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Modern Manufacturing
Plex Manufacturing Blog
What Your Clipboard Won’t Tell You, Your Data Will
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-…
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The Right MES Is Out There: Industry Experts Make Their Picks
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....
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Production Monitoring KPIs – Greater Visibility Means Higher Production
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…
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Leverage Your Data to Unlock Hidden Capacity and Supercharge Processes
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....
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Industry 4.0: Go Big or Go Small - Just Go
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,…
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The Machines Are Not out to Get You: Making AI Work for Your Manufacturing Operation
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…
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When You Don’t Know What’s Broken: Fighting Frightening Manufacturing Monsters
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....
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North American Food Safety and Quality: Your NAFS22 Recap
NAFS22 came packed with insights, ideas, and a shared call to action to achieve food safety and quality like we’ve never seen before. After days of conversations and presentations, the key question that remains is: how do we achieve this, particularly on a national and international scale? Of the many topics discussed over the last several days, these are the ones that stood out most:...
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Your Answer for Managing Major Manufacturing Disruption
In past decades, business continuity was mainly considered to respond to the dangers of natural disasters like fires, floods, or hurricanes. The dawn of the internet brought a new focus to continuity; it broadened its definition as companies raced to protect data from cyberattacks and breaches that could shut them down and leave them without critical information....
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The Shift to Electric Vehicles and Its Impact on Automotive Suppliers
The inevitable shift to electric vehicles is here and its impact on automotive suppliers will be drastic. OEMs are making major commitments to reduce their carbon footprint and eliminate their internal combustion engine (ICE) fleets. General Motors, for example, has made a commitment to be completely carbon neutral in their global products and operations by 2040 and eliminate tailpipe emissions…
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