Gary On Manufacturing - Gary Mintchell

I went to this year's Honeywell User Group with many questions. They were all answered as you will hear. There were many questions begging for answers as I traveled to Florida. What was Honeywell HIVE, and how does it relate to the ExxonMobil initiated Open Process Automation group? What is Honeywell Digital Prime and what customer problems does it address? What successes have Honeywell achieved w...

Gary talks about the successful integrations of software by Siemens since the 2007 acquisition of UGS. He reflects on early conversations with Siemens executives regarding the Digital Factory and then how far the company has traveled along that path becoming perhaps the most successful industrial automation and industrial software supplier.

Surveying the past of automation and control tech and the tech media market over the years, then taking a look at future coverage for Gary on Manufacturing and The Manufacturing Connection.

Observations, thoughts, questions about automation and control market, the companion media market, and innovation. Thoughts welcome.

I presented a Webinar on April 5. You can find it here https://www.manufacturingtechnologytoday.com/frs/23189866/going-beyond-digital-transformation--the-real-innovations-in-manufacturing/email . I talked about how digital data isn't new, my 1978 project, how we need to watch for disruption coming from anywhere, the importance of people, and how you, yes you, can and should be a change agent.

Why is it that open systems work in IT and not OT. The work of the Open Process Automation Forum.

Update on the industrial metaverse essay and podcast given the Google, Facebook, and Microsoft news to AI, ChatGPT, and search ads. Thoughts on merger and acquisition including new thoughts on Emerson bid for NI. Finally, a new take on video for manufacturing. Sponsored by Ignition from Inductive Automation.

Yes, I'm back after a long hiatus due to some projects that soaked up my time. Metaverse remains the hot topic in industrial technology discussion circles. Are we getting closer to reality than what I spoke of in episode 241? There are some interesting new concepts from both Rockwell Automation and GridRaster plus others.

Press releases come to me from a variety of sources. The topics are often in batches. There was 3D printing, then cybersecurity, now sustainability. Check out a new book instigated by Seth Godin (check his podcast out at akimbo.link) called The Carbon Almanac (thecarbonalmanac.org). Electric is big, as in electric cars. Everything needs big engineering ideas. What will you contribute?

Two developers reflecting on Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference in terms of Gartner's Hype Cycle--about getting enthused at the event and then reality settling in when the amount of work is realized. I reflect on the several trips I made in May and June in the same model. I'm not saying all I got was hype, but the trip from enthusiasm to realism is worth taking.

Gary discusses 20 years of trying on headsets for manufacturing applications. Is the Metaverse finally upon us? Probably not.

Perhaps if President Nixon had read 500 books rather than watching 500 movies during his time in office... What happened to all the free time we were supposed to get from increased productivity? Oliver Burkeman discusses time management in Four Thousand Weeks. And no, it's not a new system. Plus Karels and Miller wrote Steel Toes and Stilettos, a story of Lean Transformation of three manufacturing...

There was Internet of Things, IoT, then Industrial Internet of Things, IIoT, and companies formed groups to build product and exploit the area. Then they went away. What happened? What's new? Taking a look at data orchestration and data ops.

Gary discusses how to answer why spend the money, how we learned to build safety into machines and processes, and how we'll learn to do the same with cybersecurity.

Gary recaps the recent ODVA annual general meeting. Keynoter Paul Maurath of P&G corporate engineering discussed laboratory testing of EtherNet/IP with APL. He asked for more configuration and device description help. ODVA tech group engineers have been very busy with OPC UA mapping, TSN, and CIP for discrete devices. It was great to meet again.

Gary discusses ideas around corporate sustainability and looks at what three automation companies are doing--ABB, Rockwell Automation, and Schneider Electric.

Gary ponders the state of the automation and control market riffing off the ARC Advisory Group / Control Global Top 50 by sales. Is this a mature market? New entrants seem to be acquired by incumbents as an innovation strategy by the larger companies. What does a mature market mean?

How are your New Years Resolutions coming? Quit already? Try a few tips from Gary about improving life and career this year.

I love irony. Like when people click on my consulting link and want to sell me consulting instead of asking me to consult. Also a quick trip around the Fabtech and Additive Manufacturing Trade Show, the size of The Manufacturing Connection--your number one resource. Sponsored by Ignition by Inductive Automation.

Rick Bullotta posted a provocative comment on LinkedIn predicting a shakeup in the industrial software business with the hyperscaler cloud companies acquiring a chunk of those now owned by OEMs or the few independent ones. I've thought about this for a long time. What do you think?

231 Are You Being Served? While thinking about the proliferation of as-a-service models of business, thoughts of that 70s and 80s British comedy TV show came to mind. Are you being served? Proved feasible by Salesforce and then adopted by many including recently HPE as the strategy for the entire company, we are witnessing automation companies exploring the as-a-service business model. I wonder ho...

230 AR and VR AR, MR, VR, XR--what R we supposed to make of all this technology. We've been playing with the idea for more than 20 years when I first reported on a new product that promised to connect a line technician with a remote expert (using video camera) and show work instructions (augmented reality). At the time legendary blogger Robert Scoble in 2013 or so predicted we'd all be wearing Goo...

229 Flying in the Clouds A beginning student pilot must only fly on clear days where the ground is always visible. Following much additional training, the student can achieve instrument rating and can "fly in the clouds." Manufacturing and production companies are moving to flying in the clouds perhaps much more quickly than they moved to any other technology. Of course, I'm talking about cloud co...

Sometimes we clutter our minds with what we think we know and leave no room for learning new things. In the process, we fixate on an idea and miss the simple and most elegant explanation. I had received a news release from a manufacturing software company so full of jargon that I could barely decipher it. In the midst of the stuff was the claim that there are 40,000 IIoT professionals. Huh? I figu...

Imagine laying railroad tracks west from the US east coast and meeting up with a crew laying railroad tracks from the west coast only to discover that the width between the rails was different. Standards make a huge difference. Open standards, open APIs, and open source all enable interoperability and all make life better for users. My discussions over the past couple of years indicates that US en...