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Connections for Growth & Success
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Analysis, Reviews & Views By Jim Pinto -
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The Coming Tech-led Boom
The following is a summary of a recent article in The Wall Street Journal that got my attention. The last century saw several transformations: Electrification, telephony, automobiles, radio, electronics and TV, and the dawn of the Internet.
In this new century, three grand technological transformations are led by America: Big data, smart manufacturing and the wireless revolution. The era of near-perfect computational design and production will unleash as big a change in how we make things as the agricultural revolution did in how we grew things. It will be defined by talent, not cheap labor.
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Ten Tips for Generating Growth
Who can be so bold as to plan and budget for ambitious automation business growth in these uncertain times?
Consider this: These are exactly the times to plan for innovation and growth, to jump ahead in the competitive rankings.
Here are 10 brainstorming ideas to help your company generate growth:
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Solar Energy is Coming
SOLAR power has always had a reputation for being expensive, but not for much longer. It is largely down to economies of scale.
In 2011, enough solar panels were produced worldwide to generate 27 gigawatts, compared with 7.7 GW in 2009. Solar power is now cheaper than diesel anywhere that has reasonable sunshine. That means vast areas of Latin America, Africa and Asia could start adopting solar power.
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Industrial Network Security
The computer worm Stuxnet was discovered in June 2010 in Iran. It was clearly aimed at Iran's nuclear program and wiped out about 20% of Iran's nuclear centrifuges. This delayed (though it didn't destroy) Iran's ability to make their first nuclear weapons.
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The Youtube Phenomenon
Every minute, 60 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube. That's five months of video every hour. That's 10 years of video every day. And the rate is growing by about 20-25% a year. Imagine this: More video is uploaded to YouTube every month than has been broadcast by the 3 big TV networks in the past 60 years.
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Featured Articles, Analysis, Reviews, Interviews & Views
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Automation, Embeded, CNC , Industrial, OPC, Industrial IT...
Articles >>
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Future Trends in Control and Process Automation in the MET Industry
Anup Varghese
reveals that The Media, Entertainment and Telecom (MET) industry utilises control and process automation equipment and services mainly at amusement parks and theme parks. Control automation equipment such as motion and ride control systems, emergency shutdown systems, show/audio controls and continuous regulatory control are used in roller coasters, motion theatres, snow worlds etc.
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Top 5 Reasons Why ERP Implementations Fail
Jason Rourke
reveals when listening to fears and concerns about ERP solutions, implementation is usually on the top of most lists. Yes, it can be daunting, but it is the cornerstone of the overall project. So why do implementations fail? Below is our countdown of the most common ERP implementation errors and how to avoid them.
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5 Cost Estimating Myths Busted
Jay Snow
reveals that "Cost Estimating" manufactured parts for an RFQ is one day-to-day problem that confronts manufacturing shops around the globe, many of which feel like they just have to live with it.
IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THAT WAY! ......
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Smart On-Demand Integration
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Faheem Ismat
reveals on-demand integration means automating business processes by linking enterprise programs, which have operated independently in the past, to provide comprehensive services to the business by increasing productivity and at the same time decreasing operational cost.
Despite the trend toward acquiring application portfolios from a single supplier or from a limited number of suppliers, few organizations are able to have all of their application portfolio requirements using a single source. Heterogeneous IT portfolios are norm and will stay like that.
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What is OPC in 2010? It is all about the Tag
Nathan Pocock
talks that OPC is still the connectivity standard for Process Control, for ADI, a part of FDI and FDT and STILL the connectivity standard for manufacturing, and PLCs. OPC is a Unified Architecture, and OPC is an Express Interface.
OPC is three letters that are a lot of things to a lot of different people, but what it really boils down to is moving data and the Tag. Yes the Tag. Everything in OPC revolves around the Tag.
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Catching the Process Fieldbus : An Interview with James Powell
James Powell
talks about how the world of industrial commutations appears as a
multilayered, multidimensional, occasionally confusing mixture of fieldbuses, software packages, and media.
He shows in his book "Catching the Process Fieldbus" that when industrial communications is understood and then installed with forethought and care, network operations are both beneficial and painless.
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OPC UA: An End-User's Perspective
Randy Kondor
reveals OPC UA (Unified Architecture) represents the OPC Foundation’s most recent set of specifications for Process Control and Automation system interconnectivity. This paper explains OPC UA from the perspective of the organization that will benefit from the connectivity, in other words: the End User.
The first form of OPC relied on DCOM for its data transportation, which was very powerful and versatile, but
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Manufacturing
Insights
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Moving Beyond OEE Limitations Arriving at Total Production Efficiency
For the past five years manufacturing plant managers and supervisors have adopted lean manufacturing principles, eliminated waste, and still seen total production efficiency elude them. Monitoring and Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) solutions in the shop extracted little value because most "OEE monitoring" technology use tools that generate data, but none that help them make sense of it. OEE is an effective metric to give an overall sense of how effectively manufacturing equipment is performing; it is not particularly useful in improving shopfloor productivity.
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Editor's
Ramblings
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The future of Automation lies in Twitter
I was recently involved in a conversation that became quite heated about “whom” the exact person is that will make the decisions about designing the plant systems of tomorrow? One of the individuals involved in the discussion stated that the future of automation systems will lie with the large automation players: the Siemens, Rockwell’s, and the Honeywell’s etc. His theory was that the major players will influence the trend of how systems will be architected through control of market share, and evangelism. While I agree with some of his comments, I disagree with his corporate way of ...
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