Reshoring Initiative Report and News
I have had a bunch of vacation travel (with another upcoming) so am a bit behind on some news. The Reshoring Initiative has had an admirable proselytizing activity for quite some time. I’ve met and talked with its President, Harry Moser, a couple of times. Even...
Yokogawa Collaborates with Shell on Robotics and AI Technology for Plant Maintenance
Process automation companies like sending press releases when they get a new project. This news in interesting on two fronts. One, it details the use of drones and robots for monitoring and maintenance. Two, this details Yokogawa and Shell working together on the...
Trump Administration New Plan for Apple Manufacturing
There are two groups of people I’ve yet to see anything approaching intelligence about manufacturing—politicians and journalists. M.G. Siegler writes in his latest newsletter about the new pressures from the Trump administration to get Apple to manufacture iPhones in...
Datadobi Enables Smarter Data Automation, Governance, and Compliant S3 Migration
This news concerns unstructured data management. I wrote about Datadobi several times in 2021 and 2022. Not much since. They have released a new version of their StorageMAP, its “heterogeneous unstructured data management solution.” StorageMAP 7.3 enables...
Independence Day
Every year I suggest that all Americans take some time to read a few things to refresh our memories about the founding of our country. It’s probably not a bad practice for all of you who do not live here just for the ideals. Read The Declaration of Independence...
Recalibrating for impact: Strategic M&A amid market realignment
PwC have released a report on industrial manufacturing merger & acquisition (M&A) activity for the first half of 2025. The report suggests a recalibration of capital allocation in response to shifting macro conditions. Deal volume moderated amid new US...
Unless You Become Like Children
Learning is not compulsory…neither is survival—W. Edwards Deming, quality master There are people who have a set of things they know and judge all events and actions against that set. There are people who have the continuous unease of not knowing. The former can be...
Voice Agent API
Deepgram is an intriguing company. Have they solved the problem that Apple still misses with Siri or Amazon with its new Alexa? They bill themselves as “World’s Only Enterprise-Ready, Real-Time, and Cost-Effective Conversational AI API.” They have developed a voice AI...
Self-Help Industry in a Sentence
From Shane Parrish of Brain Food. The entire self-help industry in one sentence: Do what makes mornings exciting and nights peaceful. Will this make me excited to wake up? Will this let me sleep in peace? Everything that fails both tests is noise. Health begins with...
Ignition Community Conference 2025
Openings remain for this year’s Ignition Community Conference. This event usually sells out quickly, so I was amazed to learn spots remain open to attend. Of course, Inductive Automation changed venues from the Harris Center in Folsom to the Sacramento Conference...