Category Archives: Automation

Ron Stuver, director of business consulting and Industry 4.0, Sick

At the foundation of Industry 4.0 is data and connectivity. Industry 4.0 is not a technology, but rather, a concept of how automation can be better utilized to help companies achieve operational goals aligned with business strategies.

In three simple steps, Sick can supply you the information needed to make your manufacturing processes Industry 4.0 ready:

Step 1: Review Business Strategies. The Industry 4.0 discussion within an enterprise should begin with the business strategy. Aligning your business goals with production activities and areas that need support is what helps bring your enterprise straight into Industry 4.0 territory. And, with increasing demands on traditional manufacturing, like increased traceability, quality control, and limitless configurations, it is vital to implement an Industry 4.0 offering that helps you stay competitive.

Step 2: Finding and Collecting Data. Once youve reviewed your business strategies, its time to find the data to support these goals. Collecting, connecting, and leveraging data helps you make intelligent and proactive decisions. Fortunately, Sick can help harness the value of all that data with superior sensing solutions.

With Sick sensors on machines, you can collect data and then integrate and move data to the appropriate place to meet operational excellence goals. Many companies are starved for information needed to better improve their production lines. This was the case with one of Sicks manufacturing customers.

The plant operations management team realized that islands of automation existed in their plant, stranding data that they could not access. The plant managers didnt know if machines were running, what temperatures the ovens were at, or even how many parts were made that day. They came to Sick to find an offering to collect data from the plant floor.

After an introduction to Sick sensor capabilities for data collection, the customer determined what they needed was a hardware-agnostic partner who could take data from all their programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and sensors to move it where they needed it.

The Sick team worked to provide the data the customer needed from all the sensors and PLCs installed in the plant, regardless of the company name on the hardware. After all, Industry 4.0 is about connectivity of technology and the generation of good data to improve operations.

Sick sensors were also able to collect data without having to go through the PLC. Not all data needs to be processed through the PLC for it to be properly harvested. This creates more flexibility in the creation of an Industry 4.0 production line.

Step 3: Implementing Industry 4.0 Offerings. There is little doubt about the benefits of digital transformationefficiencies that reduce manufacturing costs, reduce downtime, and prepare companies to be more agile and respond quickly to customer demands. But the question remains: Why are so many companies still hesitant to initiate Industry 4.0 projects?

Many corporations, large and small, are looking for a partner to assist with the implementation. Sick has built internal competencies to provide customers with complete connectivity to generate data to analyze for operational improvements.

The team at Sick is agile and agnostic to consult with customers on their challenges and potential needs. This helps determine the ideal infrastructure to develop the most suitable enterprise solutions that can adapt to the disruptive industry needs, said Salim Dabbous, director of sensor and safety integration at Sick.

One example of an Industry 4.0 enterprise offering is the implementation of a data concentrator methodology into a pre-existing controls platform to connect current machines and push non-process-related data seamlessly upstream to the cloud or an enterprise resource planning system. The reliable data pushed upstream might include machine status, part count, or data from temperature and pressure values. This all feeds into dashboards and key performance indicators, providing transparency and, ultimately, predictive maintenance measures that optimize processes and increase throughputs.

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Three Steps to Leveraging the Power of Your Data - Automation World

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "COVID-19 Impact on Industrial Automation - Thematic Research" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The COVID-19 outbreak is now travelling around the world, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. This report discusses the impact of the virus on leading companies in the industrial automation sector.

The report analyzes the impact of COVID-19 on the global industrial automation sector. It identifies those companies that may benefit from the impact of COVID-19 over a 12-month period, as well as those companies that will lose out. It includes a thematic screen, that ranks the 58 leading companies in this sector on the basis of overall leadership in the 10 themes that matter most to their industry, including COVID-19. This generates a leading indicator of future performance.

Key Highlights

Reasons to Buy

Key Topics Covered

Companies Mentioned

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/ptzvtz

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COVID-19's Impact on Industrial Automation, 2020 Thematic Research Report - ResearchAndMarkets.com - Business Wire

Cambridges Eclipse Automation Inc. has announced an exclusive agreement with Harmontronics Automation of Suzhou, China, to manufacture, sell, distribute, service, commission and modify the Harmontronics fully automated N95 Vertical Flat-Fold Respirator Mask Production Line system across North America.

When it comes to fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, everyone has a role to play, said Albert Cai, Harmontronics president and CEO. This partnership combines Harmontronics intelligent automated machine designing and building with Eclipses automation expertise to localize the equipment and to help local customers for production ramp up.

Eclipse and Harmontronics have initiated investment for an initial production line to be brought to Cambridge and put into operation within a month.

Working with North American manufacturers the system will be customized to meet their specific needs and support qualification efforts for various respirator designs. It is anticipated that this initial system will help get new respirators into the health-care supply chain and into the hands of health-care professionals across North American as quickly as possible.

I am seeing a lot of companies, with the best of intentions, trying to get into this arena; but, without the experience in medical device automation, they may be chasing inferior systems that could be unsafe to run and produce faulty masks, Steve Mai, Eclipse president and CEO explains. Eclipse has the know-how to assess this system already producing N95 masks in China and see that any modifications required to meet North American specifications are done quickly and correctly. We can expedite this to provide a top-notch N95 mask automation system and lead the process to see that it can be scaled to all who need it. We can deliver a level of proactive control to the solution that is crucial for such an important product.

With moving this automation implementation process to Cambridge, Eclipse Automation can facilitate mass production and make sure that local needs can be met, to the North American standards. The manufacturing will still take place from the Harmontronics facility in China and Eclipse will work closely with their customers and Harmontronics to assure high standards for safety, spare parts and usability.

Eclipse Automation is a leading supplier of custom automated manufacturing equipment for the life sciences, energy, transportation, consumer, electronics and industrial industries. With locations in Canada, the United States and Hungary, Eclipse Automation delivers state-of-the-art solutions through automation technology and project experience.

Harmontronics Automation is a factory automation solution provider for small and precise product manufacturing. They design, integrate and manufacture capital equipment for the automotive Electronics, health care and new energy industries.

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Cambridge's Eclipse Automation strikes deal to help with respirator mask production - TheRecord.com

During DesignCon, I spoke with Brad Griffin, the group director for product management for the system analysis group at Cadence Design Systems. We discussed some of the areas where PCB designers can cut costs and how EDA companies can help these designers by automating certain time-consuming tasks. As Brad says, The A in EDA is for automation, right?

Andy Shaughnessy: Good to see you again, Brad. We were talking a few minutes ago about ways that designers can design for profitability by adding profit and cutting waste during the design cycle. Tell us your thoughts on designing for profitability.

Brad Griffin: When you think about what Cadence can bring to the table for designing for profitability, its about being efficient. We are one of the few companies that you can come to and get design tools and analysis tools. Historically, the idea is that you have designed something, throw it over the wall to somebody else, who analyzes it and says you made a bunch of mistakes; then, they throw it back. Theres this iteration back and forth. Maybe you build a prototype and find out it doesnt work. All of that makes the design cycle get very long, and thats certainly not the way to profitability. The more you can make that efficient, the more profitable that youre going to be able to make your product and product line, and, ultimately, the more youre going to be able to build new products because youre going to get products out the door.

Our thinking is that we can guide a user toward in-design analysis; while theyre designing a product, theyre thinking about SI and PI. Theyre bringing up engines that are the same engines that their expert is going to use to sign off on later, but theyre presented in a way where they dont have to be an expert. You can do a quick review of your power plane and make sure that you havent created too many places where youre going to lose voltage and not going to be able to deliver power to certain components of the board. If you can quickly review that without having to bring a PI expert in, its going to make you a better designer, and its going to shrink that design cycle. Anything we can do to help the designer produce a better board before it goes to an SI or a PI expert will reduce that design cycle and improve the overall profitability of the design.

Shaughnessy: We keep hearing that 80% of the cost of manufacturing the board is determined in the design cycle.

To read this entire interview, which appeared in the March 2020 issue of Design007 Magazine, click here.

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Cadence Helping Users to Save Time, Money With Automation - I-Connect007

If a manufacturer constantly needs to monitor process variables to maintain product quality, manual data collection will just not cut it. Thats the situation Samtec found itself in.

With manufacturing locations around the world, the company turned to Sepasofts Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) Downtime Module for its continuous improvement challenges.

Samtec has been a provider of industrial computer connection technologies for more than 40 years, making cables, board-to-board connectors, fiber optics, and other components, while also offering tailored products for customers and quick prototypes for testing.

To ensure consistent product quality, Samtec needs constant, real-time visibility of process variables, as well as monitoring for key quality and process indicatorslike chemical compositions, temperature, and line or plating speeds. Until the automated, OEE Downtime Module was implemented, data collection and user input was manual and often unreliable, hiding actual conditions from process engineers and the manufacturing floor.

Built on the Ignition platform from Inductive Automation, the Sepasoft OEE Downtime Module helped Samtec transform its entire manufacturing data process. Allowing Samtec to harness and contextualize its raw data, using it to drive continuous improvement and bring in a more efficient production environment with large cost savings.

Having visibility of those process variables in real time, seeing the temperature of our baths, chemical compositions of the baths, the speed of the line, the rate of our plating from our rectifiers, is very important to making quick, informed decisions for manufacturing, says Jeff Matheny, global technical manager at Samtec. We were looking for a system that could connect to our devices on the floor and provide that data to us in real time, and also to provide some historical information so we could review the manufacturing process after the fact and make improvements.

One significant area for savings was achieved by tracking gold consumption rates during the plating process. By more tightly managing the process, Samtec was able to eliminate waste and achieve a substantial cost savings over what was possible with its previous monthly manual tracking process.

Our gold saving numbers have been our biggest financial benefit from this real-time monitoring. Raw materials are a big cost for us. We plate with gold, so being able to monitor our consumption rates in real time has been big for us, says Matheny. We used to have to wait until the end of the month to balance our gold numbers, now we can see them on a daily basisby line, by part number, and by operatorso we can quickly identify areas where we are using too much gold.

To ensure reliable integration, Samtec initiated the project with a systems integrator. Following that initial phase, internal engineers, who had completed hands-on training and received design consultation support, completed the customized system. Sepasoft guided Samtec every step of the way to ensure the system was ready to hit the ground running. It continues to provide Samtec with design consultation and technical support by phone as needed.

A step-by-step approach rather than an instant changeover to the new system was central to the success of the project. Certified integrators came in and helped us, explains Jordan Rajchel, systems integration engineer. We implemented one machine first, got it as solid as we could, and then we built it in a way that could be scaled out to multiple machines.

The ability to customize Sepasofts manufacturing execution system software to Samtecs business model was also important to the success of the project. By offering features such as custom scripting, Samtec was able to capitalize on the flexibility to add to an existing manufacturing process and help enhance the production environment moving forward.

Samtec already had its manufacturing systems in place, machines in operation, and people trained to utilize the current structure. By introducing Ignition and the Sepasoft OEE Downtime Module, Samtec was able to connect, enhance, and provide real value for continuous improvement.

We have the ability to pretty much integrate with any system that we have already built and to build alongside those things like our Auto-Tech Dashboard thats completely based on data from one of our Samtec-built systems, but it shows data in a different way than it ever had before, says Rajchel.

PRISM is the acronym we came with up for our Ignition platform, explains Matheny. It stands for process reporting and integrated systems management. The process reporting is us being able to see process data both in real time and historically. The integrated systems management is where were taking the Ignition platform by integrating it with our ERP [enterprise resource planning] module, our quality system, and our inspection tracking system, and were pulling all that together and allowing the operator to see it in one place.

Consolidating the data allowed Samtec to quickly identify opportunities that could be improved with real-time data. We were able to show other opportunities for Ignition to help us manage not only process-driven data, but OEE and efficiency data as well, says Matheny.

The managers in stamping, for example, just could not live without the Ignition platform to manage their information. Weve been able to see which dies are running efficiently. If an operator decides to turn the rate down on a die and run it slowly, thats a big opportunity for us to go and find out whether theres a problem we need to address thats not allowing him to run at rate.

The forward-looking system that Sepasoft provides continues to surface new ideas for improvements. Were always looking for new opportunities to be able to get data in real-time and get reports out to provide the engineers with what they need to advance the manufacturing production process and our products going forward, adds Matheny. So as we advance into [applications of the system with] the glass core technology, microelectronics, cables, and backplane connectors, there are all kinds of opportunities for us to use PRISM out of the gate to collect that data and help define our manufacturing processes and perfect them as we go.

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Real-time Data Gives Samtec the Edge in Improving Manufacturing Processes - Automation World

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Industrial Automation Market Trends, Revenue Share & Opportunity Status Analyzed during 2018 to 2029 - Curious Desk

A Forest-based engineering and manufacturing firm is working to create a prototype of a mass ventilator system it hopes could treat 50 patients at one time as the global fight against COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, continues.

The prototype still is under development by Automated Industrial Technologies and would require U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval, said Wes Payne, direct sales representative with AIT.

AIT, which manufactures industrial machinery and automation for customers in various industries, does not normally produce ventilators, Payne said.

Our system could save thousands of lives if we can get it out. Typically its always been one ventilator per person and the country needs tens of thousands more, he said.

Hospitals around the country have been seeking more ventilators as the number of COVID-19 cases is expected to rise in the coming weeks. Although most people who contract COVID-19 have mild symptoms, some become seriously ill and require hospitalization.

Some states have begun sharing ventilators to try to meet the need. For example, the Associated Press reported, Oregon and Washington have committed to sending ventilators to New York, which has been especially hard hit by the pandemic and has logged more than 6,200 deaths as of Thursday afternoon from COVID-19.

As of Thursday in Virginia, according to the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association, there were 285 patients who either have tested positive for COVID-19 or who are awaiting test results using a ventilator. Virginia has 2,734 ventilators available.

Gov. Ralph Northam has said Virginias anticipated number of COVID-19 cases has not yet peaked, and he expects a surge in between late April and late May.

At Automated Industrial Technologies, the mass ventilator prototype came from President and CEO Gary Sill on March 25, who Payne said wanted to help.

That was Garys whole mindset about this, he said. We cant just sit by when we have the capabilities to be a part of a solution and help save lives. So he made it our goal to utilize what we have and be part of the good of the country and hopefully the world.

About five employees were pulled from other projects to work on the prototype, and as of Thursday, it was almost completed. Payne said the firm already had all the tools and manufacturing systems to create the prototype.

The emergency use ventilation system is designed for a tent, gymnasium or another kind of pop-up hospital that would service a large bay of patients instead of individual rooms.

The entire system has a main supply which each individual would be fed off of with their own settings, Payne said.

Its designed to be portable and deployed in emergency situations so it can be shipped easily, he said.

The firm currently is reaching out to government agencies and health care networks that might be interested in adding the system to its emergency supply.

Were not looking to get rich off it, but were obviously still a business, Payne said.

Once the prototype is complete, it will need an Emergency Use Authorization, or EUA, from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Payne said.

We need funding, donations, investments because we are footing the bill all on our own, he said. We are estimating the project will take $150,000 to get a final product approved and ready for commercialization.

He hopes the approval will come through by April 20.

Rachael Smith covers local businesses and nonprofits. Reach her at (434) 385-5482.

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Automated Industrial Technologies takes stab at prototypes to help with ventilator shortage - Lynchburg News and Advance

In a situation like coronavirus crisis, automation and robotics could reduce dependence on human labour and increase productivity, preventing the chances of future plant shutdowns.New Delhi: The coronavirus pandemic may drive enhancement of automation, digitalisation and artificial intelligence(AI) in the automobile sector in post COVID era in order to improve resilience to future pandemics, industry experts said at ETAuto Roundtable on 'COVID-19 Lockdown: 5 Essential Aspects for the Auto Industry'.

The coronavirus can be a wake-up call for supply chain managers and manufacturing companies as plant operation remain suspended amidst 21 days lockdown with an air of uncertainty if it will be lifted post that. The resumption of work may also face difficulties keeping in mind the health of employees and availability of workforce in the massive automobile factories.

In a situation like this automation and robotics could reduce dependence on human labour and increase productivity, preventing the chances of future plant shutdowns.

Vinod Aggarwal, MD and CEO, VE Commercial Vehicles said, "All these concepts like IoT, AI and digitalisation will become extremely relevant going forward and are going to define the new way of working. This lockdown provides us an opportunity to adopt these new trends, especially digitalisation.

Taking a leaf out of China's automotive industry where 90 percent OEMs have resumed production after the lockdown was lifted and more than 80 percent recovered capacity production, Vinay Raghunath Partner and Leader, Automotive Sector, EY India said, "Going digital and technology will have a significant role to play in the supply chain, manufacturing and procurement side not just in the shop floor.

As per Raghunath, many Tier-1 players might adopt technologies around industry 4.0 to leverage IoT capabilities and building efficiency and visibility via digitalisation. Assets that are repetitive can be managed in a seamless manner using robotics and automation solutions.

However, the financial position of the companies remains central to this shift in business model of the automotive industry, asserted David Sanders, Global Advanced Manufacturing & Mobility Leader, EY.

Sanders said, "It depends on how the financial position but I am going to say that there will be a lot of changes happening on the supply chain side with a focus on localised assembly operations because disruptions are going to sustain."

COVID-19 pushed Chinese companies to deploy robots and automation technology as the coronavirus engulfed the nation. During the early stage of the outbreak, some semiconductor and flat panel factories in Wuhan, the epicenter of the epidemic, were able to maintain relatively normal production due to high levels of automation. Other countries might be following the suit upon production resumption.

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COVID-19 to bring in higher automation & digitalisation in Indian automotive sector: ETAuto Roundtable - ETAuto.com

At the 2020 ARC Industry Forum in Orlando, Don Pearson, Chief Strategy Officer of Inductive Automation, spoke to ARCs Craig Resnick, Vice President of Consulting, regarding what Inductive Automation offers its customers regarding Edge products and solutions, as well as what does the future hold for the company. (Watch the entire video of this interview on YouTube or here.)

One of the first questions Craig asked was how Inductive Automation helps to facilitate the connectivity between Edge devices and the cloud, leveraging the companys Edge products and solutions. Don Pearson answered this by saying, Lets break that into two pieces. The first one is regarding Edge, and one of the things that we've certainly done, and we've done it at this conference, is to really expand our Edge Onboard program. And that is what really makes it possible for manufacturers of devices at the Edge to pre-license, pre-load, ready-to-roll out-of-the-box Ignition Edge onto their actual devices.

Don also said, Weve got industrial IoT, and somehow we've got to make sure that those edge devices are part of it. Therefore, the Onboard program is taking companies, like Moxa, Advantech, Oring, Opto22 andOnLogic, and giving them the opportunity to develop a product with Ignition Edge embedded on it, right out of the boxthat's one piece. The second piece is the connectivity with the cloudand thats what our strategic partners do, such as Cirrus Link Solutionsits their specialty. They've created injector modules that allow us to connect into the cloud. You can take all that sensor data, and you can get it to where something can be done with it, with advanced analytics or machine learning. Whether it's AWS or Azure or Google or IBM cloud offerings, these injector modules work with Ignition and take it rightto the cloud. You have the Edge, sort of the idea that sensor-to-cloud needs the edge to handle everything in between, and that's what we're working on now.

According to Don Pearson, First off, I think it's a good thing to talk about our philosophy, because it is a philosophy that's been driven from SteveHechtman, our CEO, from the very beginning. He was an integrator, and he wanted to market direct to integrators. He wanted to help them solve pain points and really build successful businesses, so that was the beginning of what's grown into a full ecosystem. Platforms and ecosystems, really, are built around somebody bringing a core technology and then people build around it with their expertise. We believe that we have that core technology, the industrial application platform that is Ignition, which, incidentally, is in its tenth year now. Our partner Cirrus Link Solutions brings expertise in MQTT,Sepasoftbrings expertise in MES, and the integrators bring vertical domain expertise. So, what we're saying is we want to partner with companies that bring expertise to build out the solution so industrial organizations endup with a better result in their digital transformation challenges.

Don Pearson feels that Inductive Automation wants to continue building a sense of community. When it comes to the Ignition exchange, assets will be available to people for free, and the company will expand on that. Don also mentioned that he wants to get products into the hands of engineering schools and give them a chance to have educational copies, which will help the next generation of engineers. The Onboard program will continue to growthere is a whole pipeline of new distributors being brought in and at least 10 countries being added to the distribution program.

In conclusion, Don Pearson says that Inductive Automation is trying to build a stronger ecosystem, to help support its initiatives, and that they are quite excited about 2020. Concluding the interview, Craig Resnick agreed that Inductive Automation had made substantial progress over the past year bringing Ignition to the edge with its Onboard program and looks forward to following the companys progress in 2020 and beyond.

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Inductive Automation: Regarding the Edge - ARC Viewpoints

Rockwell Automation, Inc. ROK has announced temporary cost containment measures in the wake of weak demand and uncertain market conditions on account of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Management assured that the company has performed well on the sales front in the fiscal second quarter (ended Mar 31, 2020) despite weak performance in China. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarter is at $1.67 billion, suggesting year-over-year growth of 0.5%. The estimate for earnings is currently pegged at $1.92, indicating a decline of 5.9% from the prior-year quarter. The company will release its second quarter fiscal 2020 results on Apr 28, 2020, before the market opens.

However, as the virus has now taken the shape of a pandemic, the company anticipates lower demand in many of its served industries for a period of time. Rockwell Automation is thus taking preemptive actions to align the companys cost structure with this uncertain environment. The company is trying to minimize workforce reductions. There will be no incentive compensation payouts for fiscal 2020. It is cutting down discretionary spending across the organization, and is introducing other temporary cost actions that will be effective across its locations by the beginning of May.

Rockwell Automation also announced a 25% salary reduction for chairman and CEO, 15% salary reductions for all Senior Vice Presidents, and 7.5% salary reductions for all other non-manufacturing employees globally. The board of directors has also lowered its cash fees by 50%. Manufacturing associates will not be impacted by the temporary pay reductions. They will receive a one-time additional payment in acknowledgement of their work in serving customers during this difficult time. The company match for 401(k) retirement savings plan has been suspended. Rockwell Automation assured that as soon as the markets recover, it will reverse these actions.

Meanwhile, Rockwell Automation continues to take efforts to maintain the well-being of its employees. The company is ensuring that its customers in the life sciences, food and beverage, and personal care industries are able to deliver the products that are critical to so many people and companies worldwide. The company also remains focused on making strategic investments in technology and domain expertise that will be instrumental is driving long-term growth for the company.

Over the past year, shares of Rockwell Automation have fallen 8.3% compared with the industrys decline of 20.7%.

The coronavirus outbreak has dealt a further blow to the industrial sector, which was already reeling under the protracted U.S.-China trade tensions and waning global demand. The U.S Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) released by the Institute for Supply Management had been below 50 (indicating contraction) for five consecutive months till December 2019. Even though the index had climbed to 50.9 in January and 50.1 in February, it fell to 49.1% again in March. The manufacturing sector has clearly been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic and energy market volatility.

Factory closures across the globe, the impacts of the restrictions imposed by different governments, supply-chain disruptions, low demand for goods, availability of employees and workers, logistic costs, among others are likely impact the sector.

Story continues

There has been a spate of guidance withdrawals by the industry players that includes Caterpillar Inc. CAT, Terex Corporation TEX, Manitowoc and Pentair, citing the uncertainty related to the impact of COVID-19.

Zacks Rank & a Stock to Consider

Rockwell Automation currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

A better-ranked stock in the Industrial Products sector is Sharps Compliance Corp SMED , which currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Sharps Compliance has an estimated earnings growth rate of 800% for 2020. In a year, the companys shares have gained 119%.

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Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free reportCaterpillar Inc. (CAT) : Free Stock Analysis ReportRockwell Automation, Inc. (ROK) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTerex Corporation (TEX) : Free Stock Analysis ReportSharps Compliance Corp (SMED) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research

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Rockwell Automation to Cut Costs to Fight Coronavirus Woes - Yahoo Finance