by Gary Mintchell | Apr 23, 2020 | Manufacturing IT
Some analysts believe manufacturing generates more data than any other sector. Maybe, maybe not. But we do have the ability to rapidly generate a lot of data. Storage gets to be an interesting part of a manufacturing IT equation. This midsize storage solution from Hitachi Vantara could be just what you need at the plant level.
In brief:
- 4:1 Data De-Duplication Delivers a Guaranteed 75% Improvement in Storage Capacity
- New Ops Center Software Features AI-Driven Management Tools to Simplify Storage Provisioning For AI, ML and Containerized Apps
- New EverFlex from Hitachi Vantara Provides More Choice to Help Customers Move to Pay-Per-Use Consumption Models
Hitachi Vantara, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., introduced Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform (VSP) E990, the company’s new storage platform for midsize enterprise customers.
Feature summary. The E990 combines high performance and low latency with industry-leading data de-duplication guarantees storage cost reductions. Hitachi Ops Center’s artificial intelligence (AI)-driven management software can simplify storage provisioning for AI, machine learning (ML) and containerized applications. The E990 with Hitachi Ops Center provides an NVMe all-flash option for Hitachi Vantara’s family of solutions for midsize enterprises including Hitachi’s signature 100% data availability guarantee for businesses of all sizes.
The company also unveiled EverFlex, a program that provides simple, elastic and comprehensive acquisition choices for the E990 and the entire Hitachi Vantara portfolio. EverFlex adds consumption-based pricing models that range from basic utility pricing, to custom outcome-based services, to Storage-as-a-Service.
Availability
Hitachi VSP E990, Hitachi Ops Center and EverFlex are available globally from Hitachi Vantara and its network of partners.
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 17, 2020 | Internet of Things, Podcast, Technology
In a turnaround, this time I’m doing an interview. First one in years. This episode is an interview with Yuval Boger, CMO of Wi-Charge, who talks about wireless remote power for charging IoT devices with light. There was a gap between this and my last podcast. In the interim, we sold a house, bought a house, and moved to another state–all at the beginning of the covid-19 rise and the shelter-in-place orders. It has been crazy times. Now, we’ve plenty of time to get used to the new house. I hope everyone listening is doing well.
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 15, 2020 | Leadership, Manufacturing IT, Personal Development
My new office is getting organized. Better than my outside life. Remind me why we moved 200 miles north when I went outside for some exercise in 0.5-in. of snow with some icy patches on the trail. Didn’t do my Fartlek run this morning. But, I am relishing one of my new favorite news sites–Morning Brew. Check it out.
I might have a new office with the getting into a new routine with a new house and neighborhood plus the revised routine due to shelter-in-place. Some things remain the same. Half of my emails deal with “Digital Transformation.”
Sometimes I think we’ve been going down this road for such a long time that no one except the worst of the laggards is not already reaping dividends from digital projects.
Speaking of laggards, let me drift a moment into what must be a gross lack of leadership and management. No, I’m talking about government.
Virginia-based Smithfield Foods announced Sunday that it is closing its pork processing plant in Sioux Falls until further notice after hundreds of employees tested positive for the coronavirus — a step the head of the company warned could hurt the nation’s meat supply.
Here is a statistic—Health officials said Sunday that 293 of the 730 people who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in South Dakota work at the plant.
So what does our genius leader say? Is he concerned about the health and safety of his workers for whom he has responsibility? Well, “The closure of this facility, combined with a growing list of other protein plants that have shuttered across our industry, is pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply,“ Smithfield president and CEO Kenneth Sullivan said in a statement. “It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running. These facility closures will also have severe, perhaps disastrous, repercussions for many in the supply chain, first and foremost our nation’s livestock farmers.”
Sounds more like he’s whining than stepping up to the plate taking responsibility and changing the culture and workplace.
Back to the regularly scheduled program—lack of digital transformation.
I read every blog post of Seth Godin and listen to his awesome podcast. Marketing and management along with thinking is his schtick not so much tech. But yesterday, he reached out and touched a sour note for our manufacturing and production leaders.
Try this on:
Some of the shift to digital is unwanted, fraught with risk and lonely.
But in some areas, organizations and leaders are realizing that it’s actually more powerful and efficient.
So why didn’t you do it before?
Because it’s easier to follow.
Because it’s more comfortable to stay where we are.
Waiting to do something because you’re forced to is rarely a positive approach to growth or leadership. Abrupt shifts against our will may cause change, but they’re inefficient and destabilizing.
Next time, take the lead. Not because you have to, but because you can.
Be like Seth. Take the lead—because you can.
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 14, 2020 | Manufacturing IT, Standards
The “edge” has become one of the most popular words in manufacturing enterprise architecture over the past several years. Want to know what it is? Here is an organization attempting a definition. Linux Foundation is definitely an information source to bookmark. Maybe even get involved with.
The news in short:
• State of the Edge will continue as the industry’s first open research program on edge computing
• Under LF Edge, State of the Edge, Open Glossary of Edge Computing and the Landscape will continue to pave the way for industry alignment
LF Edge, an umbrella organization under The Linux Foundation that aims to establish an open, interoperable framework for edge computing independent of hardware, silicon, cloud, or operating system, announced that it has acquired State of the Edge, a vendor-neutral platform for open research on edge computing. The State of the Edge will merge with Open Glossary of Edge Computing and the combined project will assume the State of the Edge name as a Stage 2 project (growth) under LF Edge.
Founded in 2017 by industry pioneers Vapor IO, Packet by Equinix, Edge Gravity by Ericsson, Arm, and Rafay Systems, the State of the Edge organization has published three major edge research reports, all offered free- of- charge under a Creative Commons license: the 2018 State of the Edge report, the 2019 Data at the Edge report and, most recently, the 2020 State of the Edge report. The organization’s founding co-chairs, Matthew Trifiro, CMO of Vapor IO, and Jacob Smith, VP Bare Metal Strategy & Marketing of Equinix, will remain as co-chairs of State of the Edge.
“We launched State of the Edge in 2018 as an effort to align and educate the market on what edge computing truly is, and what is needed to implement it,” said Trifiro. “Edge computing represents a long-term transformation of the Internet, and together this coalition has created a community-supported research model second to none. We’re thrilled to contribute this program to LF Edge, where we believe it can flourish even further.”
With its open governance model, LF Edge will continue to advance the State of the Edge under the project’s original mission, which has been to accelerate the edge computing industry by developing free, shareable research that can be used by all.
“As edge computing continues to evolve and expand, our goal with State of the Edge is to bring clarity and simplicity to the critical infrastructure required to support the future of edge computing,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking, Edge, and IoT, the Linux Foundation. “The LF Edge projects span the continuum from cloud to device and, with the addition of State of the Edge, we’ll be able to bring our community and ecosystem closer to a more comprehensive edge stack, delivering shared innovation across technology sectors at the edge”.
The State of the Edge project will manage and produce the following assets under the LF Edge umbrella:
• State of the Edge reports (the 2020 report was published in Q4 2019; the 2021 report is scheduled for Q4 2020)
• Open Glossary of Edge Computing
• Edge Computing Landscape
All State of the Edge projects will continue to be produced and funded collaboratively, with an explicit goal of producing original research without vendor bias and involving a diverse set of stakeholders. Supported by member funds and a community-driven philosophy, the State of the Edge mission has been to accelerate the edge computing industry by developing free, shareable research that can be used by all. The program will continue alongside a community that cares deeply about edge computing and the innovations that will be required to bring its promise to fruition.
Launched last January, LF Edge’s projects (Akraino Edge Stack, Baetyl, EdgeX Foundry, Fledge, Home Edge and Project EVE) support emerging edge applications across areas such as non-traditional video and connected things that require lower latency, and faster processing and mobility. By forming a software stack that brings the best of cloud, enterprise and telecom, LF Edge helps to unify a fragmented edge market around a common, open vision for the future of the industry.
For information on how to participate in the project, please contact [email protected].
Resources
• LF Edge website
• State of the Edge website
• Blog
About The Linux Foundation
Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation is supported by more than 1,000 members and is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. Linux Foundation’s projects are critical to the world’s infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, and more. The Linux Foundation’s methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration.
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 10, 2020 | Business, Manufacturing IT
Supplier companies have been working to find innovative ways to support the newly remote work force. Some of us have been set up for years for remote work with appropriate security and workflow. Others by the thousands were forced into it in order to stymie the spread of the Coronavirus. Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has responded in many ways. Here is a new program.
We knew we could help, so we have made HPE Integrated Lights-Out (iLO) Advanced FREE OF CHARGE for all HPE customers and partners through December 31, 2020.
This will empower administrators to manage their environments in a safe and reliable manner through HPE iLO’s robust remote capabilities via a rich remote server management experience that’s easy to use – and it also provides end-to-end server security.
To learn more how HPE iLO Advanced can help our customers and partners, and to learn how to register for the free trial, you can read the recently posted HPE community blog.
Here is an excerpt from the blog post by Sandy_Ono, VP Marketing Strategy, eCommerce, and SMB Marketing worldwide at HPE.
In today’s environment, many HPE customers and partners have been faced with new challenges, such as closed offices, inaccessible server rooms, and and/or work-from-home mandates. And like many businesses across the globe, they may find themselves needing to quickly adapt to continue to serve their customers’ needs. If you are an HPE customer or partner (or plan to be), know that we are here to support you, so you can focus on your customers.
Here is one way we can help. We have made HPE Integrated Lights-Out (iLO) Advanced FREE OF CHARGE for all HPE customers and partners through December 31, 2020. Normally offered at a cost, this server management software enables you to configure, monitor, and update HPE servers (see footnote) seamlessly – from anywhere. This will empower administrators to manage their environments in a safe and reliable manner through HPE iLO’s robust remote capabilities via a rich remote server management experience that’s easy to use – and it also provides end-to-end server security. When paired with our FREE HPE iLO Amplifier Pack software, this license provides scale and additional recovery capabilities to support your business continuity.
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 9, 2020 | Internet of Things, Manufacturing IT, Operations Management
This is a story about Bill Johnson, vice president of operations for Madison, WI-based Madison-Kipp Corp. (MKC). The company makes precision machined aluminum die castings and subassemblies for the transportation, lawn & garden, and industrial markets. The company faced two objectives to enhance competitiveness—to bring down costs and raise efficiency.
“Technology is very important to us,” said Bill Johnson, vice president of operations for MKC. “We have to keep ahead of our competitors in many different areas. Using Ignition and taking real-time data from our processes helps us understand our data — which helps us make better decisions.”
Note: I very seldom write this type of story anymore. When we laid out the editorial direction for Automation World back in the day, I wanted stories about the intelligent application of automation with the people doing the work as the hero of the story. Typically, these stories come from the marketing department of supplier company. They write about what they know—the hero of the story is their product or service. Since these stories are so hard to come by, I decided not to pursue them for The Manufacturing Connection even though stories are more powerful than a bunch of bullet points.
Back to the story. Unfortunately there are no specific numbers about savings, but Johnson describes the “before” scene—that is, before they implemented Ignition by Inductive Automation, an industrial application platform with tools for building solutions in human-machine interface (HMI), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).
“Some of the results we have are in the cost savings realm, and we’ve also seen improved efficiency,” said Johnson. “Before, engineers had to collect data on their own. This would take a long time. Now, we’re able to pull that data in and look at it and solve problems very quickly.”
“Using the built-in connectivity, the Ignition platform has filled a void for us between multiple manufacturers and platforms,” said Jay Sandvick, senior automation controls engineer at MKC. “It’s given us interoperability that we didn’t believe we could have. We now have accessibility to data streams we didn’t have before. And we have the ability to generate seamless reports from machines that were previously thought unconnectable.”
Dotti Jacob, industrial integration engineer at MKC, adds, “We are now allowed us to use different programming languages, and tie into all sorts of different systems, without being held back by proprietary issues.”
The platform’s interoperability has allowed MKC to streamline its systems. “Before Ignition, we were reliant on various software packages that were frankly a nightmare to maintain and pay for,” said Sandvick. “With Ignition, we have a single-point interface, a single cost, and it has more than exceeded our expectations in talking to various machines.”
Remote access has been greatly improved. “Before, if I was at a different facility and there were troubleshooting issues, I would have to travel there to help out,” said Jacob. “Now that we have Ignition, I can access the SCADA from anywhere and see in real time actual images of the different machines and what they’re doing, which is very helpful for troubleshooting. Having real-time data, we can access from anywhere allows us to see and address the issue a lot more quickly than we could in the past — which saves us time and money.”
You can use your software platform to allow customers visibility into the production of their orders. “Our customers really enjoy the ability to see real-time data on their products being produced,” said Scott Sargeant, vice president of sales for MKC. “It allows them to understand things without having to travel to our location — which of course saves them time and money. We’re talking about a paradigm shift in information sharing. It really gives our customers a window into the production environment. And our ability to provide this helps differentiate Madison-Kipp from other manufacturers.”
Sargeant adds, “Now our customers can see that data, can understand impactful events, downtime, and other important issues in production.”
Ignition allows users to import CAD drawings of the plant floor as the background for screens. The screens show real-time movement of robots, so operators always have an accurate view of what’s happening. “Before, we had to use these cookie-cutter images that were not very accurate to what was actually happening on the floor,” said Jacob. “Now we’re able to take a CAD drawing of the equipment, and it can move in real time with however the equipment’s moving, and that’s very helpful.”
Training is a key differentiator for technology suppliers. Jacob said Inductive University—the free online educational center with hundreds of videos allowing users to learn at their own pace has been an additional benefit. “When I started with Madison-Kipp, I’d never heard of Ignition,” said Jacob. “I was able to get up to speed very quickly because Inductive University has videos that teach you anything you need to know in order to be successful using the software.”
