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Modern Manufacturing
Plex Manufacturing Blog
Overcoming Challenges in the Food and Beverage Industry
Due to the shift in consumer demand driven by increased pressure from large-scale competitors, direct-to-consumer trends, and an ongoing pandemic, food and beverage manufacturers like you face unprecedented change and increasing adversity. The challenges are many, including pressure for automation to control costs and address labor shortages, the need for visibility into production yield, and…
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Charging Ahead: Enabling Electric Vehicle Manufacturing with Smart Technology
Many advances in technology and changing consumer tastes have disrupted the automobile industry. From innovations like front-wheel drive and the SUV to the beginning of smart technology for navigation, diagnostics, and entertainment, production lines were forced to adjust many times in history....
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What Does the Future of Smart Manufacturing Look Like?
The 2022 State of Smart Manufacturing report identified a number of key industry trends. If they continue at their current pace, what do these trends mean for the future? Let’s take a look at this hypothetical but not-so-futuristic story through the lens of Plex CTO Jerry Foster:...
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Mobile Smart Manufacturing Platforms: The Parkour of the Plant Floor
There was a time when making changes in manufacturing was like trying to move a sleeping elephant using only a skateboard. Lack of communication, time-lagged and siloed data, and manual record-keeping made the task slow and lumbering....
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Your 5 Steps to Smart Manufacturing Adoption
Smart manufacturing enables manufacturers like you to adapt to a changing market and unlock long-term opportunities by connecting and automating their business. But where do you start? With increasingly modular smart manufacturing technology options available, investment and implementation can be simple, seamless, and cost-effective. These incremental investments unlock value quickly and can be…
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Why Manufacturers Should Consider Cloud-Based MES Solutions
Everything you do is focused on the shop floor. A manufacturing execution system (MES) provides the foundation for operations to schedule, manage, and track each step during production....
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Solving the Downtime Riddle
Riddles. They’re mysterious, mind-bending puzzles that throw in an element of misdirection to throw you off course. They can be fun and even educational in your personal life, but riddles are not a puzzle piece you want to see in your manufacturing environment....
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The Top 3 Challenges Facing Manufacturers (and How to Solve Them)
Each year, the State of Smart Manufacturing Report compiles feedback from hundreds of manufacturers. For nearly a decade, these findings have shown supply chain disruption, skilled worker shortage, and security/risk management as top challenges for business and the pandemic has made this worse....
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Seeing Through the Sales Pitch: 10 Questions to Ask ERP Vendors
Shopping for any big-ticket item is never easy, whether in your personal or professional life. But there’s a big difference between buying the wrong oven for your house vs. buying the wrong ERP for your company. One will burn your dinner, while the other will burn quality, customer relationships, and the bottom line....
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Staying Competitive in 2022 and Beyond
There’s never been a more pivotal time in manufacturing. The pandemic exposed the depth of challenges that manufacturers are facing, including supply chain disruption, skilled worker shortages, and risk mitigation. Environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) has also emerged as a must-address component of the business. At the same time, the combination of data-driven insights, speed,…
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