John A. Whitten

Massive #technology rollouts are hard. Here is a study from Pew Research Center where they found that 64% of Americans live within 2 miles of a public charging station. It feels like we’re close to hitting the inflection point. For context, I believe that Clayton Christensen’s Innovator’s Dilemma is real for many practical circumstances. Technologies get adopted through s-curves. It’s non-linear. Focusing on current customers and ecosystems – e.g., doing everything “right” – can lead to loss of market leadership and even failure of the firm if not properly balanced with #deeptech. What do you think? https://lnkd.in/gM7FKQwQ

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New episode: Why Predictive Maintenance shouldn't be free - with Nat Ford In this episode we discuss: ⚙️ Why are free #PdM solutions becoming more common? ⚙️Differences between offerings that are free vs paid ⚙️In what ways does offering #PredictiveMaintenance for free influence customer expectations? ⚙️Why should a customer invest more in a #scalable, predictive maintenance programme? 🎧 Tune in here: https://sie.ag/5WLRvm

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A question for the community... Why do you think, in 2024, it is so difficult to walk into a manufacturing facility and observe actual interoperability -- both horizontally (across a layer of the stack like PLC/HMI) and vertically (up and down the stack, like SCADA to MES)? I'll reserve my comments for the comment section -- but I want to know what your thoughts and experiences are. To spark the conversation... here are just a small sample of 'standards for interoperability' we have in industry. PLC/HMI - IEC 61131 - IEC 61508 - ISO 13849 - OPC UA SCADA -IEC 61850 -IEC 60870-5 -IEEE 802.3 -ISA-99, 95, 88 MES -ISA-95 -IEC 62264 -MESA B2MML ERP -UBL -B2MML -ISO 19510 -ISO 9001 Cloud -ISO 27017 -ISO 27018 -ISO 17788 -IEEE 2302-2021 -NIST SP 500-291 General -OPC UA -CIP How many of you consult any of these standards when you are solving a problem on the plant floor? How many of you are fluent in any of these standards? How much work would it require to stay fluent in more than 3 of these standards, including updates and extensions? Fire away -- your responses are important. #digitaltransformation #iiot #industry4 ProveIt! Conference Matthew Parris Rick Bullotta Aron Semle

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Time to capture their domain knowledge before it retires!!! Implement Rule based analytics as your first step.

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JCI's #OpenBlue Central Utility Plant Optimization (CUPO) is making a significant impact at Children’s of Alabama, a renowned pediatric hospital. By leveraging data, we are successfully reducing energy costs, lowering carbon emissions, and achieving remarkable savings. Proud to witness how innovation is reshaping healthcare operations to be sustainable, efficient, and resilient. #efficiency #innovation #healthcare #sustainability

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Replacing a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system allowed California American Water to improve efficiency, compliance and reporting at a facility that had endured many challenges.... #automation #controlsystems #SCADA #SystemIntegration

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Kickstart Your Industrial AI Journey 🚀 Looking to implement AI in your manufacturing processes? Check out this essential checklist from Automate.org. This guide covers the top 10 things you need to know to successfully leverage AI and enhance efficiency in your operations. Don’t miss out on these valuable insights! Link: https://lnkd.in/eKt-dqrP #AI #Manufacturing #Industry40 #Innovation #Automation #WWT

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Marcelo, we've seen this so many times in different situations, thanks for sharing your perspective, fully agree. In a recent project we worked with the client to define their industrial IT roadmap, which contained a solid architecture including the automation layer, MES/MOM, ERP, analytics and the connection strategies. Organizations need that type north star and practical guide so new initiatives can adhere to common standards and there is convergence and coordination - not only a collection of disjoint applications and the famous spaghetti connectivity.

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All too often AI is used as a buzzword right now. This episode got to the meat of real life use cases and actual business value realized. Worth a listen! Jordan Reynolds Arvind Rao Rockwell Automation

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Modern simulation technology is critical to incorporating renewables into the electrical grid. As utilities continue to add renewable generation sources to their portfolios, they must adapt their operations practices to remain efficient and profitable. Rick Kephart, vice president of technology for Emerson’s power generation and water solutions business, discusses the benefits of digital twins simulation in his latest article for https://ow.ly/7ikN30sFgoH: https://ow.ly/iBTT30sFbiT

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Author: Iain Wallace "Industrial Control System Asset Visibility: Protecting More Than 1%" emphasizes the importance of knowing and managing all assets within an industrial control system (ICS). Drawing a parallel to the British Museum's recent scandal, where up to 2,000 artifacts were stolen over 30 years due to poor inventory management, the article highlights how similar oversight can occur in industrial environments. Just as the museum failed to account for most of its eight million items, industrial facilities often struggle with managing thousands of interconnected digital assets. Automating asset inventory and management is crucial to prevent such issues. For industrial control systems, automated tools can detect missing or faulty assets and maintain up-to-date backups. Hexagon’s PAS Cyber Integrity® software offers a solution by creating a comprehensive, regularly updated asset inventory across multiple vendor systems. This software also provides consistent configuration management, vulnerability assessment, and compliance monitoring. By ensuring thorough asset visibility, Cyber Integrity helps industrial facilities avoid the significant risks posed by unmanaged or unmonitored assets, ultimately reducing the likelihood of incidents similar to those faced by the British Museum. Here’s the link to the full article: https://lnkd.in/g9i2Shf3

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In this blog, Chad Elmendorf discusses the continuous hardening of Industrial Control Systems (ICS). Continuous hardening is a proactive strategy to ensure the security and resilience of industrial systems against evolving threats and vulnerabilities. This approach involves implementing, maintaining, and regularly updating security measures to protect ICS from cyberattacks, physical threats, and operational disruptions. #ContinuousHardening https://lnkd.in/gZbeq2Q9

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Interesting article and comment thread. My takeaway, any methodology requires competence in the team and management to work, methodology cannot make up for voids there. What I am clear on, for industrial automation at least, is many leaders will talk about Agile as if it’s a silver bullet, yet upon one or two questions asked, can’t describe what it actually is. Scrum (Jeff Sutherland) is a fantastic book btw. It opened my mind on Agile. https://lnkd.in/gCARu9sX..

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This is a terrific webinar on the realities of Industry 4.0, Industry 5.0 and digital transformation. Favorite parts: Walker's comments at the 16:27 mark: We ask operators, we ask supervisors, we ask managers, we ask directors, we ask executives - what is the biggest problem you have? And they all say "getting access to the data I need to make decisions". Walker's answer to Ed's question "What would be your advice to someone who's wanting to get involved in the transition from Industry 3.0 to Industry 4.0? (at the 36:15 mark). Thank you Ed Hightower and Walker Reynolds for such an enlightening and engaging 50 minutes! https://lnkd.in/gXwkEKxD

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We see and hear that companies don’t have enough visibility into plant operations. For strategic planning and flexibility, a company needs to know the current state of its operations. By leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, businesses can unlock new revenue streams, innovate their product offerings, and build resilience against market disruptions. Learn how to begin your DX journey: https://lnkd.in/ewa9YC9b #AI #ML #DX #Manufacturing

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I'm knee deep in skills matrices for different kinds of engineering and project management tasks at PCE. I also broke down a typical scada project by task showing dependencies as a graphic. Then I listed all the skills needed to produce scada engineering deliverables. I suppose this is still process engineering but I'm trying to engineer a dynamic process schedule of a lot of people that overlap on a lot of projects and it's been nothing short of astounding how easy it is for project teams to become like cats and just not move towards targets the way fluid flows in linear pipes lol It's more like feeding fluid to a manifold of difference sized orifices. I'm still figuring it out. I think we are close to a breakthrough. People don't work like Ohms Law...or do they? Theory V= IR is like (drive to bill hours) = productivity × aptitude Process & Controls Engineering, LLC

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Monday Morning Metrics Who are the backbone of the modern industry? Automation Controls Engineers And guess what - they are in high demand! With that demand, comes increased compensation with the average controls engineer earning an average of $92,000 with more senior level engineers earning in excess of $130,000. (according to control systems magazine) Also, money is not their sole motivation. They value work - life balance and want to stay on the cutting edge of automation technology. They crave opportunities that keep them ahead of the curve and constantly updating their skills. With such high demand, these engineers are open to learning about new opportunities. Estimates suggest that 40-50% of are receptive to considering new positions, especially those offering better compensation or more exciting, cutting-edge projects. For those mission critical roles on your team - how are you trying to attract that 40-50%? Are you relying solely on an internal team and job boards? If so, how is that working out for you? If not, drop me a note and we can discuss another alternative that will lead to better results. Happy Hunting!! #leadership #highperformingteams #robotics #roboticsengineering #iiot #teambuilding #engineeringmanager #hiringmanager #manufacturing #automation #controlsengineer #automationengineer #controlsengineering #automationengineering #jamesmichaelgroup #rollingstones #getwhatyouneed #controlsengineer #automationengineer #controlsengineering #automationengineering #jamesmichaelgroup #diversity #hiring #toptalent #jobpostings #iiot #supplychain #coaching #q4hiring #2024hiring #skillsgap #softskills #secretsauce #timeisgold #hiringstruggles #culture #strategy

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