Category Archives: Engineering

Engineering team honored in water systems challenge – The Source – Washington University in St. Louis – Washington University in St. Louis Newsroom

A team led by Zhen (Jason) He, professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, won second place in the 2021 Intelligent Water Systems Challenge (IWSC). IWSC is jointly organized by the Water Research Foundation and the Water Environment Federation to demonstrate the value of intelligent water systems to utilities and thereby foster adoption of smart water technologies.

The team, which included Yanran Xu, a PhD student in Hes lab, and partners from the American Bottom Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility and from engineering consulting firm Greeley and Hansen, was recognized for their solution to real-world challenges of pH control at the Physical-Chemical Wastewater Treatment Plant in Sauget, Ill.

Their solution would predict the pH of three neutralizer tanks using well-trained machine learning models based on the current datasets of the wastewater treatment system and make recommendations for better manual control. They hope the results can be used to formulate a strategy for precise control of chemical dosage, which costs nearly $1 million per year at that plant.

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Engineering team honored in water systems challenge - The Source - Washington University in St. Louis - Washington University in St. Louis Newsroom

Accenture Acquires Headspring to Expand and Enhance Cloud First Platform Engineering Capabilities – Yahoo Finance

NEW YORK, December 01, 2021--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has acquired the consulting practice of Headspring, a cloud native and platform engineering services firm based in Austin, Texas. Headspring provides a broad range of cloud services including platform architecture, engineering, modernization and product management. Headsprings services and cloud experts will boost Accenture Cloud Firsts platform engineering capabilities aimed at helping clients accelerate their transformations and derive greater value from their cloud investments. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211201005668/en/

Accenture Cloud First Head of Platform Engineering Ramadurai Ramalingam and Headspring President, CEO and Founder Dustin Wells (Photo: Business Wire)

"Accentures acquisition of Headspring will help us scale one of the most comprehensive platform engineering and cloud native capabilities in the world. The depth and breadth of Headsprings cloud-focused services and their significant experience working with Fortune 500 companies over the past two decades will be a valuable addition to our existing cloud engineering capabilities in North America and globally," said Karthik Narain, global lead of Accenture Cloud First.

Founded in 2001 and with approximately 90 employees in the U.S. and Mexico, Headspring serves public and private sector clients across numerous industries, including energy, financial services, government and nonprofit.

"Were relentlessly focused on helping clients utilize the cloud to move faster, work better, and stand out in a shifting market. We do this by understanding their teams, goals and vision thats the Headspring difference which aligns perfectly with Accentures focus on business outcomes," said Dustin Wells, founder, president & CEO of Headspring. "Joining the Accenture team will collectively elevate our position as trusted transformation advisors and executers."

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Headsprings consulting team of highly skilled professionals with accreditations in cloud engineering and cloud native services will join Accenture Cloud First, enhancing Accentures platform engineering capabilities in working closely with hyperscalers. Headsprings broad and comprehensive suite of services includes:

Platform Engineering: including end-to-end cloud native platform architecture and development from the foundation to the experience layer

Platform Modernization: including re-platforming and cloud migration, code transformation, visual redesign, and integration modernization

Platform Architecture: re-architecting platform foundations to support the new platform architecture

Product Management: overall assessment and analysis of pain points based on scaled severity, frequency of occurrence, time inefficiency, risk of inaccuracy and technology bottlenecks. Creating product roadmap and requirements for platforms for prioritized outcomes

Headspring has been voted one of the Best Companies to Work for in Texas every year since 2013.

About AccentureAccenture is a global professional services company with leading capabilities in digital, cloud and security. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries, we offer Strategy and Consulting, Interactive, Technology and Operations services all powered by the worlds largest network of Advanced Technology and Intelligent Operations centers. Our 624,000 people deliver on the promise of technology and human ingenuity every day, serving clients in more than 120 countries. We embrace the power of change to create value and shared success for our clients, people, shareholders, partners and communities. Visit us at http://www.accenture.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211201005668/en/

Contacts

Mylissa TsaiAccenture+1 917 452 9729mylissa.tsai@accenture.com

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Accenture Acquires Headspring to Expand and Enhance Cloud First Platform Engineering Capabilities - Yahoo Finance

Danfoss Turbocor announces multiyear collaboration with FAMU-FSU College of Engineering – Florida State News

Danfoss President Ricardo Schneider (back center) and students and faculty from the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering celebrate a multiyear partnership between Danfoss and the college.

Danfoss and Florida State University have announced a multiyear collaboration in which Danfoss will fund scholarships and provide research opportunities for faculty and students at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering.

The 5-year agreement, which was officially signed on November 12, establishes the Danfoss FAMU-FSU College of Engineering Fund with a $750,000 commitment from Danfoss.

This agreement is an exciting new chapter in Danfoss relationship with the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, said Ricardo Schneider, president of Danfoss Turbocor. We have been developing a strong partnership for nearly 10 years, sponsoring undergraduate and graduate research projects, and are excited to expand our support for the development of engineering talent in the community. These scholarships will help underrepresented minority students achieve their dreams of an engineering career, bring more diversity to the profession and create a talent pipeline for our Danfoss Turbocor business.

Each academic year, the fund will award multiple grants (expected to be about 10 per year) to undergraduate and graduate students from either university at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. Undergraduate fellowships will focus on first- or second-year engineering students, with a focus on first-generation college students or those who belong to an underrepresented group. Additionally, the fund will support graduate research fellows and faculty fellows each year who are engaged in research that is of interest to Danfoss.

Fellows will collaborate with selected students at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) on graduate research projects.The students will likely spend time at each others campus, with support from Danfoss and the fund.

This funding is another important step in the nearly decade-long collaboration between Danfoss and the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, and it will be transformative in many ways, said Farrukh Alvi, senior associate dean for research and graduate studies at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. Theyre providing financial support to our students who need and deserve it, while also creating a pathway for important research and international career connections that students would otherwise not have access to. This partnership is another notable step toward growing the number of career and research-ready engineers from first-generation and underrepresented groups, a high priority for both organizations.

The collaboration with SDU will provide a path for SDU students to pursue graduate engineering study at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering in mechatronics, controls, material science and aerodynamics. Danfoss faculty fellows will provide them with mentorship and advising and the SDU students will continue their collaborations with the Danfoss graduate research fellows with guidance from FAMU-FSU Engineering and SDU faculty.

Danfoss, headquartered in Denmark, has an ongoing relationship with SDU, sponsoring many activities through the companys Mads Clausen Foundation, and this agreement will expand and strengthen the existing relationship.

We are very excited about the student exchange collaboration with Florida A&M and Florida State universities, said Henrik Johnsen Vindt, associate professor and assistant director of international affairs at SDUs Faculty of Engineering. International qualifications are essential for our engineering students and this collaboration supports our effort to give future engineers a global mindset. The American students will enhance the international environment at our university, have the opportunity to experience Denmark and hopefully consider our business for employment in the future.

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Danfoss Turbocor announces multiyear collaboration with FAMU-FSU College of Engineering - Florida State News

6 fast facts on the current biomedical engineering workforce – Becker’s Hospital Review

Biomedical engineers in Massachusetts make an average of $124,160 annually, making it the state with the highest wages for that workforce in the country, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The most recent data on the workforce came from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics's May 2020 Occupational Employment and Wages.

Here are six facts on the biomedical engineering workforce:

1. The median annual wage for bioengineers and biomedical engineers was $92,620 in May 2020, with the lowest 10 percent earning less than $56,590, and the highest 10 percent earning more than $149,440.

2. Employment within the field is projected to grow 6 percent from 2020 to 2030.

3. The top five industries with the highest levels of employment within the biomedical engineering workforce are: medical equipment and supplies manufacturing; scientific research and development services; pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing; navigational, measuring, electromedical, and control instruments manufacturing; and general medical and surgical hospitals.

4. The top five highest paying industries in the field are: merchant wholesalers and nondurable goods; management of companies and enterprises; navigational, measuring, electromedical, and control instruments manufacturing; computer systems design and related services; and architectural, engineering, and related services.

5. The five states with the highest employment in that field are California, Massachusetts, Texas, Pennsylvania and Florida.

6. The five states reporting the highest wages in the field are Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, California and Maryland.

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6 fast facts on the current biomedical engineering workforce - Becker's Hospital Review

Student explores the broad engineering workforce with co-ops and internships – Virginia Tech Daily

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Macturk took up an opportunity to work in a design internship with Collins Aerospace. Working mostly virtually during the summer of 2021, he led the development of a patent-pending, spring damper time delay mechanism, helping to fine-tune its design to get it closer to market readiness.

That experience was followed by a third: Macturk is now working with General Electric (GE) Aviation in their supply chain in Boston. He hopes for a total of five work experiences before he graduates, planning those for two more summers. All told, Macturk will graduate in 2024 with four years of academic studies and a full year of combined co-op and internship experiences.

While being away from the Blacksburg campus is a different plan than most students take, he sees a lot of added value for the bonus amount of career preparation he will have.

Once I graduate,I'll have a great idea where I want to endup, and the experiences that go along with it, he said.

Despite being physically located in Boston to work with GE, Macturk still maintains active involvement in student activities, including his role on the Orbital Launch Vehicle Team. This is a true passion project, connected to the fascination hes had with the projects of SpaceX for years. Macturk serves as a structural engineer for the team, working on macro-level projects such as engineering retainment bolts to withstand the G-forces of a launch. His involvement with the team has been virtual during the period of the pandemic, but he plans to maintain that commitment. Since he can do most of his design and analysis on a computer, virtual involvement is much simpler. He works on those projects after his workday at GE.

Education and work come together

The worlds of work and education have converged for Macturk, creating a perspective that would have been impossible from only one point of view. Learning MATLAB programming during his first year in the classroom was interesting work, but it came to life when he used the program at Collins Aerospace. The teamwork and strategy he learned from working with industry professionals flavored his experience as a researcher and a leader in the classroom, he explained, and working with fellow students helped inspire his drive for innovative approaches.

Its a great opportunity to apply some of the things you learn in the classroom, and it gives a purpose to what youre doing, Macturk said. You can speak to what you use in the software, and its not just a class project youve done. Its a project on a team that includes dollar signs and deadlines.

These experiences have also opened up opportunities for return offers and job extensions from the companies for which Macturk has worked, following the completion of a job well done. These possibilities keep him mindful of the future he is building as he goes, connecting with companies that might be a good fit for his career.

Im very happy with the decision I made [to co-op and intern] and the amount of person-to-person interaction I get while working, Macturk said. Now I can apply these lessons from the real world back into the classroom and see why Im learning these things. And of course, the pay you get is pretty nice.

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Student explores the broad engineering workforce with co-ops and internships - Virginia Tech Daily

Skills and responsibilities in a QA engineer role – TechTarget

Quality assurance professionals are a bulwark against broken code, bad math and inadequate documentation. Just as importantly, though, they're strong critical thinkers who know how to ask the right questions of the right people.

Quality assurance is an essential part of every software development and deployment pipeline. It ensures that all software engineering practices meet an organization's specific requirements and standards. A QA team can help developers avoid problems or errors before they occur.

Those who land a QA engineer role typically have a university degree in computer science or related subjects and have worked a series of IT jobs to build experience. However, these degrees aren't prerequisites for the role.

Emily Thomas, a software QA engineer at Vonage, an international voice over IP (VoIP) provider, took a different route. Instead of an engineering degree, Thomas pursued a degree in Latin and German. While these disciplines are certainly different from engineering, the skills you acquire learning spoken languages are transferable to code languages, according to Thomas. "Because, in many ways, you're basically communicating with a computer," she said. "I don't think a lot of people agree with me on that."

Although Thomas' first tech job in college was in the university IT department -- servicing classroom and lab equipment -- she spent her time post-university at recruiting firms doing unfulfilling work.

That's when she looked back at IT. "A lot of my technical skills are self-taught, or [came from] asking my family members [or] co-workers questions," Thomas said, noting that her parents also hold diverse positions in the IT field.

Mentors can be invaluable to someone's career growth. Career progression, however, isn't just about skill building -- it's also about visibility. Thomas recommends IT professionals find an advocate in their organization if they want to advance. "A mentor is going to help you build skills, but an advocate is going to push for people to see those skills and push for you to get the recognition you deserve," she said.

Thomas started at Vonage as a technical support specialist and spent eight years picking up skills and mining her connections for guidance. "Working my butt off was only half the job of getting to the position I am today," she said. "The other half was talking to the right people -- knowing the right people inside our company so that I could [say], 'Hey, this is what I'm doing. This is where my skills are.'"

After speaking with these people, Thomas was able to use their feedback to move out of her role in technical support and into QA.

Thomas primarily works with rating and billing microservices at Vonage. With VoIP services, some calls have permanent charges attached. A rating microservice applies these charges; billing microservices aggregate those values and apply taxes for users across the globe. Her day-to-day activity equates to a lot of math. Thomas manages these tasks by writing a wealth of Python scripts and learning Java for more intensive CPU processes.

Thomas does primarily back-end testing and works in a command-line terminal most of the time. However, she also uses integrated development environments, such as PyCharm and IntelliJ, and manages automation through Concourse CI.

I break stuff so that other people can't. Emily ThomasQA engineer, Vonage

Thomas has a process to be prepared to perform load testing, and to test different mathematical functions and the different applications of taxes. "I make scripts that send data packets to our applications, either through proxy servers,or directly, depending on what I need to test," Thomas explained. "And I check the outcomes ... with scripts. Occasionally, if it's a brand-new application and we're still building the scripts, I have to do it manually with a calculator."

The other half of Thomas' QA duties is a little different: "I break stuff so that other people can't." Although Vonage has begun to investigate chaos engineering, it hasn't implemented it fully yet. "Chaos engineering is a little more complex than what we're doing," Thomas said. "It is useful for some of our applications, like our data storage applications and especially our public-facing [apps], like APIs and web tools."

Chaos engineering is only as effective as the human creating the test -- and humans make mistakes. "So if you make a test suite, and it doesn't include a test that a user finds, that's OK; add that test [to the documentation] and now you can go."

In her day-to-day QA role, Thomas primarily interacts with developers. Although Vonage has a site-reliability engineering team, an ongoing company initiative has combined the dev and IT ops teams into one cohesive DevOps group.

To build a rapport and trusting relationship with her team, Thomas had to learn the dynamics of how different people and groups record and relay information. Effective QA means knowing what questions the dev team won't ask and what questions they won't answer preemptively in documentation -- as well as how to get that documentation from them.

"There's a lot of social engineering that comes with QA testing," Thomas said. "To force a developer to really think about what they're saying, what they're documenting, how they're documenting and what they're telling everyone else around them. Because part of QA is that we are essentially Accountability, the Team."

When it comes to front-end and public-facing documentation, Vonage employs a collection of technical writers. However, developers are responsible for their own back-end documentation efforts.

One potential challenge for developers stems from the fact that many processes are explained verbally at in-person or virtual training meetings. As a result, things are inevitably said that aren't written down in the accompanying documentation, which means steps or configuration items might be missing from that set of directions.

But part of effective QA -- and teamwork -- is setting and reinforcing expectations and guidelines that help developers experience fewer complications. This requires consistent and insightful conversations with teams to ensure that those procedural steps described during in-person meetings are captured and recorded in formal documentation. Quality assurance involves much more than just testing code for bugs. It requires critical thinking and communication skills, as well as a willingness to stand one's ground when requesting additional information or enforcing a requirement.

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Skills and responsibilities in a QA engineer role - TechTarget

OverIT completes the Spin-Off from the Engineering Group by Bain Capital and NB Renaissance and announces Nicola Cattarossi as new CFO – Yahoo Finance

FIUME VENETO, Italy, Dec. 1, 2021 /CNW/ -- OverIT, a leading provider of Field Service Management solutions, today announced the completion of its previously-publicized spin-off from the Engineering Group, becoming an independent company controlled by Bain Capital and NB Renaissance.

OverIT Logo

"The spin-off will boost OverIT's international capabilities and build upon its market-leading position through increased investment. This is the result of a strategic partnership between NB Renaissance and Bain Capital," said Paolo Bergamo, CEO of OverIT.

OverIT also bolsters its senior leadership with the appointment of Nicola Cattarossi as new Chief Financial Officer. As CFO, Cattarossi will oversee OverIT's global accounting operations, finance, and internal control functions to support the company's value creation.

"Nicola is a strategic addition to strengthen OverIT's leadership team and to achieve the company's growth goals," continued Mr Bergamo.

Cattarossi brings over two decades' experience in global roles and joins OverIT from Affidea Italy, where he acted as Finance Director and Board Member. Previously, he served as International Vice President and Finance Director at Groupon and held a number of senior finance positions at Medtronic and Dell.

"I am thrilled to be joining OverIT at such an important stage in its evolution," said Cattarossi "I will use my extensive and multifaceted international experience to work closely with the leadership team and continue building a best-in-class finance division supporting OverIT's global growth initiatives."

OverIT, is a multinational company with more than 20 years' international and cross-industry experience in Field Service Management. The firm is recognized by premier global advisory and consulting organizations as a leading vendor in FSM, Mobile Workforce Management and AR industries, providing more than 300 international customers and 150,000 Field Service users with process knowledge, innovative functionalities and cutting-edge technologies. Read more at overit.it

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Bain Capital, LP is one of the world's leading private investment firms with approximately $140 billion of assets under management that creates lasting impact for our investors, teams, businesses, and the communities in which we live. Since our founding in 1984, we've applied our insight and experience to organically expand into several asset classes including private equity, credit, public equity, venture capital and real estate, with offices on four continents. Read more at baincapital.com

NB Renaissance supports ambitious entrepreneurs and management teams with a goal to create market leading businesses. Part of Neuberger Berman since 2015, today NB Renaissance manages 2.0 billion of commitments from a pool of high-quality Italian and international investors. NB Renaissance is currently invested in 12 companies, which include some of the excellence of the Italian corporates.

Neuberger Berman, founded in 1939, is a private, independent, employee-owned investment manager. The firm manages a range of strategiesincluding equity, fixed income, quantitative and multi-asset class, private equity, real estate, and hedge fundson behalf of institutions, advisors, and individual investors globally. The firm manages $433 billion in client assets as of June 30, 2021. Read more at http://www.nb.com

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Contact: Carly Kroll, carly.kroll@overit.us, +1 847 867 2232

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OverIT completes the Spin-Off from the Engineering Group by Bain Capital and NB Renaissance and announces Nicola Cattarossi as new CFO - Yahoo Finance

Broadway announces three top promotions: CTO, VP of Engineering, and CIO – FinanceFeeds

Broadway delivers a range of SaaS trading solutions that includes order and algo execution, customer quoting and ecommerce, pricing and distribution, risk and credit management, surveillance, and trade management.

Broadway Technology has promoted three executives to its leadership team as the trading software firm ends the year 2021 the same way it started; with executive moves.

The firm has appointed Eitan Reich as Chief Technology Officer; Misha Weinberg as VP of Engineering; and Dario Gatta as Chief Information Officer.

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Eitan Reich was promoted to Chief Technology Officer as he drives Broadways overall technology vision, strategy, and innovation roadmap. His 14-year tenure at Broadway includes multiple technology leadership roles, where he tapped his broad capital markets expertise to understand clients unique challenges.

Misha Weinberg moved to Vice President of Engineering, overseeing Broadways software engineering organization to design, implement and deliver the companys fixed income trading solutions.

Weinberg joined nearly nine years ago and worked directly with Broadways tier one bank customers to plan, deploy and launch their trading systems, and managed the companys dealer-to-dealer applications engineering team.

Dario Gatta was promoted to Chief Information Officer to lead corporate IT, information security and technology operations after more than 20 years experience in technology and capital markets, acquired from multiple senior roles across software development, product management and professional services.

Gatta will also be in charge of the Greyspan business, which offers Broadway clients full-service co-location, cloud hosting and system oversight.

Michael Chin, CEO, Broadway, said: As the fixed income markets continue to evolve and become more complex, the opportunities for Broadway have never been greater. For almost two decades Broadway has provided the marriage of an incredibly powerful platform with the industrys best and brightest technologists. These appointments highlight that Broadway truly is the place Where Tech Meets Intellect, and showcase our commitment to continuously working with our clients to create trading solutions that augment, not replace, human traders.

Broadway spent the year announcing executive hires, expanding its global business development team, and a corporate rebrand as the company repositions itself in the industry.

Founded 17 years ago, Broadway had everything prepared to enter 2022 with the right foot and deliver trading and workflow solutions to a growing number of clients. Its client roster already includes many of the top global banks.

Broadway prides itself on working with the industrys best and brightest and were thrilled to promote some of our top technologists to these key roles and our Leadership Team. Eitan, Misha and Dario collectively boast more than 25 years combined experience with Broadway and have continuously proven their exceptional innovation, strategy and technical skills. These three leaders are integral to Broadways success and will help the company continue its rigorous focus on delivering measurable results as we take the business in a new direction, said chief executive Michael Chin.

Broadway offers a suite of fully hosted SaaS trading solutions that powers the entire end-to-end client workflow and includes order and algo execution, customer quoting and ecommerce, pricing and distribution, risk and credit management, surveillance, and trade management.

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Broadway announces three top promotions: CTO, VP of Engineering, and CIO - FinanceFeeds

The Technology Shaping the Future: 5 engineering predictions for the years ahead – Professional Engineering

Stock image. These trends and topics will be increasingly important in engineering and manufacturing over the next few years (Credit: Shutterstock)

It is hard to think of another period of modern history more characterised by uncertainty. The Covid-19 pandemic has upended countless aspects of life around the world, while the breathtaking pace of technological development frequently outstrips societys capabilities to deal with it.

When it comes to engineering and manufacturing, however, there are some things we can say with greater certainty. Experts and industry leaders dedicate much of their time to finding newsolutions, andassessing how they will be used in the years to come.

The latest Engineering Futures weekThe Technology Shaping the Futurewas held online last week byProfessional Engineering,withan assembled group ofindustryexperts explainingsome of the challenges and opportunities in the years to come.

Here are five of their predictionsand lessonsfrom the sessions, which are now available to view on-demand.

The last 40 years has seen huge change in sectors such as manufacturing and construction.The shift from pencil and paper to CAD designs was just the start of an all-encompassing journey, said Mohamed Abdelhak from Autodesk as he started his session titled Digitalisation: The How, Why & What.

That journey has greatly acceleratedduring the Covid-19 pandemic, Abdelhak said. 97% of B2B (business-to-business) buyers are happy with a fully digital process, for example. Covid has forced people to realise what can be achieved across a screen, he said.

Digitalisation programmes will only be successful if they are led from the top, however. Transformation really needs to be driven from the top. Executive-level buy-in isnt enough... what is really needed is executive leadership, he said.

Food productionis a sector ripe forgreaterautomation, saidIan Clarke, owner and founder ofVelocumenLtd during WhereNext forAutomation andDigitalisation?

The next five years will also seean increase of automation in conventional manufacturing industries, he said.Current Industry 4.0projectsare oftentoofragmented, he said, and not massively different to previous initiatives.

Companies often struggle to glue in"automation of procurementand thesupply chain end,he said, but he predicted more true Industry 4.0 projects in the coming years as firms link upmoreprocessesthroughout the product lifecycle.

In many aspects, the compositesindustryhasnt reached Industry 3.0,let alone Industry 4.0, said JoeSummersfrom Composites UK and Airborne UK during Industry 4.0 and Automation in Composites Manufacturing.

The journey is pretty tough, pretty long,he said, but it can bring big benefits for many composites companies.Flexibility, productivity,andspeed can all come from greater insight into manufacturing processes, he said.

When will companies see the benefits of automation? My instinct would be to say straight away, he said. Most customers target a two- to three-year return on investment (ROI), however.

There is a lack of clarity over the benefits of automation, said Mike Wilson from BARA during BuildingBackBetter HowAutomationcouldHelp theRecovery of the UK. New users lack knowledge and expertise, there is concern over costs, and risk assessments need to be done properly.

Many businesses are looking for the most complex application they have, rather than the simplest job... that may be a great opportunity to install your first robot system, he said.You may then find other opportunities to look at more complex applications.

BARA provides support,he said,withonlinehow-to guidesand pointers to independent consultants.

Technology specialistNaim Kapadia has led the Smart Factory for Electronics Manufacturing project at theManufacturing Technology Centre (MTC)in Coventry, which has industry-leading members such as Rolls-Royce, BAE Systems and Siemens.The centres mini-factory offers electronics manufacturing capabilities.

Over the last three years, the members interest has grown significant, he said.What weve found is that most of what were doing, if we can do it here in this process,its all transferable to other areas of the business.

He added:Our role has been mainly around how we can take this to the next level, help users understand what the art of the possible is.

Want the best engineering stories delivered straight to your inbox? TheProfessional Engineeringnewslettergives you vital updates on the most cutting-edge engineering and exciting new job opportunities. To sign up, clickhere.

Content published by Professional Engineering does not necessarily represent the views of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

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The Technology Shaping the Future: 5 engineering predictions for the years ahead - Professional Engineering

The Engineering of Glass Will Leave You Astonished – Interesting Engineering

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Have you ever wondered how glass is made? Did you know it first starts out at sand?

Indeed, glass begins as a batch of silica sand mixed with other materials such as sodium carbonate or limestone.

These sand mixtures are measured and then heated to extreme temperatures in a furnace, reaching 3,090 F (1,700 C).

Once heated, the sand mixture melts, turning into liquid. This liquid can then be manipulated into different shapes that retain their form until the glass cools down and settles into its final shape. This stage of glass production is called the hot end.

This is by no means the only way to form and shape glass. One of the biggest breakthroughs in glasswork was conceived all the way back in the 1st century BC and is called glassblowing. Surprisingly, it has not changed much since then.

It consists of forming glass into shapes by gathering the molten glass on the end of a hollow pipe and blowing into it to create a bubble.

What makes it possible for something so hard as glass to become so transparent? What goes on on the levels of electrons to result in this transformation? We answer these questions in our video.

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The Engineering of Glass Will Leave You Astonished - Interesting Engineering