Author Archives: AccountMate

Alcoa Embraces Additive Manufacturing

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December 2, 2014

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Alcoa today can 3-D print the dies used to manufacture turbine parts

There’s a great deal of testing that goes into airplane parts to be sure they can handle the temperatures and stresses of aviation. Alcoa would know. The 125 year old metals producer makes parts for gas turbine engines used by Boeing and Airbus. The problem? All that testing takes time. Between tooling, development, and casting, it used to take Alcoa a year to manufacture one of the nickel-alloy parts that go into an engine, where it must withstand temperatures of up to 2,000˚F. Then, writes Fortune (Dec. 1, 2014), the company discovered additive manufacturing—better known as 3-D printing.

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Coach Gets More Crowded

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November 9, 2014

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airline seats“Skinny is all the rage on the runway right now,” writes The Wall Street Journal (Oct. 29, 2014). Delta, United, American, Southwest and other airlines around the world have installed seats with trim metal frames and ultrathin cushions, squeezing rows closer together to pack more people on each flight. Three-quarters of Delta’s domestic fleet and 1/4 of United’s now have the new slim-line seating. The lightweight seats—and even some new, skinnier bathrooms—improve airlines’ bottom line, with less fuel burned per passenger and more tickets sold per flight. (The new seats weigh just 24 pounds per passenger, or 30% less than traditional models). But passengers can feel the pinch: Some complain about stiff padding and knee-knocking issues, and liken flying in the new seat to squeezing next to strangers on a crowded park bench. Continue reading →

Newest Workers at Lowe’s are Robots

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OCTOBER 30, 2014

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Meet OSHbot, Lowe's newest sales associate

Lowe’s is introducing the OSHbot robotic shopping assistants next month, the first retail robot of its kind in the U.S., writes Tech Times (Oct. 30, 2014). The OSHbot will greet customers, ask if they need help and guide them through the store to the product. Besides natural-language-processing technology, the 5-foot tall white robot houses two large rectangular screens—front and back—for video conferences with a store expert and to display in-store specials. The head features a 3-D scanner to help customers identify items. OSHbot speaks English and Spanish, but other languages will be added. OSHbot is “solving a big problem,” says a Lowe’s executive. “It is a way to bring more shopping convenience and some of the benefits of e-commerce into a physical store.”

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