by Gary Mintchell | May 15, 2026 | Data Management, Manufacturing IT, Operations Management
This is one of those press releases that have come to me for years that a typical magazine would just republish and call it news but leaves me wishing for much more information. Like who, what, how. The story concerns implementing a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) that enabled doubling of production through the consolidation of data.
I’d love to know more, but this comes from Rockwell Automation—a company who tempts me with cool information but then never follows through. So, if you’re a Rockwell customer checking out their MES solutions, perhaps your account manager can supply you with a deeper look into what appears to be a promising application.
News in brief: Century-old Pacific Northwest co-packer consolidates nine systems into one, achieves 99% inventory accuracy, and wins 2025 Plex Transformer Impact Award
Rockwell Automation announced that Portland Bottling Company (PBC), a leading U.S. West Coast beverage co‑packer, has been named a recipient of the 2025 Plex Transformer Impact Award. PBC earned recognition after doubling its monthly production volume and achieving measurable operational improvements following its deployment of the Plex Smart Manufacturing Platform.
Founded in 1924 and based in Clackamas, Oregon, PBC specializes in ready-to-drink beverages manufactured exclusively in aluminum cans. As customer demand increased, PBC recognized the need for greater operational visibility and control. Prior to implementing Plex in 2020, the company relied on nine disconnected technologies with no single source of truth. Manual inventory processes introduced data errors, limited production insight and reduced the company’s ability to respond quickly to customer needs.
To address these challenges, PBC worked with Plex partner Revolution Group to implement Plex Manufacturing Execution System (MES) — including Plex MES Automation & Orchestration (A&O) and Plex Quality Management System (QMS). By consolidating its technology landscape into one connected platform, PBC provided every department, from production and quality to inventory and maintenance, access to the same real-time operational data, eliminating silos that had previously constrained growth.
“Tracking our customers’ inventory accurately is paramount to our business. Plex enables us to do this efficiently and easily report on-hand balances and warehouse charges,” said Robert Van Blake, IT director, Portland Bottling Company. “Real-time data is a key factor in operational productivity improvements. Prior to Plex, this data was cumbersome to collect and subject to human error.”
The impact of transformation was both immediate and sustained. PBC increased production volumes from 900,000 to two million case equivalents per month. Inventory accuracy reached 99%, while shipping accuracy hit 100%. Productivity improved by 10% and waste dropped by 20% and maintenance response times decreased—enabling the company to scale operations while maintaining quality and customer service.
“Plex MES extends beyond execution to help manufacturers bring greater coordination and visibility across quality, inventory and production,” said Michael Hart, head of industry strategy and growth, Rockwell Automation. “Portland Bottling Company’s transformation brings this to life, showing how a connected operational foundation can drive both efficiency and scalable growth.”
by Gary Mintchell | May 14, 2026 | Generative AI, Manufacturing IT, Operations Management, Software
I devoted three days in April to attend the Aras Community Event (ACE 2026) in Miami, FL. Even though I am not a specialized market analyst in that market, I’ve been involved with the application of product lifecycle management ever since I was “The Kid in Engineering” at a manufacturing company back when, well, I was just a bit older than a “kid.”
Our company (another company that designed and built automated assembly equipment) transitioned to computer-aided design (CAD) while I was in management. Later, I became involved with AutoCAD.
So, there are memories of the great advances in the technology and capabilities.
My first summary of my three days with the Aras community in Miami was recorded on my podcast and YouTube channels. As I wrote at the time, “These PLM events always return me to the time when I did this sort of work–manually. Then my first taste of computers digitizing the bill of materials as a first step in our data management journey.”
Aras product managers showed how LLMs trained on the data within the app along with proper governance worked with agents to perform a number of tasks. Tasks in many cases that would require days of pain-staking work from a human.
While I heard from an analyst in the market that they thought this was all painfully slow, I’d offer the thought that a company does not want to outpace its customers. Most will not want to jump into the deep end immediately.
Chatting with CTO Rob McAveney, I heard how the company is taking a balanced approach to introducing these new technologies assuring that they are bringing their customer base along laying out the progression of “agentification of PLM.” The vision includes turning Aras Innovator into an “enterprise nervous system.”
The pressure of digitalization and the so-called digital transformation of companies drives these developers and suppliers into trying to find solutions to the immense data problems they face. Aras’ core technology lies in the digital thread, a topic often referred to.
Ironically, my discussions with Aras and some customers and prospects during the conference revealed an unhealthy fact that I’ve often heard in another software application market—MES. It seems that few users use the full complement of solutions offered by the vendors. This means that what could be a mature market is actually open for new solutions—meaning an innovative upstart like Aras has opportunity for market growth.
I researched the market using my favorite search engine—Claude.ai. The global PLM & Engineering software market reached $31.1 billion in 2024, growing 9.7% year-over-year, and is projected to hit $41.6 billion by 2029 at a ~6% CAGR. The top 10 vendors account for roughly 85% of the total market.
The leading suppliers include Siemens Digital Industries, Dassault Systèms, PTC, and Autodesk. Analysts report Aras Innovator is built for adaptability, offering a platform designed to evolve quickly with a low-code development environment and strong Digital Thread capabilities.
The four key development points for Aras agentic AI and LLMs, which were repeated often are:
- Trust
- Governance
- Observability
- Explainability
Shortly following the Aras event, I attended virtually the Siemens press conference from Hannover Fair.
Further research between the two revealed these thoughts from a variety of analysts.
Siemens Teamcenter Copilot is powerful but bounded. Siemens’ approach includes Teamcenter Copilot and AI Chat for natural language queries, RapidMiner for spotting quality issues, and AI extraction of procedures from static PDFs. Siemens describes it as “training AI in the language of engineering and manufacturing” — embedding domain-specific intelligence aligned with physics, lifecycle context, and operational constraints.
However, what Siemens is doing is focused, practical, and grounded in helping users navigate data Siemens already manages well. The copilots do not attempt to extend beyond Teamcenter — they do not ingest data from other PLM tools or external systems that influence product decisions, and the improvements remain confined to the boundaries of one platform.
Aras’s approach is architecturally more open. InnovatorEdge is designed so that product data, processes, and digital thread remain governed inside the core platform, while Edge services make them consumable everywhere else — enabling agents to link data across PLM, ERP, IoT, and documents.
One independent analyst commentary summarized the broader landscape bluntly: all four major PLM vendors — Siemens, Dassault, PTC, and Aras — are adding AI inside their products, but none of them are rethinking PLM architecture for an agent-native future. They are embedding assistants inside old systems rather than redesigning systems around the needs of agents. That said, Aras’s open, low-code, API-first architecture puts it structurally closer to an agent-ready foundation than Siemens’s more monolithic platform.
ACE attendees noted that while AI’s transformative potential was clear, discussions also centered on the need for human oversight, data governance, and addressing concerns about traceability and the dynamic nature of LLMs — suggesting customers are excited but appropriately cautious about full autonomy.
by Gary Mintchell | May 8, 2026 | Generative AI, Manufacturing IT, Operations Management
I wrote Monday about the key role of the involvement of the frontline worker implementing new technologies such as AI. Digital transformation does not truly occur until the work is done by the frontline workers and their immediate supervisors.
This follow up post results from a survey by PwC and the Manufacturing Institute and the subsequent report From skepticism to integration: Frontline leadership in manufacturing AI adoption.
Top Findings:
- 62% of frontline workers are skeptical of AI and only 24% describe themselves as being excited about its potential and benefits
- Frontline leaders cite insufficient training (40%) and lack of clarity around the purpose of AI (38%) as the most common reasons for resistance among workers, higher than fears of job displacement (25%)
- 72% of manufacturing leaders cite resistance from employees who are comfortable with existing systems as a barrier to AI adoption, and 57% identify lack of training and readiness
- 58% of respondents reported that AI use among executive leadership remains limited; however, 74% identify leadership as the defining factor in the success of major initiatives
- 48% of manufacturing executives rate their frontline leaders as “very” or “extremely” effective in shaping to the overall employee experience of frontline workers
I talked with author Ryan Hawk about the findings. He says sometimes the organization implements an incremental bite of the apple without an overall plan. This leaves the frontline wondering what’s really going on. The keys he talked about sounds like a typical lack of leadership by management from the top down. In order to build the trust of the frontline worker, the goals and applications need to be clear from the beginning.
He responded to questions about real applications of AI, he pointed to things that have great benefit to the worker and their output. Inspection helps workers assure work quality. Predictive maintenance helps them know when to ask for technician support prior to breakdown. Sometimes the schedule or line must be rebalanced perhaps due to absenteeism or inventory. All these assist decision making, performance, and work quality.
These thoughts brought memories of the business novel The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt. This was a story about a plant manager working to save his plant through the tool of studying constraints in the system. Innovative leaders can use these new LLMs and other AI tools to more effectively find these constraints and other problems that a good kaizen team can tackle.
“AI adoption isn’t just a technology initiative; it’s a business initiative that has the power to transform the way people work,” said PwC US Energy & Industrials Leader Ryan Hawk. “The organizations that pull ahead will be the ones that find ways to be tech-driven and people-enabled, using AI to empower their employees to solve the biggest customer and business issues. Companies that find ways to continually evolve their ways of working will see AI help unlock tangible value, efficiency and effectiveness.”
by Gary Mintchell | May 1, 2026 | Cloud, Generative AI, Manufacturing IT, Software
Yes, I know that a couple of weeks have passed since I returned from Miami and the Aras Community Event. I got a quick podcast (also YouTube) recap posted, then went on vacation. This week had more appointments than my usual month. I’ve done a bunch of research (thanks Claude) and have much to digest. That’ll be tomorrow’s work (in between helping replace my daughter’s front door hardware and catching an English Premier League game). Tonight, a concert at Chicago Symphony Center celebrating Chicago’s contributions to jazz.
I also have two things in queue regarding frontline workers–one from ACE and another a report from PwC where I finally was able to connect with the report’s author.
Finally in queue, are thoughts from the Siemens press conference from Hannover Fair. A bit of compare and contrast with the ACE experience with AI, LLMs, and agents.
Have a good weekend. Back Monday.
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 28, 2026 | Manufacturing IT, Software
Ignition 8.3.5 is here, and Inductive Automation’s Jennifer Faylor explains on the company blog.
Expanded OPC UA support
Ignition 8.3.5 delivers OPC UA support for using a Global Discovery Server, a new file-based Secret Provider type, and major improvements for large-scale systems (including an OverridesOnly tag parameter and 4X increased throughput for managed tag providers).
In Ignition 8.3.5, you now have the ability to automate the certificate management of multiple OPC servers and devices from a single Global Discovery Server (GDS). This is possible thanks to a new property on the OPC UA Server Settings page: “GDS Push Enabled.” When this new property is enabled, the server’s certificate and trust list can be managed by an external GDS.
With this new functionality you can use an external GDS to centrally manage a dispersed system. By opening the door to central certificate management with a GDS, this new feature helps strengthen security in your industrial control systems.
File-Based Secret Provider
Another security improvement in 8.3.5 is a brand new way to store secrets from your Ignition Gateway. A new “File” Secret Provider type lets you read secrets in files on disk, as opposed to storing them internally on the Gateway installation directory. This Secret Provider supports encrypted (Ignition) secrets as well as cleartext secrets.
OverridesOnly Tag Parameter
As a result of some Ignition users’ more complex scripting needs, we’ve added a new overridesOnly parameter to the system.tag.getConfiguration() function. What this means is that when you’re calling the getConfiguration function for a specific tag path, you can now have just the local (overridden) properties returned. If this new parameter is set to “True” then only overridden properties from UDT members (instances and definitions) will be returned. And if the tag is not a UDT member, then there will be no effect.
Improved Gateway Configuration
In 8.3.5, we’ve improved the performance of the Gateway’s configuration file system and added new Gateway diagnostic resource metrics.
By allowing operations on different resource types to proceed concurrently with minimal locking on changes, we’ve greatly boosted the performance and responsiveness of the Gateway’s configuration system. This update optimizes tag value handling and increases throughput by 4X for managed tag providers.
The process of writing Ignition resources (such as EAM agents, OPC UA server profiles, database connections, SIP notification profiles, and more) into the Gateway file system is now significantly improved. And thanks to the new diagnostic resource metrics, you can use the Metrics Dashboard to observe those various resources more closely.
This update is an especially big deal for anyone using MQTT modules with Ignition, since it represents a substantial increase in capabilities for customers with large systems.
Docker Utility
We added the jq command-line utility to Ignition’s Docker image for easier JSON parsing. This is a helpful addition if you’re customizing Helm charts or entrypoint scripts, since you can use this utility to grab specific properties from particular files.
Event Streams Improvements
Ignition 8.3.5 adds tooltips to each stage of an Event Stream’s data to provide you with additional context. These tooltips display upon hovering over element subtext, and update dynamically as real-time values change.
And there’s more to discover on their website.
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 27, 2026 | Manufacturing IT, Software
I had an opportunity to talk with long-time business colleague Juliann Grant at the recent Aras Community Event in Miami. She is Marketing VP at digital engineering firm Razorleaf. She’s been a great source of PLM market insight. She told me about a podcast she hosts. Stay Sharp in Digital Engineering presented by Razorleaf, is a brisk conversational look at news and technology in the space. The linked episode will improve your understanding of AI agents with Razorleaf and Diego Tamburini of CIMData.
I highly recommend both this episode and the series. You can subscribe on your favorite podcast source or on YouTube.
