As manufacturing continues its shift toward digital transformation, the concept of the digital thread has become central to initiatives around smart manufacturing, Industry 4.0, and data-driven quality. The digital thread represents the seamless flow of information across the product lifecycle — from design and engineering through manufacturing, inspection, and ongoing improvement.
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ABB has announced what it describes as a first for industrial automation: the seamless integration of AI-based machine vision directly into the machine control system. By embedding deep learning capabilities into its automation architecture, the company, through its machine and factory automation division B&R, has enabled vision data to feed advanced, real-time machine control loops.
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Aligning metrology with production flow turns inspection into a source of value. By deploying shop floor measurement systems that are fast, reliable, and tightly integrated with CNC controllers, manufacturers can meet takt time commitments while improving capability and reducing scrap.
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Network RTK via NTRIP provides the georeferencing backbone for reality capture
workflows in refineries, power plants, and large scale manufacturing facilities
Measuring the world around us has evolved from simple hand tools to sophisticated optical 3D technology. Whether it is documenting a delicate museum artifact or ensuring an engine component is built to within a few microns of its design, modern metrology relies on structural light scanners like those developed by SMARTTECH3D.
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In order to detect such sources of error at an early stage and keep processes stable, measurement engineers use a method that at first glance has more to do with mathematics than with metal – Fourier Analysis.
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Machine vision has moved far beyond its early role as a digital replacement for human inspection. Today, it is becoming a core enabler of robotic intelligence, giving automated systems the contextual awareness, adaptability, and measurement capability required for high-mix, high-precision manufacturing.
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Hexagon’s metrology technologies enable Oracle Red Bull Racing and Red Bull Ford Powertrains to achieve extreme precision in a remodelled chassis with new aerodynamics and highly ambitious new 1.6 litre powertrain.
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Standing in a universal workstation, two articulated industrial robots outfitted with white light optical scanners move closely over the entire surface of the high-precision part — in this case, a turbine disk for a GE90 engine.
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Zero-defect manufacturing has long stood as one of the most ambitious goals in industrial quality control. For decades, however, it remained more of a guiding philosophy than a practical reality, limited by sampling inspection, human oversight, and delayed feedback from production.
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