Tuesday, February 24, 2015

A Tale of Two Factories: Chapter 6 – The Great Divide

By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member


When management wants to make something happen, they change the structure of the organization. Whether its ad-hoc project teams to deliver a product or service, or departments developed around specific disciplines such as IT, engineering, procurement, or accounting, organizational structure provides the framework for business execution. It can also be a significant hurdle to successful change as people become entrenched within the practices of an established structure. How does this impact manufacturing and engineering technologies? This chapter examines how two organizations - Deuxieme Botte Manufacturing (DBM) and Premiere Chaussure Industries (PCI) – deal with the challenges of organizational boundaries.

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Manufacturing and IT: An Alliance for Better Business Outcomes

With the manufacturing and IT silos that exist in some companies, it’s difficult for people to consider the bigger picture. MESA can help the two sides collaborate toward shared business objectives.

By Ann Krauss, MESA International Marketing Committee member

As we celebrate the month of romance and togetherness, it’s an ideal time to consider the many facets of relationships inherent in a manufacturing company. In particular, manufacturing and IT professionals haven’t always been on the same page when it comes to the best technologies to implement to reach business goals. In some companies, there are manufacturing and IT silos, and everyone is simply too busy or too narrowly focused to even take a moment to come up for air and consider the bigger picture.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

What if Expedia showed your manufacturing operations data?

By Gopal Krishnan, P.E., Solution Architect, Partners and Strategic Alliances, OSIsoft, LLC. Member, MESA International Technical and Education Committee 

Rapid Insights and Operational Intelligence for the shop-floor

It is no surprise that the big-data hype is falling into the trough of disillusionment (Lisa Kart, Gartner, January 2015, Big data industry insights) and organizations are struggling to get value from their big data investments. As if to save the day, a McKinsey January 2015 article Getting big impact from big data makes a number of recommendations;

Thursday, February 5, 2015

A Tale of Two Factories: Chapter 5 – Studies in Change

By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member

“Is it us, or is it the technology?” Whenever MES/MOM technology is discussed, the importance of change management is emphasized. Chapter 4 of this series examined the architectural aspects of change – the importance of having a platform that flourishes with change. This chapter delves into the “soft skills”, perhaps the most difficult part of successful integration of technology into operations. Once again, we examine change at two plants: Deuxieme Botte Manufacturing (DBM) and Premiere Chaussure Industries (PCI).

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Are you confused by The MES/MOM Word Game?

By Mike K Williams, MESA Americas Board Member, Dow Chemical retired

Recently a group of executive level leaders in the chemical, oil and gas sector meet to discuss the needs and value of manufacturing IT investments.  The group was rather vocal in its responses.  One common theme being voiced by all was, “IT needs to be more responsive to Operation’s needs”.  What did they mean by this statement?