Movers & Makers: [Watch] Industry 4.0 in action, celebrating International Women in Engineering Day and more.

Smoker Craft launches Industry 4.0 technology with help of Manufacturing Readiness Grants

“Automation is not our specialty; our specialty is building boats.” That’s why Michael Boyle, process engineer at Smoker Craft Inc., knew he needed to leverage local resources and establish key partnerships before kickstarting a multi-faceted automation project.

To see firsthand how Smoker Craft transformed its boat production process, with the help of tech integrator Guide Engineering, the Conexus Indiana team visited Smoker Craft at their facility in New Paris, Ind.

Learn more about how Smoker Craft used a Manufacturing Readiness Grants award to propel its manufacturing processes into Industry 4.0 by creating a custom-built robotic welding system.

Watch the full video.

Celebrating International Women in Engineering Day with two Hoosier engineers

June 23 was International Women in Engineering Day, a day created to recognize women in engineering—who make up?16% of the engineers in the United States—and to help women consider an engineering career. To recognize the day, we sat down with recent Rising 30 honorees Riana Dozier and Cydney Huey to learn more about them and their respective roads to engineering.

Read the full blog.

Indiana State University program gives students a reason to stay in Indiana

Dr. Kuntal Bhattacharyya of Indiana State University believes one key to improving employee retention in the Hoosier State is exposing students to innovative and entrepreneurial makers and movers in Indiana. Through two- to three-day immersive trips, “Dr. B’s” program takes students to operations throughout the state. It’s just one of the many strategies our local universities deploy to improve the post-graduation retention in Indiana.

Learn more about ISU's efforts.

Enhancing warehouse flexibility and productivity with autonomous mobile robots

A growing number of manufacturing and logistics (AML) companies anticipate moving and monitoring products, inventory and raw materials with minimal human intervention in the next five years. Autonomous Mobile Robots are quickly becoming a leading technology solution to achieve those objectives.

Earlier this month, we hosted an Emerging Tech Showcase with presentations from GEODIS and Locus Robotics on Enhancing Warehouse Flexibility and Productivity with Autonomous Mobile Robots.?

Read the recap.

Manufacturing Readiness Grants information sessions

The Conexus team is working with local economic development organizations across the state to host Manufacturing Readiness Grants informational sessions in your communities. In addition to these sessions – open to any advanced manufacturing company – companies may reach out directly to the Conexus team to schedule a virtual, one-on-one information session.

Events scheduled for the month of July are:

7/13:?Randolph County MRG info session

7/20:?Starke County MRG info session

7/27: Wells County MRG info session

Michiana Global Mold leveraged Manufacturing Readiness Grants to deploy a next-generation vertical machining center

St. Joseph County’s own Michiana Global Mold serves companies in a wide range of industries such as automotive, aerospace, defense and consumer products. Facing a tight labor market, the company implemented new automation technology to augment its workforce and increase production efficiency.

“With the technology innovations in the new machining center, we can increase our manufacturing capacity significantly, becoming at least 40% more efficient.”

View the full case study.

In the News

Ryan Henderson, Conexus Indiana’s director of innovation and digital transformation, wrote an article for Industrial Equipment News on Industry 4.0 technology adoption projects throughout the state, and provided four best practices from observing these implementations in action.

The topic:?Lessons Learned From 400 Smart Manufacturing Projects in Indiana.