Field notes · Engineering · Industry
Notes from the shop floor, in motion.
What we’ve learned from the lines we’ve built, practices that work on the shop floor, and our take on the industry’s numbers. Not advertising: things that will help you on your next project.
09 posts · each with its own animation
Field notes24 August 20267 min read
How we taught a robot 100% coverage in helium leak testing
How brazed joints once checked by hand with a sniffer came to be tested without exception, using two KUKAs and a 3D camera. And why the hardest part was not the robot, but the way the product sits in the jig.
Field notes10 August 20266 min read
Yield on a timber line: why we cut the biggest board first
How many boards can you get out of a log’s bark-edged side slabs? With 20 sensors, a cutting algorithm and four pusher cylinders, the answer is no longer a guess.
Data & ERP28 July 20266 min read
Measuring paint consumption with scales, not estimates
In a valve paint booth, consumption used to be estimated in Excel at the end of the month. We put load cells under the buckets; now 86,400 measurements a day are written to the work order, gram by gram.
Robotics14 July 20268 min read
7 questions we ask when choosing a palletising robot
We would rather nobody asked us “which robot?”; first we answer these seven questions together. From our experience on a food line, in order.
Software & SCADA30 June 20267 min read
The 5 mistakes we see most often in SCADA projects
From water treatment plants to factories, SCADA projects repeat the same mistakes. Here are five of them, with how we fixed each on site.
Industry16 June 20268 min read
Industrial robotics in 2026: the numbers and the reality on the shop floor
The IFR’s latest report, the EU Machinery Regulation coming into force in 2027 and the revised ISO 10218. Behind the headlines, what changes for an automation integrator?
Software & SCADA2 June 20266 min read
Predictive maintenance doesn’t end with fitting sensors
Buying a vibration sensor is easy. The hard part is deciding which machine it goes on, with which threshold, and who will read the alarm. Why do projects that start small succeed more often?
Field notes19 May 20267 min read
Why do automation projects run late? Notes from commissioning
The panels are ready, the program is written, the robot has arrived. So why did the project still run two weeks over? Six causes we have met again and again during commissioning, and what we do about each.