by Gary Mintchell | Jul 22, 2022 | Enterprise IT, News
I am moderating a discussion on the Web July 27 at 11 am EDT among three experts sharing ideas about using technologies we have today to help mitigate supply chain disruption. We discuss supply chain control towers, digital twin (yes, the digital twin concept expands to include the entire supply chain), and research on optimization through simulation.
The discussion is sponsored by Hitachi Vantara and the experts are employed there. It’s a thoroughly non-commercial presentation brought to you by IIoT World.
Some discussion involves IoT and the need for sensors to provide data. Also developing a digital twin and using it for simulation as an aid to executive supply chain decision making. Check it out. It’ll be recorded and provided as a LinkedIn Live broadcast as well.
by Gary Mintchell | Jul 21, 2022 | Automation, Manufacturing IT, News, Security
I received this news late last week, Tuesday, July 19, Dragos and Emerson announced a partnership to strengthen ICS/OT cybersecurity and protect the critical infrastructure of industrial processes at the plant floor.
Emerson is a major industrial control system and software supplier while Dragos provides cybersecurity solutions above the device level. Emerson’s representatives typically interact with a company’s operation technology (OT) personnel. Dragos representatives forge close ties with the CISO team or other IT-oriented functions.
Why does this partnership make sense? I talked with Dan Schaffer, Dragos Sr. Business Development Manager, to gain an insight.
He told me OEMs have close ties to the operation technology side of a company, while cybersecurity companies maintain close ties to parts of the IT side. While most companies have succeeded in fostering environments bringing the two groups together, OT and IT inevitably have different pain points. Bringing a partnership of OEM and Security companies to the conversation adds value to the customer.
Schaffer pointed to an earlier partnership between the two companies through the Ovation water/wastewater business. This partnership adds DeltaV to the mix greatly expanding markets that can be served. Having Dragos validated on DeltaV provides more confidence for customers.
The partnership, among other things, includes a deep technology integration that will improve threat detection and response across the entire industrial OT environment and add Dragos Platform capabilities hyper-focused on DeltaV DCS-specific ICS networks.
This from the press release:
With this agreement expansion, Emerson has validated the Dragos Platform within its DeltaVTM distributed control system (DCS) providing organizations with greatly enhanced ICS/OT cybersecurity. This extended agreement builds on the initial global agreement between Dragos and Emerson to protect industrial control systems and operational technologies for power producers and water utilities to now include organizations in dozens of industries including oil and gas, chemical, petrochemical, food and beverage, pharmaceutical, pulp and paper, metals and mining, and others.
Emerson has agreements with cybersecurity companies at the end point. Here is a description of what this partnership brings.
The Dragos OT Security Platform is focused on reducing cyber risk to industrial environments. It provides visibility into assets and vulnerabilities, detects cyber threats to industrial systems, and enables efficient response through forensic investigation and OT-specific playbooks.
Speaking of those playbooks—Schaffer mentioned them in our conversation. They reminded me of descriptions within the book The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande. Indeed, there are similarities. They are similar to the books pilots of commercial airlines refer to in emergencies to remember critical steps for recovering control. Operators seldom see cyber attacks. When they do, such a guide would be invaluable.
by Gary Mintchell | Jul 20, 2022 | Commentary, News
I met Çağlayan Arkan, Vice President, Global Strategy and Sales Lead, Manufacturing and Supply Chain at Microsoft, a few years ago. Checking through Microsoft press information recently, I came across his blog reporting from Hannover in May. Here are four trends he picked up.
He begins by citing Microsoft partners at the event: ABB, Ansys, Accenture, Avanade, AVEVA, Blue Yonder, Cognite, C3.ai, ICONICS,o9 Solutions, PwC, PROS, PTC, Rockwell Automation, Sight Machine, Tata Consultancy Services, and Tulip Interfaces.
1. Empowering a diverse frontline manufacturing workforce. According to Microsoft’s Work Trend Index, 63% of manufacturing frontline employees are excited about, and ready for, the job opportunities technology creates. Microsoft continually releases products designed to empower workers at all levels.
Everyone who makes a computing and visualization device is working on this trend. And many (most?) build upon one Microsoft technology or another. Twenty years ago Microsoft spokespeople explained how the company’s products were a foundation for others to build applications atop. That concept exists still today.
2. Fueling the next generation of factories with the industrial metaverse. Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing serves as the foundation for the “industrial metaverse,” which converges physical and digital worlds to bring the factory of the future to life through advanced technologies including IoT, AI, digital twins, mixed reality and autonomous systems.
Are you as tired of “metaverse” as I? However, augmented reality devices exist. I’ve tried on a variety at trade shows. I don’t think this is a technology in search of an application. There are use cases. As soon as they become easier to use, they’ll be everywhere.
3. Designing more resilient supply chains. Dynamics 365 enhances end-to-end supply chain visibility, enables flexible real-time planning and optimizes and automates fulfillment by seamlessly coordinating business processes to mitigate constraints. With Microsoft Teams embedded within the Dynamics 365 supply chain portfolio, collaborating to achieve consensus with internal team members and external partners is more streamlined, and can happen in near real-time.
Everyone who has any brush with news sources over the past couple of years knows about supply chain. And how they can’t get things they desire because of disruptions in the supply chain. Microsoft has products to mitigate problems.
4. Accelerating the manufacturing sustainability journey. Within manufacturing we have a tremendous opportunity to use the power of technology to achieve environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals, improve sustainability and deliver long-term value for customers. Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability, available June 1, empowers manufacturers to accelerate their sustainability journey with solutions that unify data and enable comprehensive, integrated and increasingly automated sustainability management.
Sustainability is on every company’s radar. Need we say more?
by Gary Mintchell | Jul 19, 2022 | Cloud, Manufacturing IT, Operations Management, Software
Current trends in software product management mandate new platforms to bring disparate applications together into some semblance of coherence. A few years back the term was “breaking down silos.” That term continues to pop up at times. As well as collaboration and cross-functional.
If any readers of this blog including the tens of thousands in Europe and Asia are still struggling with silos or figuring out how to get people to work together, you’re behind. Get with it. Astute managers have figured out how to get IT and OT to work together for several years.
I say this as context for another reason companies construct these platforms—acquisitions. Hexagon has filled its shopping cart recently with many companies. It is now up to management to find a way to bring coherence to the portfolio. Hexagon’s solution introduced at it’s user conference in Las Vegas in June is dubbed Nexus.
• The platform will connect people, technology, and data across the design, production and manufacturing workflow
• It will empower cross-functional teams with the insights to collaborate instinctively in real time
• Cloud-based technologies, applications, and solutions accelerate new product development
I think cloud-based is the key. Open APIs and cloud technologies such as modern databases enable a new generation of software solutions for customers.
Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence division has announced an open platform for smart manufacturing, Nexus, which will revolutionise how technology professionals collaborate and innovate.
Nexus is the foundation for Hexagon’s new solution offerings in the smart manufacturing space going forward. Today, it is capable of leveraging Hexagon data sources from across the portfolio. Visualisations and data management solutions such as HxGN Metrology Reporting and MaterialCenter have been built as cloud-native connected applications, and will be connected through Nexus.
by Gary Mintchell | Jul 18, 2022 | Commentary, News
The space seldom goes in for breaking news. Or repeating the same news ad nauseam like the TV folks do. You’ve probably already seen the news of the names of the final breakup of the GE company. Here are a few of my thoughts.
I tease the marketing aspect of the announcement. But I guess they must do it, not for us but for Wall Street.
Jack Welch was never my hero. His jump into financial businesses took the company’s eye off the target. His entertainment acquisitions had to be just to feed the ego of someone who liked visibility with stars. The main businesses kept chugging along despite all that and his financial shuffling.
Executives couldn’t find a buyer for Digital on its own. It will continue to be a solid supporter of the electrical and energy business. For some of you also a valued supplier.
I like focused businesses. These three new companies should do well.
Linda Boff, CMO GE, posted on LinkedIn, “Today is a historic day for GE as we announce the brand names of the future companies GE will create through its planned separation into three industry-leading, global, investment-grade public companies.” Well, she is marketing, so she had to throw in those extra adjectives.
I worked for a company some 20 years ago that proudly unveiled a new logo. It took a two-page memo to explain the image and the typeface and color and why it took a team a year to come up with it. Probably the reason that I only lasted a couple of years in a marketing role—I think that if you have to explain it, it isn’t good.
So, the name of the company I will be most interested in must be explained…
Boff continued, “We have spent the last six months engaged in a thorough and thoughtful process to understand the intrinsic value of the GE brand. Through thousands of conversations with global customers, employees, and others, it became clear that the GE name and our century-plus old monogram represent a legacy of innovation, symbol of trust, pride for our team, and a talent magnet for future leaders. It is a brand that resonates and opens doors the world over and is respected, indeed loved, by so many.”
It took six months to figure out that GE is a known and respected brand name?
She unveils the key statement—finally, “And so it is with immense pride that I introduce you to the next generation of GE – GE HealthCare, GE Vernova, and GE Aerospace.”
OK, HealthCare and Aerospace are explanatory. Those companies are customers for many of you. Vernova? (The auto correct wouldn’t let me type it.) It’s GE Energy plus GE Digital. Or, as the press release puts it, GE’s portfolio of energy businesses, including GE Renewable Energy, GE Power, GE Digital, and GE Energy Financial Services, to come together as GE Vernova.
GE Chairman and CEO Larry Culp said, “Leveraging GE’s multi-billion-dollar global brand gives us a competitive advantage in our end markets, allowing these businesses to win in the future.”
In early 2024, GE plans to execute the tax-free spin-off of GE Vernova, GE’s portfolio of energy businesses, which together with its customers provides one-third of the world’s electricity and is focused on accelerating the path to reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy. The new name is a combination of “ver,” derived from “verde” and “verdant” to signal the greens and blues of the Earth, and “nova,” from the Latin “novus,” or “new,” reflecting a new and innovative era of lower carbon energy that GE Vernova will help deliver. These attributes also are reflected in GE Vernova’s new “evergreen” brand color. With an installed base of more than 7,000 gas turbines and 400 GW of renewable energy equipment, GE Vernova’s Monogram will serve as a reminder of the company’s lasting commitments to deliver quality, partnership, and ingenuity to its customers.
Following these planned spin-offs, GE will be an aviation-focused company called GE Aerospace.
