Meditations for Mortals
I’ve read a number of good books over the past few months, but there was too much tech news to get to them. It’s time to clear my queue before I head to Las Vegas and the Hexagon tech conference. Oliver Burkeman composed his latest book, Meditations for Mortals: Four...
AI and Jobs—hype v common sense analysis
My last post considered the future of Generative AI. It has become impossible to maintain thinking about AI at the pace of hype speed. While on vacation last week, a couple of new items popped across my screen in the brief times I was online. These items refer to the...
Future of GenAI?
Cal Newport, computer science professor at Georgetown and prolific workflow and lifestyle wrier, discussed another aspect of GenerativeAI on his May 26 podcast. His currently thinks generative AI companies will start making money when people use it several times daily...
Apple Manufacturing in the US?
There must be a label for people who try to make the world conform to their mental modal. Insane? Blind? Overly optimistic? Ego maniacal? I have many years of experience in manufacturing. Almost a decade of experience as the cost analyst of a mid-sized manufacturing...
Why and How
Seth Godin asks more questions. He shares my passion for moving beyond the industrial organization of education into something more useful for the students—and also more inclusive of some who are ignored by the system that rewards memorizing and sitting quietly. My...
Context-Driven MRO Optimization for Enterprises
AI Agents (aka AgenticAI) continue to find their way into the news. At least we are finding some reality amongst all the AI hype. This news concerns improving MRO operations. [All hyperbole from the press release.] Verusen launched its groundbreaking Explainability AI...
Off-The-Shelf Palletizing Solution
Perhaps the final news coming my way from Automate 2025 and again robotic-oriented, this news concerns release of an off-the-shelf palletizing solution, said to be the first in North America. Doig Corp. Developed Pallet EZ with OnRobot and its D:PLOY platform. Unlike...
Siemens introduces AI agents for industrial automation
Finishing Agent Week at The Manufacturing Connection with this news from Siemens introducing agents for automation on its Xcelerator platform They claim up to 50% increase in productivity. I guess this would involve productivity across five disciplines detailed below....
Universal Robots Increases Cobot Speed
More news from Automate. Most of the news has been robotics. This piece reports on Universal Robots introduction of its fastest Cobot, the UR15. Looks like there is still room for improvement in this technology area. They say shipping is to begin in June 2025. The...
Edge Orchestration on Next-Generation IoT Connectivity Platform
Apparently it’s still all happening at the Edge (apologies to Paul Simon’s Zoo). This concept has always somewhat puzzled me given that I began implementing computers on the factory floor in the mid-80s to collect, sort, and publish manufacturing data. I guess just...
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