Blog
How We See IIoT and Digital Transformation
Explore our thinking on the creation of smart digital factories; speed to value; connectivity, app development, big data, analytics value and the impact of IoT on manufacturing.
What Makes a Good Digital OEE?
Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is an internationally recognized metric that provides an easily-measurable method of evaluating and quantifying the efficiency of a manufacturing process. This makes it possible for factory managers to identify ways to maximize the efficiency of their processes through better maintenance, improved protocols, and more streamlined procedures. OEE not only allows factories to save time and money by reducing machine downtime, but also provides valuable feedback on how resources are being best used throughout their operations. Moreover, implementing OEE helps ensure that manufacturers keep up with industry demands while keeping costs low and maximizing profits. How do…
Top Five Features to Look For in a Low-Code Platform
To stay competitive in today’s market, businesses are continuously evaluating their production processes and identifying ways to improve reducing cost, increasing revenue and innovation speed. Companies that create an intelligent digital twin of their enterprise will more efficiently manage and compete in today’s global economy: significantly improving operational insight, increasing productivity, and easing integration with partners and clients alike. So, how do you get there, and how do you gain an advantage over your competitors that are going through similar digitalization strategies? Your logical starting point is to identify an environment and tool set to facilitate your digital transformation. To…
A Smarter Global Supply Chain: The Answer To Major Global Disruption
The events of the past two+ years made significant changes to just about everything in our daily life. Our routines changed. We were subjected to a steep learning curve of new concepts, new approaches and new tactics including major shifts in how we work and live. Unforeseen challenges for global manufacturing aren’t over. The shift to just-in-time for global manufacturing suppliers had been beneficial for both consumers and corporations but didn’t adapt gracefully to the “perfect storm” of production shutdowns, shipping congestion, materials shortages and panic buying. The global supply chain and logistics infrastructure that we all depended on to…
Lean Manufacturing in Action: One Heartbeat, Guided by a Smart Factory Digital Brain
In our interactions with multi-location global manufacturing enterprise customers and engagements in their operations, we hear the urgency of their need to implement innovative solutions that significantly improve the management of production barriers, ideas, and shop floor meeting cycles. The fundamental goal is to accelerate their overall processes from identifying the issues to ensuring proper communication, informed decision making, and smart execution of those decisions, consistently, in all their locations around the globe. Even small improvements to targeted processes can have massive ramifications over time: when multiplied over every location, significant cost savings and production improvements result in more satisfied…
The Digital Edge: Rethinking Your Digital Strategy
We live and work in a fast-moving, increasingly interconnected and digital world. With the advent of the pandemic, the need for digitalization and technological advancements was significantly accelerated. We saw major developments in 2020 and 2021 that have greatly impacted the business world, particularly the manufacturing sector, and with more advancements to come in 2022. It is not a stretch to state that technological advancements in manufacturing — as well as technological deficiencies — not only have changed the way we as individuals live and do business, but also have caused massive effect on a global scale. Case in point:…
The Power of AI to Transform Manufacturing Operations and Outcomes
In our most recent blog post (What’s All the Fuss Over Digital Twins?), we explored the rationale for an explosion of interest in Digital Twin technology particularly in the manufacturing sector, and how these virtual copies of your physical assets are a new means to leverage the insights and intelligence hidden in raw operational data to make smarter decisions and take actions in the industrial manufacturing environment. In this blog, we explore how to get the most value out of your digital twin technologies. The Role of AI in Operations Predictability Digitalizing your operations, optimizing your processes and employing historic…
What’s All the Fuss Over Digital Twins?
According to a Gartner survey*, 50 percent of large manufacturers would have had at least one digital twin initiative launched by 2020, and the number of organizations using digital twins will triple by 2022. Why is there such a growing interest in Digital Twin? There is still widespread lack of connectivity in factories globally. According to some estimates, more than 90% of machines in factories globally are not network-connected. Data silos and ineffective collaboration effectively become roadblocks between companies and their business objectives. The operational inefficiencies of an unconnected factory come at a high cost. Data is the lifeblood of any…
LCNC – An Essential Platform for Industry 4.0 in 2021
Smart Manufacturing, Digital Transformation, or Industry 4.0. – whatever your preferred terminology – may be “just what the doctor ordered” for manufacturers to both survive the present and launch into a bright post-pandemic future. Industry 4.0 describes the integration of digital data from a variety of sources, sensors, devices and locations that become the drivers that enable the physical act of manufacturing, and this happens in a continuous “physical-digital-physical” loop. It is a cyclical flow in which manufacturing systems connect, communicate and use the real-time data of physical systems to digitally drive actionable intelligence to execution on the factory floor….
The Prescription for Pharma’s Digital Future
Could IoT be the prescription to success in the quest to digitally transform Pharma manufacturing? As a solutions provider to the Pharma sector we believe the role of IoT is central to achieving comprehensive digitalization. Yet there are some significant hurdles to overcome. Many Pharma manufacturers are using processes that are being phased out in other industries. IoT in healthcare is projected to be worth over $534 billion by 2025, yet Pharma seems to be lagging behind in transitioning to digital technologies to keep pace with other sectors in healthcare and beyond. Pharma manufacturing faces unique digital transformation challenges The…
“Remote Everything” – The New Standard
Prior to COVID-19 Global Connectivity and Industrial Digitalization Was Well Underway. In just a few months, we’ve seen every business, and every sector disrupted. Even organizations with robust digitalization programs have been forced to reevaluate and adjust their pace and implementation velocity for innovative technology solutions to build smarter, safer, more reliable, and more resilient operations. 2020 Has Ushered In a Renaissance of Innovation. Just as the original Renaissance brought new scientific discoveries, new forms of art and architecture, and new religious and political ideas, effective response to the 2020 pandemic is upending business models and initiating massive opportunity for…