Why American Made Manufacturing Is Essential

“Made in the USA” is commonly seen stamped on boxes and products to display pride in the item’s origin. Fresh off of this month’s Manufacturing Day, which celebrated American industry, we’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be “Made in the USA.” While U.S. manufacturing’s “status” seems to change with every Google search, we believe there are more positive efforts pushing the industry forward more than ever before, which is why we’re looking forward to American Made Matters day next month.

On Nov. 19, American Made Matters will work toward “educating consumers on the importance of buying American-made products,” according to a press release from the organization. In our 40 years of manufacturing instrumentation products, we’ve seen many efforts try to get the industry in the spotlight, and we believe this initiative will see major successes.

Because manufacturing is an integral part of the U.S. (and global) economy, garnering more attention for the state of the industry and its practices is nothing but positive. “Every $1 spent on American-made goods invests an additional $1.35 in the U.S. economy,” the release also states. “Furthermore, according to the government’s Advanced Manufacturing Portal, one new manufacturing job creates 1.6 additional jobs in local service businesses.”

So, celebrate American manufacturing and businesses by purchasing products that are “Made in the USA” on Nov. 19—because investing in American-made manufacturing is an investment in the country’s future. 

Fleet Efficiency to Speed Up With Telemetry

“If these cars could talk,” has probably been uttered by more than one fleet manager charged with maintaining service schedules and repairs for their company’s stable of automobiles. For companies from rental agencies to limo services to organizations like the U.S. government, which provides and maintains a vast number of automobiles for its employees, fleet management is a major time and economic expense, and one with lots of room for improvement. Of course, there are instruments like the odometer that let managers know how far a vehicle has been driven. But there’s really no way of knowing how a vehicle has been driven. Installing telemetry monitors and loggers is a way of giving these cars a voice.

Aside from curbing drivers who treat a company car like they’re on the track at Daytona, telemetry can also prove useful in other ways. Predictive, preventative maintenance will be easier to schedule and recognize a need for. Regular service like oil changes can be better monitored and scheduled. What’s more, through trend analysis and location data, the best service provider for a given vehicle at a given time, in a given location, can now be accurately pinpointed and used. Things like repair times can also be logged. Monitoring and data collection are infiltrating just about every industry, a trend that Devar is pleased to be part of.

Monitoring and Manufacturing

Data mining is one of the hottest buzzwords in marketing right now, online or otherwise. The abundance of information about user behaviors and trends (and people’s willingness to share that information) has led to a wealth of available demographic statistics, and an entire industry built around it to make sense of it. A similar change is happening in manufacturing. The ease and availability of installing monitoring equipment, recorders, and data loggers is providing manufacturers with a wealth of behavior and trend information, only this is about their equipment and products, not people. This information is, however, just as useful, if not more so.

The end goal of any equipment monitoring setup is assessing OEE: overall equipment effectiveness. This covers several factors. Is the equipment operating energy-efficiently? Is the quality up to par? Is it working as fast as it can while meeting all necessary parameters? Through a combination of real-time monitoring and the emergence of trends over time, operators can confidently answer those questions and more, leading to several potential process improvements. Those include:

Increased efficiency. Less downtime, greater speeds, and optimal usage of equipment can all be achieved through monitoring and analysis.

Reduced energy use. Statistics let you gauge how best to run your machines.

Traceability. While we’re talking about buzzwords, let’s make sure “traceability” is included. In the quest for ever-better quality control, traceability is a key factor, and detailed records and logs provide the necessary documentation for your customer.

Devar is pleased to provide instruments that can aid in each of these improvements, and more.

Curiosity Update: Monitoring Mars

If you’ve continued to follow the NASA Curiosity mission to Mars (and given all that’s happened in the world over the past few months, you’re forgiven if not)— your ears might have perked up in late November amid rumblings of an “Earth-shaking” discovery. The possibilities were endless —water? Biological evidence? Little green men? Soon enough, we found out, though, that the answer was. . . nothing. Or more accurately, soil. The rover had been testing soil with its Sample Analysis at Mars tool, and had come up with. . . nothing. Or had it?

After all, this wasn’t really just any soil. It was Martian soil. The whole point of the mission is discovery, experimentation, all borne out of, well, curiosity. Maybe there will be such a breakthrough, and maybe not. Regardless of the outcome, there’s going to be a whole lot of that same “nothing” before we do reach that “something.” Rather than feeling disappointed, perhaps amazement that this process is occurring at all is more accurate. And not only is it occurring, but we’re finding out about it, step by step, through monitoring and analysis equipment, data loggers, and communication via telemetry. The possibilities really are endless.

Medical Monitoring Quick Takes

This month, we found not one, not two, but three medical monitoring stories that are perfect to share with you. There’s a little bit of cute, a little bit of serious, and BigFoot (you’ll have to read on to find out). Equipment like our alarms have ties to the medical industry, and it’s important to us that we can play some role, however comparatively minor, in affecting people’s lives.

Without further ado, we’ll get that BigFoot story out of the way. No hairy apes here, but rather a catchy name for innovative software that can play a huge role for people with chronic foot pain. All that’s needed is the downloadable program, and a regular flatbed scanner. Through scanning the foot, the software can detect any visual anomalies on the bottom of the foot that may signal complications from, especially, diabetes. Problems with the feet can often lead to problems elsewhere in the body, so this program is an important first step.

Researchers have developed a medical monitoring chip that’s disposable and can fit on a bandage, allowing for easier long-term monitoring of things like pulse, heart rate, perspiration, and temperature. Imagine wearing something the size of a postage stamp for a month, and ending up with unprecedented data about how your body operates. The health implications are quite major, for everyone from dementia patients to those trying to lose weight. Aside from that, however, perhaps the best part is how it’s powered: via the tiny amounts of RF frequency emitted by your cell phone.

We’ve saved “cute” for last. Very few adults like wearing medical monitors or electrodes for tests or other monitoring, especially for any long period of time. For kids, it’s just about unimaginable. One person hopes to change that with this smiley-face sensor/monitor that’s actually applied like a temporary tattoo, albeit one with electrodes in it. Beyond just a fun appearance, the tiny size and strong adhesion from the design keep the monitors in place – a breakthrough on its own, and relevant to all patients, not just kids.

Curiosity and Telemetry

Here at Devar our remote monitoring and communication devices are usually short-range and fast-responding, as with our medical telemetry products. The recent Mars landing of the Curiosity rover also made use of telemetry, as all NASA expeditions do. Those readings, however, take 13.8 minutes to travel from the rover to mission control in Houston (and “Mohawk Guy”). That might sound like a long time – but not when you consider the 154 million miles that the data needs to travel. Pretty amazing, considering the difficulty we sometimes have getting a cell phone signal.

You probably remember the excitement a few weeks ago when news of Curiosity’s successful touchdown arrived. You might also remember several years ago, the disappointment of the failure of the British Beagle 2 rover, which lost radio contact prior to landing. This explains some of the anticipation and anxiety during the landing period. Some creative telemetry came into play to speed up the delivery of landing data. Making use of NASA’s Mars Odyssey satellite, in orbit since 2003, NASA mission controllers will create a relay of sorts to be able to have near real-time monitoring – rather than a delay as the Odyssey travels through its orbit to sync up with the Curiosity. After all, 13.8 minutes is enough time to wait to learn the results of years of hard work!

Devar might not be sending monitors into space yet, but for all your earthbound monitoring needs, visit our site: www.devarinc.com.

Monitoring Drinking Water pH Levels For Health

There’s no easy way to say it: even the most purified, filtered, treated drinking water is still going to have bacteria and microbes in it. Not just a few. Millions, or hundreds of millions. But don’t get grossed out quite yet. As anyone who enjoys a cup of yogurt for breakfast probably knows, there are good bacteria and bad bacteria. Researchers at the University of Michigan have been working on a way to make sure that we get more of the good and less of the bad the next time we hydrate. Part of the proposed solution? Monitoring and modifying water’s pH level to one more favorable for the good types of bacteria to propagate, which in turn severely reduces the “resources” in the water that the bad bacteria can feed on.

The benefits don’t stop there. Good types of bacteria can actually do some of the work for us. For instance, some microorganisms can convert the contaminant nitrate into harmless nitrogen gas. Temperature adjustments and filter cleaning methods have also been tinkered with to continue fighting the war on water contaminants not with brute force, but with ingenuity and careful analysis. OK, you still might not feel 100% comfortable with this much knowledge. Luckily, out of sight can still be out of mind. And you can rest easy knowing that somewhere, someone continues to work toward the cleanest water possible.