Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Virtual Smart Advisors Kickstart Smart Manufacturing

By Mikes James, Immediate-Past Chairman, MESA International Board of Directors

Wondering where to start on your smart manufacturing and Industry 4.0 journey? Virtual smart advisors are the perfect starting point.

I first read about ‘smart advisors’ in a report published by industry analyst Gartner. The idea aligns well with our own thoughts that decision making will shift away from people to virtual assistants. Already prevalent in the banking and services industry, virtual assistants advise us on a wide variety of choices such as what loan to take out or which local restaurant to choose. 

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

MANUFACTURING IN THE CLOUD. Part IV: Present and Future of Cloud Computing

By Goran Novkovic, CQA, CSQE, ITIL, APM, PMP, PEng

This blog is part of a series called Manufacturing in the Cloud. This series aims to assist manufacturing organizations to evaluate how they can overcome challenges and maximize cloud computing benefits. As cloud computing services mature both commercially and technologically, this is likely to become relatively easier to achieve.

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

MANUFACTURING IN THE CLOUD. Part III: Cloud Computing and Virtualization

By Goran Novkovic, CQA, CSQE, ITIL, APM, PMP, PEng

This blog is part of a series called Manufacturing in the Cloud. This series aims to assist manufacturing organizations to evaluate how they can overcome challenges and maximize cloud computing benefits. As cloud computing services mature both commercially and technologically, this is likely to become relatively easier to achieve.

Friday, August 4, 2017

Asset Performance Management: Conceptual Model to Apply OEE to a Continuous Process

Antoine Snyman

INTRODUCTION

Even though the demand for the platinum group metals (PGM) grew roughly 10 times over the last 40 years, the price remained the stable.  This forces organisations to focus on asset management with specific attention to the measurement of utilisation and performance of assets. 

In the article titled Asset Performance Management: Proposing a Conceptual Model to Apply OEE to a Continuous Process a conceptual model was presented.  This article follows on that and the objective of is to test the proposed model with actual results and prove the validity thereof.

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

MANUFACTURING IN THE CLOUD. Part II: 5 Characteristics of Cloud Computing

By Goran Novkovic, CQA, CSQE, ITIL, APM, PMP, PEng

This blog is part of a series called Manufacturing in the Cloud. This series aims to assist manufacturing organizations to evaluate how they can overcome challenges and maximize cloud computing benefits. As cloud computing services mature both commercially and technologically, this is likely to become relatively easier to achieve.