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!

Modern Manufacturing

Plex Manufacturing Blog

Your 6 Steps to Quality Management Success

Plex Team February 2, 2023

Meeting customer demand, maintaining regulatory requirements, and competing in a global market all hinge on one critical aspect of your manufacturing business: product quality....

Read More

Cure Your Downtime Blues with Smart Platform Views

Plex Team January 24, 2023

Efficiency and downtime are two of the most recognized words in manufacturing. These two words are taught and enforced formally and informally from the executive boardroom to floor supervisors to an operator in their first week on the job.While efficiency has a lot of variables and is calculated as creating as many finished units with the least amount of resources, downtime appears to be simple…

Read More

ERP KPIs: Not Just for Execs Anymore

Plex Team January 10, 2023

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software helps companies manage their core business processes, including HR, finance, supply chain, and manufacturing. Companies can manage their business processes more efficiently by integrating them into a single software solution.Today, most ERP systems are cloud based and use cutting-edge technology like AI and machine learning to deliver insights to…

Read More

What Your Clipboard Won’t Tell You, Your Data Will

Plex Team December 20, 2022

At the time, it seemed like a good idea. Write down if there are any breakdowns, stoppages, changeovers, or anything that makes a machine stop. Write the time, the date, the reason, and how long it took to restart. Oh, and if you have any scrap from a startup, write that down by pounds and material type on another form. In its day, this method was helpful because it was the beginning of modern-…

Read More

The Right MES Is Out There: Industry Experts Make Their Picks

Gerry Abbey December 19, 2022

An MES, or manufacturing execution system, is an essential manufacturing tool for business resiliency in the face of disruption. The pandemic, geopolitical uncertainty, cybersecurity risks, and supply chain uncertainty are just a few of the major risks impacting manufacturers and driving more companies to digitize their business than ever before....

Read More

Production Monitoring KPIs – Greater Visibility Means Higher Production

Plex Team December 6, 2022

The U.S. military uses advanced technology to extend the capabilities of its systems. From satellite images to radar and "eye in the sky" electronic surveillance planes, the goal is to extend visibility past the horizon so troops can see whatever is coming their way. They can see a macro version of a field to view the entire picture or zoom in to look at individual buildings, vehicles, or people…

Read More

Leverage Your Data to Unlock Hidden Capacity and Supercharge Processes

Plex Team November 29, 2022

Capital equipment is one of the most significant variables in calculating a manufacturing company’s capacity. The higher the capacity, the more business a company can take on. Optimizing that capacity means a more substantial ROI, which leads to higher profits and less new equipment in the future....

Read More

Industry 4.0: Go Big or Go Small - Just Go

Plex Team November 15, 2022

Traditionally, large manufacturing companies benefited from scale. They could put money, resources, and in-house expertise into implementing massive enterprise-level software like an ERP or MRP. Smaller companies with limited resources, capital, and expertise under their roof had trouble acquiring the benefits of such software. This disadvantage meant they had to utilize manual data collection,…

Read More

The Machines Are Not out to Get You: Making AI Work for Your Manufacturing Operation

Jerry Foster October 31, 2022

You can hardly turn on a news or media channel these days without a reference to artificial intelligence (AI) and how it affects everyone. AI, alongside other core technologies from Industry 4.0, are already transforming many industries. For manufacturing, AI is poised to be no less impactful. AI as the driver of manufacturing operations is advancing rapidly, but despite its potential, there are…

Read More

When You Don’t Know What’s Broken: Fighting Frightening Manufacturing Monsters

Plex Team October 18, 2022

Bumps, clanks, hisses, and creaks. What’s that noise? In a manufacturing operation, just like a Halloween movie, these sounds are always scary. But sometimes, we don’t hear the sounds until they’ve jumped out at us, eliciting a haunted-house scream and a bit of embarrassment that we didn’t see it coming....

Read More