What Does It Do? Independent cart technology helps reduce bottlenecks and keep systems running more continuously. The programmable nature of the equipment also means that different parts of a factory can communicate better with one another, and assembly lines can be adapted easily for different packaging or product formulations. Continuing with the peanut example, if a manufacturer wanted to switch from a small bag to a large bag, that’s now possible by simply pressing a few buttons, Turner said. Before, a person would have to manually unbolt the tooling and set up the system for new specifications. This has a meaningful implications for productivity, maintenance downtime and the amount of square footage a manufacturer might need. A toilet-paper packaging machine can automatically adjust on the fly to the size and pitch of the rolls. A large medical-products maker credits independent cart for a 15% improvement in daily productivity, while a small automotive assembly company is now churning out 9,600 additional parts per shift, according to testimonials provided by Rockwell. The technology also enables more customization. Traditional manufacturing systems are designed to crank out the same thing over and over; “people don’t want that any more,” Turner said. They want bottles of Coca-Cola with their names on it and variety packs of beverages with three different flavors. Those are the kinds of things that independent cart can enable — without adding a lot of extra space on the factory floor.
Why Should We Care? I’ve mostly described the technology within the context of the factory floor thus far because that’s the easiest to understand conceptually. But one of the more interesting features of independent cart is that it can be used in a broad range of applications. Walt Disney Co. is using the technology to move passengers through the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at its Shanghai theme park: it feels more realistic to move at varying speeds through the ride — i.e. slower when there’s something to look at and faster when you’re just moving on to the next station. The U.S. Navy is using it to move missiles from the belly of an aircraft carrier to the top deck. Independent cart can also be used in e-commerce warehouses to more efficiently sort orders into boxes. This is probably only scratching the surface of the technology’s possibilities: “This is the kind of product where when you go to a customer, I can’t tell you what we’re going to end up doing,” Turner said. Rockwell acquired the building blocks for its independent cart technology through a pair of acquisitions in 2013 and 2016, but the technology has garnered more attention among Wall Street analysts lately because of a string of blockbuster orders. “As they say in the entertainment industry, sometimes it takes five or 10 years to make an overnight success,” Rockwell CEO Blake Moret said of independent cart in an interview earlier this year.
Why Should We Care? I’ve mostly described the technology within the context of the factory floor thus far because that’s the easiest to understand conceptually. But one of the more interesting features of independent cart is that it can be used in a broad range of applications. Walt Disney Co. is using the technology to move passengers through the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at its Shanghai theme park: it feels more realistic to move at varying speeds through the ride — i.e. slower when there’s something to look at and faster when you’re just moving on to the next station. The U.S. Navy is using it to move missiles from the belly of an aircraft carrier to the top deck. Independent cart can also be used in e-commerce warehouses to more efficiently sort orders into boxes. This is probably only scratching the surface of the technology’s possibilities: “This is the kind of product where when you go to a customer, I can’t tell you what we’re going to end up doing,” Turner said. Rockwell acquired the building blocks for its independent cart technology through a pair of acquisitions in 2013 and 2016, but the technology has garnered more attention among Wall Street analysts lately because of a string of blockbuster orders. “As they say in the entertainment industry, sometimes it takes five or 10 years to make an overnight success,” Rockwell CEO Blake Moret said of independent cart in an interview earlier this year.
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