrity was afflicted with a medical condition. After their diagnosis, the celebrity suddenly became an outspoken advocate for pouring money into research to treat that condition. People kept calling this person brave, which struck me as odd and inaccurate. At the time, all of…

Adding to your career knowledge One of the most exciting things we’ve experienced over the past year has been Design World’s steady growth, especially around our acquisition of Engineering.com, with its excellent coverage in areas such as design and design software, 3D printing, simulation, digital transformation, and manufacturing. Our work together with their staff provides…

 Make it easy to do the right thing Startups have it made. With a single match, they can ignite engineers’ creativity and fuel collaboration and quality naturally within their emerging cultures. Light the same match in a long-standing company, and many people flee and protest, clinging to the way things have always been. In…

For the purposes of this paper, we have defined “household goods” in broader terms than some of the technical marketing definitions. While household goods as used in this paper does include traditional products like small appliances and homewares, we have also expanded the definition to incorporate additional non-durable packaged goods that are commonly found in…

Human-machine interfaces or HMIs (until recently called man-machine interfaces or MMIs) are access terminals on machinery, in management stations, and countless remote locations that give plant personnel and other end users a way to visually monitor and adjust automated operations, machine controls, and output functions. This human-machine interaction is through a graphical user interface (GUI)…

To become a leading high-volume LiB producer, a company must overcome the considerable operational challenges of battery production to achieve the desired financial results. In a conventional Gigafactory, the levels of automation are generally low when compared with more mature industries. As a result, thousands of manual operations are required to produce hundreds of thousand…

Bishop-Wisecarver offers OEMs and end users complete automation solutions built from its wide array of mechanical components along with the motors, controls, and robotics of its industrial partners. Design engineers and plant engineers tasked with automating operations can work with Bishop-Wisecarver to source fully integrated assemblies — including those completed with motors and controls. With…

Past motion marvels can inspire future creations Summer is vacation season, filled with road trips and relaxation, but also a bit of discovery and surprise. On a recent trip, I came across an outdoor historical exhibition at a park in Ashtabula, Ohio on the shores of Lake Erie. The gigantic steel structure (pictured above) was…

Inflation, the economy, China, and Canada One of my favorite speakers at industry conferences is Alan Beaulieu of ITR Outlook; he regularly presents to groups like the National Fluid Power Association and Power Transmission Distributors Association. ITR’s angle is strictly on policy, economics, and demographic trends, not politics. That’s not to say that he doesn’t…

Download the Nippon Bearing eBook NB’s standard TOPBALL® TW type is the forerunner of the TOPBALL Ultimate and it is available in a wide range of sizes. TOPBALL has 3 times the load capacity and 27 times more travel life than conventional bushings. Because it is self-aligning, it speeds manufacturing and assembly. It is a…

Over the past 40 years, technology and software advancements have transformed the pulp and paper industry, delivering more situational awareness, faster response time, and the ability to operate closer to limits—all leading to improved safety, reliability, and efficiency. Now, a new and even more significant era of automation technology evolution is upon us, disrupting traditional…

Hog today, hero tomorrow? Before each dinner, I ask my son to consider everything that went into preparing his meal. We start with Mom or Dad cooking, which leads to working hard to provide healthy food, and so we give thanks for everyone and everything that makes working and living well possible. Then we acknowledge…

In this release of WTWH’s Processing and Packaging series, we took a close look at the growing beverage industry. Composed of everything from bottled water and carbonated soft drinks to cold-pressed juices and premium spirits, the beverage industry represents a diverse slice of manufacturing that encompasses a wide variety of products and packaging formats. This report will…

IO-Link is an internationally standardized, crossvendor IO technology that enables bidirectional communication to the sensor/actuator level. The fieldbus-independent, open standard can be integrated into any system landscape using standard unshielded cables and point-to-point connectivity. Bidirectional communication enables comprehensive diagnostics and interference-free data transfer. Pepperl+Fuchs’ IO-Link portfolio covers a wide range of sensor technologies, including photoelectric…

Expanding our network Last month, we announced that we’re joining forces with some very well-respected engineering publications produced by CFE Media. Our new titles include some you’ve likely heard of: Control Engineering, Plant Engineering, Consulting-Specifying Engineer, and Industrial Cybersecurity Pulse. Produced by an award-winning editorial team, these brands help round out our engineering coverage and…

Design World, the leading design engineering magazine in the United States for OEM design engineers, along with Machines Italia, jointly conducted a readership survey investigating several critical topics of interest to manufacturers today. These include smart machines, smart devices, innovations, and sustainability. In all, there were 185 respondents who answered most or all of the…

Motion system designs run millions of automated food-manufacturing designs worldwide — including those in employed in grain milling, pasta making, and baking; fish and poultry processing; beer, wine, and spirit production; slaughtering and meatpacking; fruit, vegetable, and baby-food packaging, canning, jarring, and freezing; candy making; dairy and cheese making; and oils and fat extraction and…

For this first release in the WTWH Packaging and Processing series, we asked food manufacturers to reflect on their experiences with flexible and shelf-ready packaging, two closely related formats that have found traction in the food industry. In this report, you will hear from food industry professionals about what their greatest challenges are with flexible…