Taxes, recession, health insurance, disaster recovery….
What will 2013 look like?
This
year promises to be a challenging one. While the general economic news seems to
indicate some stability and slow growth in the economy, higher taxes and health
care costs are likely to dampen progress.
Automation
 |
| Baxter on the packaging line |
The
new robot, ‘Baxter’, from ReThink Robotics is one way to automate mundane tasks
such as carton filling and parts transfer. ReThink Robotics created Baxter with
the goal of being able to compete favorably with overseas labor rates. In fact,
Baxter can be applied for around $5.00 per hour, making it very competitive.
Baxter is a ‘collaborative robot’ designed to work with and next to humans. It
does not require a cage or guarding and can be shown what to do by a co-worker.
ONExia
has many solutions and many years of experience applying automation methods to
a wide variety of tasks.
Economy
ONExia
belongs to three industry organizations; the Association of High Technology
Distributors (AHTD) and the Control Systems Integrators Association (CSIA) and
the Motion Control Association (MCA). Each of these organizations have annual
or twice-annual conferences, presenting a variety of good speakers and
workshops. All three organizations also utilize the services of an economics
firm called ITR Economics. ITR has an incredible track record for predicting
changes in the economy. They claim an accuracy of 94.7% over the past 60 years
and, more recently, correctly forecast the financial crisis of 2007-2009.
Alan
Beaulieu, President and Principal of ITR, is often the presenter at AHTD, CSIA
and MCA events. For the past couple of years Alan has been predicting slow
growth and recovery from the recession through the end of 2013, followed by a
slowing economy. He further predicts that we will be in a mild recession during
2014, recovering during 2015.
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