“I said to the staff, ‘this is our call to duty.’ And when we found out there was going to be a shortage of masks and gowns, we started making these items without an order, saying, ‘Hey, we can do this. And we can give you thousands of these a day if you want.’”
-Marc Langlois, President of ICP
The electroplating of beryllium and of magnesium, ultra-lightweight metals used in aerospace components, is a super-specialized process perfected by AOTCO – the Always On Time Company.
In the past, batteries ended up in landfills or banished to boxes in the basement and forgotten. But today, as a new awareness has revealed the environmental fallout of used batteries, recycling has become the option for battery disposal going forward.
Unless you strongly believe in the idea of making Mars a habitable planet, there really is no Plan B.
Robotics, artificial intelligence, real-time data: Industry 4.0 has us looking at the COVID-19 pandemic’s hard reset as a chance to grow stronger, more resilient and open to innovation.
When the nuclear reactor at Chalk River, Ontario, was forced to shut down because of a leak of radioactive water, there was widespread concern in the medical community. The reactor produced about a third of the world’s supply of medical isotopes required for cancer and heart disease tests around the globe. The predicted shortage would leave patients waiting for these life-saving tests.
Heads up! The future is robotic, especially when it comes to Industry 4.0. Not the chatty Star Wars type robot or the antagonistic HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey, but smart machines doing repetitive, precision or dangerous work – operated remotely by human voice command, touchscreen or joystick. The next generation of skilled workers, in fact, may be technicians who program and manage robotic equipment to undertake difficult or routine tasks, transforming manufacturing and other sectors.
Conditions in space can be hostile. There’s orbiting satellite and rocket debris, radiation from the sun, solar flares and extremes in temperature – not to mention the unknowns of extraterrestrial travel. Is it any wonder astronauts go through such intensive mission training to prepare for any eventuality?
The finishing materials for aircraft components, missiles, spacecraft and satellites are mission-critical in aerospace operations. Without that fine, protective coating, millions of dollars’ worth of technology might never get off the ground.
While most everyone has witnessed the spectacle of a rocket launch – at least on video, if not in person – have you considered the bone-jarring forces propelling that space vehicle?
