D+IIoT = IDIOT?

This blog is a MESA Member Point of View.

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

The Importance of Standards for Smart Manufacturing

This blog is a MESA Point of View.

By Mike Hannah, Member of MESA Smart Manufacturing Working Group

Key Requirements for Seamless Quality Processing – ERP to PLM to the Shop Floor

This blog is a MESA Member Point of View.

By Valérie Goulévitch – Head of Marketing and Communication at Siemens PLM Software,
Gold Keystone Member of MESA International.

3 Ways Quality Drives Productivity

This blog is a MESA Member Point of View.

By Valérie Goulévitch – Head of Marketing and Communication at Siemens PLM Software, Gold Keystone Member of MESA International

MANUFACTURING IN THE CLOUD: PART VII: Infrastructure as a Service

By Goran Novkovic, MESA Member, 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.

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.

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.

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.

A Checklist for Cybersecurity in Industrial Internet of Things

By Mike Hannah, MESA Smart Manufacturing Working Group Member 

Over the last year or so there has been much written about the Internet of Things (IoT) and Smart Manufacturing initiatives like Industry 4.0, that promise huge potential benefits for manufactures.  In particular, we hear about how organizations are recognizing that information created by connecting intelligent things (IoT) and industrial control systems (ICS) to the enterprise business systems is achieving greater visibility into their operations, all helping to make significant operational improvements.  To achieve this however requires seamless and secure flow of information from the machines and equipment, to the lines, to the people, to the plants, and to the enterprise levels.  

This network convergence, or connected enterprise, comes with some challenges. User’s face an unclear demarcation of network ownership, and cultural difference exist between OT and IT professional who are deploying both enterprise and industrial assets.  And probably the most important aspect is that it exposes the connected industrial assets to additional security threats that they typically didn’t  have to think about before.  

How to Achieve Smart Manufacturing

By Conrad Leiva, MESA International Board Member and chair of MESA's Smart Manufacturing Working Group

This article was originally published on IndustryWeek IdeaXchange (industryweek.com) on Dec 31, 2015.

For more information on Smart Manufacturing, if you are a MESA.org member, check out the white paper "Smart Manufacturing - The Landscape Explained".

In the 1970s and 80s we witnessed a revolutionary wave of productivity improvements in manufacturing. New technologies, including personal computers (PCs), numerically controlled (NC) machines, programmable logic controllers (PLCs), and computer aided manufacturing (CAM), combined with new process improvement ideas like Total Quality Management (TQM), Just-In-Time, and Six Sigma yielded new levels of productivity and efficiency in many manufacturing industries.  

In this decade, we are seeing a convergence of technologies and process improvement initiatives of a similar scale with the potential to radically improve the way manufacturers thread processes and systems in the enterprise and the way they deliver customization and services to customers.