Linear Motion Q&A: Customized Machinery Built with Off-the-Shelf Components

Machine builders strive to achieve the right balance of functionality, performance, price, durability, energy consumption and other attributes that will enable their products to excel against the competition. In the past, OEMs designed their machines around readily available standard components or had to add the cost and development time needed to obtain custom components designed especially for the application. The growing breadth of standard offerings via the methodical evolution of electromechanical linear actuators, linear motion bearings, clutches and brakes, and linear slides now enable machine builders the benefit of a precisely matched “custom” solution while using cost-effective “standard” motion components.