Webcasts: Technologies to Improve Productivity and Efficiency

Each of the three webcasts in the series will be broadcast twice each day, at 10am and 2pm, giving participants the opportunity to interact directly with presenters and fellow attendees. Webcasts will also be available on demand after the series is complete.

The three-part series is as follows:

Machine Monitoring: Maximise Production Quality Through Performance Measurements

Tuesday 26 June 2012: 10am and 2pm

Manufacturing departments throughout different industry sectors are pressured to increase throughput and lower costs while increasing the quality of goods. Although this ultimately requires better and more efficient machines, a key task for the machine industry is to provide detailed information about the process. Frequently, classical supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) masks some of the high-speed, dynamic information vital for process improvement. In this webcast, experience new technologies for machine process monitoring, learn about real-world applications and discover how to gather important information to optimise machine process and identify potential areas for improvement.

Machine Efficiency: A Practical Guide To Lower The Energy Consumption Of Your Design

Wednesday 27 June 2012: 10am and 2pm

In the face of economic uncertainties and increasing environmental concerns, many businesses today are evaluating ways to make their operations more lean, efficient and environmentally friendly. Examining the electricity bill is a good place to start. The top consumers of electricity are typically the HVAC system and machinery, two motor-based applications. In fact, motor control is responsible for about two-thirds of the total electrical energy consumption in a typical industrial facility. The fundamental purpose of any electric motor is to convert electrical power into mechanical energy. How efficient this transfer happens depends on different technical aspects and is influenced by the control system, the drive, the motor, the mechanicals system and also the machine process. In this webcast, learn about key focus areas for lean and efficient machine design.

Smart Machines: Key Technologies To Get Ahead Of The Competition

Thursday 28 June 2012: 10am and 2pm

Designing a high-performance machine is a challenging task; however, designing a machine that can adapt to changing conditions and the wear and tear of the machine itself is significantly more challenging. If machine builders want to achieve lights-out automation, a dream that has been around for decades, adaptive self-healing machines are an evolutionary step that needs to happen. With the proliferation of sensors, high-level design tools and powerful embedded control systems, all the necessary components and tools to build smart machines are becoming available. In this webcast, learn about new technologies for building smart machines and how to use them to optimise machine design.

To register for one or all three of the Smart Machine webcasts go to uk.ni.com/webcasts/smartmachine.