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The Importance of Digital Transformation Support

Digital Transformation initiatives are on the rise in many manufacturing and industrial facilities. Often with so much focus on the design and implementation, one success aspect that is frequently overlooked or forgotten is the long-term support and maintenance. Oftentimes support falls to the individuals or group that traditionally maintain controls assets, whether that’s engineering, maintenance, or a team with a similar background. While these systems have roots in the layer of controls, the support team require an understanding of the new systems and technologies. The underlying skills required to care for these digital data solutions are vastly different.
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The Lowdown on Digital Transformation

Perhaps you recently have been promoted and are now in a key leadership role in a manufacturing company. Having started as an intern and worked your way up the ladder, you never thought about things on the corporate level. Now, as someone tasked to ensure success for the plant, you look at your company in a new light. You might think the key production equipment is rather ancient, perhaps even an antique. New thoughts surface: can we deliver in today’s competitive world with this level of operational equipment? Is it worth keeping around? Is it better to donate to a museum? Research follows your questions and through that, a phrase begins to cycle in the forefronts of your mind: Digital Transformation… but what exactly is Digital Transformation?
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DATA: How Well is Your Plant Running?

Regardless of your answer, chances are you’d ultimately like less loss and more pallets shipped from your loading docks. The first step in reducing loss is quantifying the performance of your system, followed by making impactful decisions based on the new found measurements. One of the most common ways to measure system performance is Overall Equipment Effectiveness, also known as OEE. OEE is calculated by taking into account your system’s availability, production counts, and quality. The resulting percentage provides a single indicator for the performance of your system. For more information on OEE and how it is calculated, please visit https://www.oee.com/.
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Live Demos in a Web Seminar: A Refreshing Change to Solving Real World Problems

Since Covid -19 web seminars and webcasts have become an even larger and more integral part of our lives.  They have been a welcomed source of information and sharing that has amplified societies success to learning in a virtual world. While it’s great to get more information served to you from the comforts of your home office, the unintended consequence of the web-sharing infusion has been an overdose of PowerPoint slide shows.  In many of the casts there is limited “real meat” to chew on from a technology perspective.
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#PLANTLIFE: Preparing for your First Solo Start Up

During the early stages of your career as a controls engineer, many hours are spent at customer sites. And a good majority of that time is spent with other engineers who are teaching you the ropes and helping you get a feel for field work. Eventually, at some point there will come a time where you will be on your own, which can be pretty nerve-racking. These few tips can help ease some of that anxiety to get you rolling for a successful solo site visit.
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