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“It used to be that you had to be a pretty big company before you had multiple plants and before you were serving Asian markets and European markets. That's not the case today,” says Jim Shepherd, vice president of Strategy at Plex. “Even our smallest customers often have multiple sites in multiple countries. ...
Read MoreThe cloud is moving the manufacturing industry forward, improving the performance of manufacturing operations management in the process. Manufacturers heavily rely on industry benchmarks such as surveys and other publicly reported data to measure the success of their organization. ...
Read MoreAttitudes towards cloud and software as a service (SaaS) have changed dramatically in recent times, particularly with respect to software that runs your business. While just a few short years ago Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) might have been considered the last bastion of resistance to SaaS, today the majority of businesses have some sort of cloud strategy that involves ERP and the shift to…
Read MoreWhy wearables? We’re at an unprecedented time in technology evolution, where things like battery capacity, processor performance, display quality, cloud computing, wireless communication and sensor precision are all coming together to enable whole new classes of smart, connected devices....
Read MoreWho would have anticipated that the webcam – an inexpensive device designed for video chats – would play a vital role in keeping manufacturing operations running? For maintenance technicians who venture to different machines and locations in the plant every day, mobile access to information is vital. ...
Read MoreFor more than 100 years the torque wrench has been an essential and valuable tool for manufacturers because it applies specific torque to a fastener, such as a nut or bolt. Torque can be the difference in the performance of the end product, whether that’s the power output of a diesel engine or the fit-and-finish of the latest iPhone....
Read MoreTopics like quality, efficiency, process and cost can dominate almost any manufacturing conversation. End-customer satisfaction depends on consistent quality and high value; as an industry, we spend billions of dollars annually to implement practices and technologies to make things better....
Read MoreGoogle Glass, Bluetooth and other emerging mobile and wearable technologies are poised to transform manufacturing practices and how people interact with materials on the plant floor. Imagine pairing Google Glass with RFID tags to create a way for people to see inside boxes and around corners without using their hands....
Read MoreI had an interesting conversation last week with a company that was evaluating new ERP systems. One of the principal drivers for replacing their old business system is compliance and traceability. Today they use a combination of manual processes and disconnected systems to track material usage, quality, and production activities. ...
Read MoreWow have we made progress! It used to be that architectural changes in ERP systems required rewriting the code, but now you can do it by simply editing the web page and issuing a press release. ERP “paradigm shifts,” like the ones from mainframes to minicomputers or host-based to SOA, consumed thousands of software engineers’ efforts and sent the majority of vendors to the ERP graveyard. ...
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