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The Predictive Maintenance Playbook

How HECO keeps critical components one step ahead of failure

Kalamazoo earned the nickname “Paper City” thanks to a papermaking industry that dominated its economy for more than a century. The industry began in 1866 when the Kalamazoo Paper Co. built the city’s first paper mill. The area was well-suited to papermaking because of abundant water from the Kalamazoo River, good rail access, and proximity to timber resources in northern Michigan.

Systematic Solutions

Schaeffler Showcases Motion Technology at Automotive Symposium 2026

The Search for Flexible and Sustainable Packaging Solutions

Pack Expo International 2026 aims to tackle operational challenges

Building an Automated Community

MotionTech expands automation reach to US market

The Right Linear Drive Starts With the Right Questions

Thomson Industries deconstructs drive technology selection

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Feature Articles

Industrial Strength Reliability

SEW-Eurodrive is helping power one of the most ambitious bulk material handling projects in North America through its contribution to the Dune Express conveyor system, a record-setting 42-mile single-flight conveyor designed to transport frac sand across the Permian Basin. Developed by Atlas Energy Solutions in collaboration with system integrator Voith Turbo, the Dune Express system is designed to move up to 13 million tons of frac sand annually from Kermit, Texas, to the New Mexico border.

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The Big Squeeze

Few things say good morning like a glass of fresh orange juice. Thanks to the rise of in-store juicing machines, you no longer need an orange grove out back, let alone a hand press and strong forearms to enjoy one. Just walk into any Sam’s Club in the country and you’ll find gallons of fresh juice in the cooler, squeezed on-site that same day.

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Make it Your Own

Customization may not always be top of mind when machine designers are selecting motion control vendors. The hope is usually that they will find exactly what they need in the catalog and avoid what they believe to be the higher costs, delays and risks associated with custom solutions. But, given that more than 25 percent of motion system projects end up requiring at least some degree of customization, it could be beneficial to prepare for that eventuality from the outset.

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Inside the Lab

Testing is a powerful tool for improving equipment reliability and reducing the risk of costly, unplanned downtime. When a bearing fails, it’s important to figure out why. Without an investigation or testing to determine the cause, there is a greater likelihood that the same problem will happen again. That’s why SKF Global Labs and Testing plays such a critical role in helping customers maximize the performance and service life of their rotating equipment.

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Gear Drives

Hannover Messe 2023 provides the latest technologies in robotics, automation, motion control, IIoT, fluid power, e-mobility, material handling and more. 

Gears

The call came into Atlanta Gear Works like any other—a vertical mill drive used for a crusher application in cement needed a gearbox upgrade. The difference this time was the sheer size and scope of the gearbox in question. Similarly-sized gearbox rebuilds could take a month or more to complete, but Atlanta Gear Works had 14 days to complete this rebuild—counting weekends—with a tight schedule leaving no room for error.

Bearings

We have all seen the Q4 2025 headlines around electric vehicle (EV) sales and they were not good. Ford recorded a $19.5B loss in EV pullbacks (Ref. 1). General Motors posted $6B in EV debt (Ref. 2). Stellantis took a $26B hit which was compounded by underperforming EV sales and recovery from the previous CEO’s disastrous cost-cutting strategy (Ref. 3). Also, notably, was the laundry list of not-long-ago hailed startups that have went bankrupt, often leaving investors, suppliers and employees holding the bag: Bollinger, Canoo, Nikola, ELMS, Lordstown, Fisker, Arrival, Proterra, Volta just to name a few. Many more are on the brink along with dozens of startup suppliers that enticed investors with untold wealth to be gained in the automotive revolution 2.0 (Ref. 6,13,14).

Motors

Servo drives are electronic devices that control the precise motion of motors in automated systems, and they have become one of the most influential technologies behind today’s industrial transformation. Their rise reflects a broader shift toward flexible, intelligent, energy-efficient production. Demand for advanced motion control is accelerating fast, with global industrial automation projected to surpass 400 billion dollars within a few years. That growth is fueled by factories seeking accuracy, repeatability, speed, and the kind of reliability required for round-the-clock manufacturing.

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Videos

UR Offers a Million Welds and Zero Downtime with Cobots

The robust performance of the robot welder at Centerline Brackets led the Florida-based manufacturer to an exceptionally rapid return on investment, achieved in less than three months. The Universal Robots' collaborative robot dramatically cut production time and addressed labor shortages while ensuring consistent weld quality for heavy-duty brackets.

INDUSTRY NEWS

Sep 16, 2026

New orders of metalworking machinery, measured by the U.S. Manufacturing Technology Orders Report published by AMT – The Association For Manufacturing Technology, totaled $605.8 million in July 2026. This was an 8.0% decrease from June 2026 and a 55.2% increase over July 2025. This is only the second time since USMTO began collecting data in 1998 that orders have exceeded half a billion dollars for five consecutive months. Through the first seven months of 2026, manufacturing technology orders totaled $4.03 billion, a 37.1% increase over orders placed through July 2025.

PRODUCT NEWS

Sulzer has delivered its DEVO purification technology to BeyondPoly's Version 2.0, 100,000-ton-per-year polyolefin elastomer (POE) plant in China. POE is an increasingly important material used in solar panels, electric vehicles, energy storage systems, and other advanced manufacturing applications. Sulzer's technology performs a key purification step in the production process, removing residual compounds from the material to help ensure the quality and consistency required for demanding applications.

CALENDAR

CES 2027

Jan 6, 2027 - Jan 9, 2027

Attracting a diverse range of professionals, including executives, engineers, designers, and entrepreneurs, CES (Las Vegas) is an excellent opportunity to connect, collaborate, and grow your professional network. The broad range of exhibits and industries represented at the show can inspire innovative solutions. Industries include 3D printing, AR/VR/XR, AI, cloud computing/data, construction tech, cybersecurity, robotics, e-Mobility, AI, vehicle tech and more.

PowerGen 2027

Jan 18, 2027 - Jan 21, 2027

SPS Smart Production Solutions 2026

Nov 24, 2026 - Nov 26, 2026

CTI Symposium Berlin 2026

Dec 8, 2026 - Dec 9, 2026

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Power Transmission Engineering magazinePower Transmission Engineering is THE magazine of mechanical components. PTE is written for engineers and maintenance pros who specify, purchase and use gears, gear drives, bearings, motors, couplings, clutches, lubrication, seals and all other types of mechanical power transmission and motion control components.

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