About the Author
Plex, by Rockwell Automation, is the leader in cloud-delivered smart manufacturing solutions, empowering the world’s manufacturers to make awesome products. Our platform gives manufacturers the ability to connect, automate, track and analyze every aspect of their business to drive transformation. The Plex Smart Manufacturing Platform includes solutions for manufacturing execution (MES), ERP, quality, supply chain planning and management, Industrial IoT and analytics to connect people, systems, machines, and supply chains, enabling them to lead with precision, efficiency and agility.
Overcoming Challenges to Becoming an Operations Leader
Leadership within a complex operational structure has never been easy. Now, new pressures are making this level of responsibility even more challenging....
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Bring Your Production Schedule into the Modern Era Using Smart Manufacturing
Production scheduling is an essential component in any manufacturing operation. It synchronizes operations so everyone is on the same page and uses the same game plan....
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Digitization: Getting the Whole Story from Your Data
Today, digitization across most industries is driving the next industrial revolution in manufacturing. As companies and OEMs seek to build digital capabilities within their production systems, smart manufacturing becomes standard for anyone looking to get ahead....
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How AI Is Revolutionizing the Present and Future of Inventory Optimization
Companies today are faced with upward pricing pressure from multiple fronts. In addition to continuing disruption and labor shortages, inflation is a crucial driver affecting almost every decision.Perhaps nowhere is the impact felt more painfully than in inventory management, where inventory inaccuracies can result in significant loss....
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Key Takeaways from the 9th Annual State of Smart Manufacturing Report
What’s new. What’s now. And what’s happening next. The 2024 State of Smart Manufacturing Report offers a comprehensive look at where 1,500+ manufacturers see challenges and opportunities both today and in the future. From the expanding use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to the ongoing need for a skilled, adaptive workforce, here’s a rundown of the report’s biggest takeaways that…
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Forecasting and Demand Planning in the Age of Machine Learning
Companies use a variety of tools to assess the current state of their business and predict where it is headed. By “reading the tea leaves”, planners attempt to ensure correct stock levels, optimize inventory levels and inventory value, and provide a framework for staffing and operations.But the complexity of modern-day supply chains requires that forecasting and planning be more than just reading…
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Overcoming Challenges to Becoming a Quality Leader
"Quality is everyone's responsibility."This decades-old quote from quality researcher and educator W. Edwards Deming has stood the test of time for good reason: essential to both products and processes, quality can be influenced by every role up and down the manufacturing process. Everyone shares the burden of maintaining and improving quality — and therefore can also share in the success of…
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Will It Go Round in Circles?
Many have heard the 1972 song by Billy Preston called Will It Go Round in Circles?It was a catchy tune, but if you listen to the words, you realize the singer had no idea if his suggestions would work or “go round in circles.”Others have wondered the same thing about a more recent trend called the circular economy. Since its conception, most have considered the concept aspirational rather than…
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From Reactive to Proactive: Big Data Analytics & Supply Chain Management
Traditional supplier management consisted of spreadsheets, planner experience, and a lot of guesswork.Decisions were made based on dated, error-prone information and human analysis using spreadsheets or old standalone software.This reality forced companies into a reactive position. Because data was compiled and analyzed after events had occurred, there was little planning professionals could do…
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Improve Your Improvements by Digitizing Processes
In traditional manufacturing, continuous improvement was a misnomer. It wasn't that practitioners were insincere or wrong. But manual processes, data acquisition, and analysis, created hard limits to what the most zealous continuous improvement methodologies could achieve....
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