Smart Manufacturing Blog

Welcome to your source for all things smart manufacturing. Whether you’re looking for expert insights, hard data, or actionable tips for your plant floor, we’ve got you covered every week of the year.

Announcement
7th Annual State of Smart Manufacturing

Now Available!

Get your copy of the 7th Annual State of Smart Manufacturing and hear from 300+ manufacturers in this new survey report!

Smart Manufacturing

Plex Manufacturing Blog

Charging Ahead: Enabling Electric Vehicle Manufacturing with Smart Technology

Plex Team May 10, 2022

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....

Read More

7 Reasons to Attend ROKLive 2022

Plex Team May 5, 2022

Maybe you’ve heard of ROKLive. Maybe you already know it’s the best manufacturing technology conference that you can find, held by industry leaders Plex Systems and Rockwell Automation. But is that enough to justify booking your ticket to Orlando for this June? Maybe. Maybe not. Let’s make this the easiest decision of your week by laying out the reasons why manufacturing professionals just like…

Read More

Mobile Smart Manufacturing Platforms: The Parkour of the Plant Floor

Plex Team April 26, 2022

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....

Read More

Your 5 Steps to Smart Manufacturing Adoption

Gerry Abbey April 25, 2022

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…

Read More

Solving the Downtime Riddle

Plex Team April 12, 2022

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....

Read More

The Top 3 Challenges Facing Manufacturers (and How to Solve Them)

Gerry Abbey April 11, 2022

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....

Read More

9 Reasons for More Visibility in Your Manufacturing Plant

Bernard Cohen March 21, 2022

Imagine putting on a pair of glasses that lets you see transparent, operational measurements in real time floating across your production line. With more and more companies embracing Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing methods, that level of visibility inside an industrial environment is now a major key to a successful operation....

Read More

Key Takeaways From the 7th Annual State of Smart Manufacturing Report

Gerry Abbey March 16, 2022

Responding to market adversity with agility, improved processes, and technology adoption Welcome to the 2022 State of Smart Manufacturing Report, the most robust edition yet. Based on surveys from 321 manufacturers from across the globe, the results reflect general consistency in major factors impacting manufacturers....

Read More

Smarter, Together: Connecting Customer Influence to Positive Business Outcomes (Part 4 of 4)

Anthony Murphy February 23, 2022

In earlier posts of this series, we talked about Plex’s core principles of customer influence, how we approach influence, and how we capture it:...

Read More

Smarter, Together: Measuring Customer Influence at Plex (Part 3 of 4)

Anthony Murphy February 9, 2022

In the first post of this series, we explored the concept of customer influence that permeates the culture here at Plex - how we and our customers influence one another through open dialog and feedback using four essential actions: focus, listen, share, and engage. The second post discussed the platforms in which Plex captures this valuable customer input – the purpose of which is to deliver…

Read More