by Gary Mintchell | Dec 1, 2015 | Marketing, News, Productivity
My new boss was chatting with me in his office. He turned to a shelf with notebooks and pulled one off the shelf. Opening it to a tab, he removed a section and told me to copy it and start my own notebook.
The contents were articles clipped and copied from trade press, B2B, magazines. He had given me a new position as program manager in product development. These were articles on project management and program management. This was my introduction to the trade press.
I subscribed and read a variety of publications over the course of the next 20 years collecting useful articles. Some of the magazines were quick reads. Articles were by people whose titles were “marketing manager” with the contents reflecting that point of view. Some were written by engineers or other practitioners with useful information.
When I became a trade press editor at Control Engineering in 1998, the media landscape was unchanged. It consisted of magazines delivered by the US Postal Service on a more or less regular basis.
Wow, but do we have so many ways of getting information these days. There remains the inevitable tension within the trade press of writing what advertisers want to see in print versus focusing on useful information for readers. Information availability moved rapidly from print to Web to email to Twitter to LInkedIn and Facebook.
Advantages and deficiencies
Web–I always had trouble “bookmarking” Websites to return to and read. Or to develop a regular system to go to my Websites to read what was new. It was usually impossible to see what was new, anyway. On the other hand, the Web is a great place to store large amounts of information whether for media companies or for technology suppliers. What I have always desired is a push notification telling me not only that something changed, but also directing me to what changed.
Pop-up ads and enticements, pop-overs, cluttered pages, proliferation of ads all serve to destroy my motivation to go to media Websites to read articles. The race to create as much ad revenue as possible has reached the point for me that I hate to visit to try to read an article.
You also have to beware the “listicle” article. Many devices are designed to get you to click–top 10, view three ways, here are 6 things you didn’t know about. Sometimes they even make you click each one individually. Know why? The publisher needs to improve page views and therefore ad impressions. I have mostly quit getting suckered in.
What I will do is go to an “advertiser” site for a good technical or business white paper or other such information. Today you are more likely to get the kind of information there that I used to copy into my notebook. Oh, and today, my notebook is Evernote.
Twitter–Initially a great conversation tool, now there is so much noise that I seldom look at the stream. The tools I used to sort through the flood often were killed by Twitter. This killed much of my enthusiasm. I still Tweet. Some people actually find them.
Email–Believe it or not, emails remain the best way of notifying people with reasons to visit a Website or otherwise send information. Maybe someday there will be a ubiquitous chat app (Messenger or Snapchat or Slack?) that would take the place of email–but wouldn’t it just be another form of email? In the meantime, it’s not email but the misuse of email that is annoying.
General media–I’m seeing many more articles in Forbes, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other such general media publications that once would be seen only in trade press. Coverage of the Internet of Things, for instance, may be stronger there, as well as coverage of safety and security.
The Future
For the curious, check out the recent Notifications Summit put on by a couple of technology luminaries John Borthwick of Betaworks and Steve Gillmor who is a long-time reporter and analyst of technology. Many hours of video were recorded. They were great presentations and conversations about the developing technologies and uses of notifications.
Start with John Borthwick.
Or go to TechCrunch and search for Steve Gillmor.
by Gary Mintchell | Nov 24, 2015 | Marketing
Rebecca Geier was the first marketing person I met at National Instruments in my first year after leaving manufacturing for media. She has remained a friend whom I respect.
A few years ago she left NI and founded TREW Marketing–an agency specializing in helping clients develop and execute marketing projects to an engineering customer.
She has written a book Smart Marketing for Engineers: An Inbound Guide to Reaching Technical Audiences which launches in mid-December on Amazon. She explains the book in a recent blog post.
She sent an early copy of the book to read and review. This is a comprehensive guide to the latest thinking of inbound marketing. It will help you understand the marketing landscape and also understand the unique ways to engage engineers.
Marketing To Technically Minded Audiences
Geier states on her blog, “I have seen firsthand that marketing to technically minded audiences does in fact work, but it has to be as smart as the people it targets. For small engineering and scientific businesses with limited resources or business and sales leaders wearing multiple hats, it’s difficult to even know where to start. And you’re skeptical that the new inbound approach to marketing will even work with your technical audiences.”
Here are three keys to understand the challenge.
“I wrote this book for you. Three points led me to decide to write this book:
- Engineers are smart, so our marketing needs to be equally smart, and trustworthy
- Buyers are in control…they decide when, where and what they will search on and do it mostly on Google
- Marketers now have the challenge and opportunity to get found when our target engineering audiences are searching”
If you are a company CEO or marketing director, do yourself a favor and not only buy the book, but digest its message.
by Gary Mintchell | Nov 17, 2015 | Automation, Manufacturing IT, Operations Management, Process Control
Rockwell Automation kicked off its big week at Chicago’s McCormick Place on Nov. 16 welcoming over 900 attendees to its annual Process Systems Users Group (PSUG) conference. Its speakers left no doubt that the Connected Manufacturing Enterprise is still the core strategy.
The significant point is probably less the message than the fact that Rockwell has attracted that many people to Chicago at a time when many companies–especially in the oil & gas sector–are not sending people to conferences and that Rockwell itself is a relatively new player in process.
John Genovesi, VP Information Software and Process Business, gave the Rockwell “Connected Enterprise” talk for his keynote.
The point of the Connected Enterprise lies in leveraging today’s technology to connect people closer to process to drive more efficient business. We can now get into data in your control system–driving IT/OT convergence driving productivity improvement.
Benefits of the Connected Enterprise include decreased time to market, lower total cost of ownership, improved asset utilization, enterprise risk management.
Rockwell’s three strategies to achieve this include integrated architecture; intelligent motor control (Ethernet connection), solutions & services.
Genovesi continued on to argue for customers to consider taking a “modern DCS approach”–Rockwell’s of course. The modern approach includes:
- Flexible architecture
- Contemporary infrastructure
- Robust security
- Productive workforce
Rockwell Automation has espoused Connected Manufacturing Enterprise as a consistent strategy and focus for years. It is obviously working for the company as it has continued to grow–especially in the process business.
by Gary Mintchell | Nov 13, 2015 | Commentary, News
Merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in the industrial manufacturing industry showed continued strength in the third quarter of 2015, with more than 50 deals worth more than $50 million for the sixth quarter in a row, according to Assembling Value, a quarterly analysis of global deal activity in the industrial manufacturing industry by PwC US. While growing uncertainty about the future prospects for the global economy has created serious underlying fears about the years ahead, manufacturing executives continue to re-evaluate their business portfolios, add scale to better leverage core capabilities, and divest or spin-off non-core operations.
According to PwC, there were 55 transactions (worth more than $50 million) in the third quarter for a total deal value of $20.9 billion. Both value and volume declined from the previous quarter which recorded 66 deals totaling $28.2 billion. However, deal activity year-to-date remained healthy with 180 deals raising $69.6 billion. Four megadeals (transactions worth more than $1 billion) were announced for a total deal value of $9.8 billion or 47 percent of the quarter’s total deal value.
“The continued interest in deal making in the third quarter has been especially notable given weakening global manufacturing activity and increased uncertainty regarding the economic outlook,” said Bobby Bono, U.S. industrial manufacturing leader for PwC. “Manufacturing executives in our latest Manufacturing Barometer reported a drop in optimism towards the world economy’s prospects as the economic slowdown in China, along with weak global demand and a strong dollar, continued to weigh heavily on the growth of the manufacturing sector. As we enter the final quarter of the year, we expect the level of deal activity to remain stable as mixed global economic results steer manufacturing executives toward further portfolio reshuffling.”
Similar to previous quarters, strategic buyers continued to align product portfolios with high-growth markets, such as automotive, aerospace, and electric through acquisitions. Strategic investors represented 66 percent of deal activity in the quarter. With plenty of cash at their disposal, both strategic and financial buyers have been active in deals involving diverse end markets, particularly in Asia and areas of Europe on the verge of recovery.
Bono added: “Strategic acquirers remain concerned about the broad economic environment and are taking a cautious approach to their deal strategies. While they continue to execute on sizable transactions, they are continuously evaluating their portfolios and taking advantage of opportunities to divest non-core assets. Divestitures continue to be a viable exit option, representing 27 percent of deal activity this quarter.”
On a regional basis, the U.S. share of global activity remained among its lowest levels in a decade as local activity in Asia continued to dominate deal making. Acquirers from Asia and Oceania accounted for 62 percent of total deal activity in the quarter, while targets in the region represented 56 percent of all deals. The majority (75 percent) of deals in the third quarter were local market deals; however, the strength of the dollar could lead to an increase in U.S. outbound deals in the coming months.
PwC’s industrial manufacturing M&A analysis is a quarterly report of announced global transactions with value greater than $50 million analyzed by PwC using transaction data from Thomson Reuters.
by Gary Mintchell | Nov 9, 2015 | Automation, News, Technology
My grandson was asking about why can’t we build a better light bulb and design better batteries. He’s eight. If he keeps asking the big questions, he’ll have a good future.
I told him that there would always be problems to solve, that’s why we would need engineers and scientists. He asked, what kind of questions. I told him about the need to develop robots that could work with people. This technology will become increasingly useful to help an aging population cope with physical limitations. It will also help production when we (shortly) face a declining workforce.
I like to point to the work of Rethink Robotics. It recently announced that its Sawyer robot, the company’s second smart, collaborative robot designed for a wide range of factory environments, is available for purchase and is being deployed by manufacturers across the globe. Announced in March, Sawyer is a single-arm, high-performance robot created to handle machine tending, circuit board testing and other precise tasks that have been difficult to automate with existing robots.
Weighing only 19 kilograms (42 pounds), Sawyer features a 4kg (8.8 lbs.) payload, with seven degrees of freedom and a 1260mm reach that can maneuver into the tight spaces and varied alignments of work cells designed for humans. Its high resolution force sensing, embedded at each joint, enables Rethink Robotics’ compliant motion control, which allows the robot to “feel” its way into fixtures or machines, even when parts or positions vary. This characteristic enables a repeatability that is unique to the robotics industry, and allows Sawyer to work effectively in semi-structured environments on tasks requiring 0.1mm of tolerance.
Sawyer offers a unique combination of features that distinguish it from other conventional and collaborative robots, including compliant motion control, embedded vision with a built-in Cognex camera and Rethink’s Robot Positioning System, a component of the proprietary and industry-leading Intera software platform. Powering both Sawyer and Rethink’s first collaborative robot, Baxter, the Intera system makes deploying the robots far easier than typical industrial robots. While traditional robots typically take an average of 200 hours to program and deploy, Sawyer can be deployed in under two hours and can easily be trained by typical factory technicians – not roboticists.
Sawyer is purpose-designed for enterprise-level deployments, with a useful life of 35,000 hours of operation. The robot is IP54-rated, making it ideal for harsh factory environments. Since its introduction, Sawyer has been field tested extensively at leading manufacturers’ sites around the world, and is currently being deployed on production lines in many of those facilities.
The process improves the efficiency of the product line while allowing GE’s employees to handle the more dexterous and cognitive work needed to complete the task.
General Electric has been testing Sawyer over the past month and will deploy their first robot in a GE Lighting plant in Hendersonville, North Carolina. A prime example of true human-robot collaboration, Sawyer will be on a production line positioning parts into a light fixture as a GE employee completes the assembly. The process improves the efficiency of the product line while allowing GE’s employees to handle the more dexterous and cognitive work needed to complete the task.
“The ability to deploy a smart, collaborative robot like Sawyer provides a significant flexibility advantage to our production team, while still meeting our world class quality, precision and speed standards,” said Kelley Brooks, global advanced manufacturing & engineering leader at GE Lighting. “Utilizing this technology is an integral part of our Brilliant Factory initiative to connect all parts of the supply chain from product design, to engineering, to the factory floor and beyond in order to deliver customized LED solutions for our customers.”
Sawyer is also set to be deployed in Steelcase Inc.’s (NYSE: SCS) Grand Rapids factory, where it will work in tandem with the company’s welding machine. Sawyer will work to pick and place parts in pairs of two, enabling a completely autonomous welding process. The robot’s small footprint, long reach and higher payload capacity make it ideal for the Steelcase team. In addition to handling changes in parts and lines seamlessly, Sawyer’s IP54 rating allows the robot to work in manufacturing environments with liquids and particle hazards present.
“Having already deployed several Baxter robots successfully, we’ve seen the value that collaborative robots bring to the factory floor,” said Edward Vander Bilt, leader of innovation at Steelcase. “These robots are the game-changers of modern manufacturing, and Rethink Robotics is leading the evolving relationship between humans and machines that allow each to do what they do best.”
Sawyer is a significant addition to the company’s smart, collaborative robot family, which also includes the groundbreaking Baxter robot that defined the category of safe, interactive, affordable automation. Sawyer is available for purchase in manufacturing environments throughout North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
“After announcing Sawyer in March, the worldwide demand we have seen for the robot has been overwhelming,” said Rethink Robotics President and Chief Executive Officer Scott Eckert. “Manufacturers around the globe understand that Sawyer opens the door for a wealth of new applications and opportunities to improve their business, and they are eager to get it onto their production floors.”
