by Gary Mintchell | Dec 22, 2014 | Commentary, News, Workforce
Here is a “good news / bad news” report. While manufacturing business looks good right now, we have yet another fearful article about getting a new generation of engineers. For a little context, here is an article I wrote about milennials. This press release is from ThomasNet.
North America’s manufacturing sector is on an upward trajectory. However, a shortage of young talent, compounded by Baby Boomers’ negative perceptions about Millennials, could impact its continued expansion, according to ThomasNet’s latest Industry Market Barometer (IMB) research.
The annual survey of product and custom manufacturers shows continued growth for this sector. Companies are hiring, increasing production capacity, and investing for more growth to come. More than half (58 percent) grew in 2013, and 63 percent expect even more gains by the end of 2014.
Positive indicators are everywhere. Manufacturers are getting more business from their existing markets, and their average account values are rising. Nearly eight out of 10 (76 percent) are now selling overseas, and one-third expect that business to increase. In anticipation of what’s ahead, they’re investing in capital equipment, optimizing operations, upgrading their facilities, and retraining their people. More than half (52 percent) expect to add staff in the next several months, up from the 42 percent who planned to hire last year. Respondents’ companies are looking for trained, experienced people—manufacturing/production management, line workers, skilled trade workers and engineers—to keep up with current and future demand.
Troublesome Trends
A deeper look under the hood raises questions about whether the manufacturing industry can continue its current momentum. “For the industry to sustain its steady climb, all the fundamentals need to be in place, and one of them is missing—a robust pipeline of talent,” said Mark Holst-Knudsen, President of ThomasNet.
Last year’s IMB called attention to the “ticking biological clock” in manufacturing—the disruption that’s coming as Baby Boomers leave the workforce without people primed to replace them. This year’s survey depicts the “ticking” turning to an alarm. Nearly half of this year’s respondents (49 percent) are 55 and older. Moreover, thirty-eight percent plan to retire in one to ten years, and most (65 percent) lack any succession plan.
One solution is in plain sight—the Millennial generation (ages 18-32)—who can take the time to learn the business before their predecessors retire. Yet, most manufacturers (62 percent) say Millennials represent a small fraction of their workforce, and eight out of ten (81 percent) have no explicit plans to increase those numbers.
However, companies are making headway in the area of apprenticeships, which provide opportunities to bring in entry-level employees and career changers. For manufacturers where these programs are applicable, 51 percent now have them in place, and 23 percent plan to do so. They’re teaching apprentices trades such as machining, CNC milling and turning, and welding while increasing their staff.
“We need new talent everywhere—on the plant floor, in the field, and in management—and getting young people to look at manufacturing isn’t easy,” said Karen Norheim, Executive Vice President, American Crane & Equipment Corporation, Douglassville, Pa. “To ensure our company’s success, our employees have become brand ambassadors for manufacturing. We’re bringing our children to our plants, looking at new internship programs, and reaching out to local colleges and trade schools. By making a local footprint, we’re helping to address a national problem.”
Baby Boomers’ Perceptions of Millennials
This year’s data shows that the manufacturing industry increasingly aligns with Millennials’ value systems and technology expertise. The research demonstrates that Millennials have an opportunity to make a social impact working with sustainable and green technologies, solar energy, and wind power. In addition, respondents cite innovations in design and manufacturing software, automation/robotics, and 3D printing as intrinsic to today’s jobs.
But 46 percent of respondents say that a larger issue is at work – younger people still perceive manufacturing as “blue collar” work. And Baby Boomers’ perceptions of Millennials exacerbate the challenge. Forty-three percent of respondents believe that this generation lacks the work ethic and discipline to succeed.
“At a time when the American manufacturing sector is poised for a comeback, the talent shortage is the elephant-in-the-room that could impede progress. It will take the concerted effort of every manufacturer to reach across generational lines, and bring in the people who are critical to the industry’s continued success,” said ThomasNet’s President Mark Holst-Knudsen.
by Gary Mintchell | Dec 19, 2014 | Automation, Networking, Operations Management, Technology, Wireless
Wireless sensor network pioneer, Emerson Process Management, also recognizes the need for customers to manage the growing proliferation of wireless networks within a facility.
It has introduced the Smart Wireless Navigator, a new software platform that enables users with large wireless deployments to maximize the power of their wireless networks. The Navigator brings together Smart Wireless tools for planning, managing, and maintaining networks. Valuable wireless network and device diagnostics and data are organized in an intuitive interface, along with the wireless tools, to streamline the Smart Wireless experience.
“Wireless technology is as scalable as it is powerful,” commented Bob Karschnia, vice president of wireless at Emerson. “As users’ facilities grow, they are expanding to installations of multiple wireless networks managed by different groups.”
The Smart Wireless Navigator helps users effortlessly manage their expanding wireless infrastructure and get the most value from their networks. A single software platform design makes it easier for users with large deployments of wireless to manage their networks across functional groups, delivering actionable information to the people who need it.
“To maximize value, facilities also needed a central platform to plan and deploy new networks and to organize the influx of new data and diagnostics,” wireless continued Karschnia. “In answer, we developed a single window interface that brings together several Smart Wireless tools on a specially designed appliance to maximize visibility, efficiency and value.”
An intuitive design organizes large amounts of wireless diagnostic information and data, and existing infrastructure is illustrated and easily understood.
“The Smart Wireless Navigator is a comprehensive tool that helps users realize the value of wireless across the range of reliability, safety, environmental accountability and process performance,” summarized Karschnia, “it delivers value throughout the cycle of engineering, installation, operation and maintenance.”
by Gary Mintchell | Dec 19, 2014 | Automation, Commentary, Internet of Things, News, Operations Management, Technology, Wireless
Just like there is a difference between industrial and consumer Internet of Things, there is a difference between connected wearable devices for industrial and consumer use.
Honeywell Process has shown the media examples of various geo-location wearable devices for several years to assist responders during an incident. Personnel have been wearing a variety of communication devices for years.
Consumer applications will, of course, continue to capture the most interest. People involved in manufacturing do tend to take these consumer ideas and often turn them into useful applications for manufacturing.
According to a new report from the research firm Berg Insight, shipments of connected wearables reached 19.0 million in 2014, up from 5.9 million devices in the previous year. Growing at a compound annual growth rate of 54.7 percent, total shipments of smartwatches, smart glasses, fitness & activity trackers, people monitoring & safety devices and medical devices as well as other wearable devices are forecasted to reach 168.2 million units in 2019. Bluetooth will remain the primary connectivity option in the coming years, but nonetheless, a total of 16.6 million of the wearables shipments in 2019 are forecasted to incorporate embedded cellular connectivity, mainly in the smartwatch and people monitoring & safety categories.
Fitness & activity trackers is the largest device category and shipments reached 13.0 million units in 2014. The market leading vendors Fitbit, Jawbone and Garmin have in the past year been joined by an abundance of companies including major players from the smartphone industry such as LG, Huawei, Microsoft, Samsung, Sony and Xiaomi which have released fitness & activity trackers. “This product category is now facing fierce competition from smartwatches that have activity tracking features. Decreasing prices and new form factors will still enable dedicated fitness & activity trackers to reach shipments of 42.0 million units in 2019,” said Johan Svanberg, Senior Analyst, Berg Insight.
A new breed of smartwatches became available in 2014 when high profile Android Wear smartwatches from Sony, LG, Motorola and Asus entered the market to compete with existing offerings from Pebble and Samsung. “Smartwatches are already the second largest category of connected wearables and sales will pick up considerably in 2015. The Apple Watch will enter the market and other major smartphone vendors will launch next generation Android Wear devices”, comments Mr. Svanberg. Traditional watch vendors will also enter the market in the coming years, both with smartwatches capable of running third party applications as well as traditionally styled watches with basic smartphone notification features. Improved devices available in different price segments will drive adoption in the next five years and smartwatches is predicted to become the largest device category by the end of the forecast period.
Shipments of smart glasses have so far been very modest, but promising use cases in specific markets such as enterprise and medical as well as in niche segments of the consumer market will enable smart glasses to become the third largest category of connected wearables in the next five years.
“The opportunities are plentiful – improved imaging capability together with hands-free operation, real-time communication and augmented reality functionality would for example make smart glasses a serious contender on the action camera market”, said Mr. Svanberg.
Connected wearables such as cardiac rhythm management devices, ECG monitors, mobile Personal Emergency Response Systems (mPERS) and wearable computers are already common in the medical, people monitoring and enterprise segments.
Furthermore, miniaturised electronics, low power wireless connectivity and cloud services have inspired a wide range of new connected wearables such as authentication and gestures wristbands, notification rings, smart motorcycle helmets and smart gloves. “Most of these products are still experimental, but in a few years’ time there will be many examples of new successful devices on the market”, concluded Mr. Svanberg.
Download report brochure: Connected Wearables
Berg Insight is a dedicated M2M/IoT market research firm based in Sweden. It has been specializing in all major M2M/IoT verticals such as fleet management, car telematics, smart metering, smart homes, mHealth and industrial M2M since 2004.
by Gary Mintchell | Dec 16, 2014 | Automation, Industrial Computers, Interoperability, Manufacturing IT, Operations Management, Software
OK, the title of this post is also the title of Schneider Electric Software Vice President Tim Sowell’s blog. I follow his blog closely. He offers deep thinking about operations management applications and the drivers, requirements and needs that affect their development.
In his latest post, he’s reflecting on both year-end planning and the evolution of what we have been calling MES.
He begins by noticing, “The labels we have used for years for products, spaces, and roles no longer mean the same thing. We rapidly find ourselves setting up a glossary of labels and what they will mean in 2020-25 in order to gain alignment.”
He starts with the label “MES”, but my involvement with the space goes back to 1977 and something called MRP II. So the evolution began before that, but it started to come together in 1990. “The label ‘MES’ was first introduced in 1990 to refer to a point application at a single site (typically Quality Management). Over the next 20 years, more functionality was added to MES to keep pace with Automation trends.”
MES Platforms, Schneider Electric Software
The next evolution Sowell dates from 2010-2015. There is the introduction of the term MOM which came from the work of ISA 95. Sowell also quotes the definition from Gartner Group in 2012, “For many, MES is no longer a point application, but a platform that serves a dual purpose: integrating multiple business processes within a site and across the manufacturing network, and creating an enterprise manufacturing execution capability.”
Looking at today and tomorrow, “As the industrial computing paradigm shifts to the Internet, the platform is now being leveraged for other assets distributed across the interconnected value chain while extending the rich optimization functionality via new applications to get more productivity in areas outside of manufacturing.”
The problems increasing gained complexity as the requirements moved from a single machine or line went to many lines in one plant to standards to compare across the lines of many plants. “It was then that I realized in the meetings internally I could not use the word MES generically and needed to become specific.”
Sowell rightly concludes, “It is much easier to avoid labels and define the situation scenario / role, and start the meeting or strategy session laying out the landscape for discussion, gain alignment on the ‘desired outcome’ and destination first, it makes it easier!!!!”
by Gary Mintchell | Dec 11, 2014 | Automation, Interoperability, News, Operations Management, Technology
I started another Website called Physical Asset Lifecycle last year to discuss interoperability.
Two things happened. The reason to have a separate Website evaporated into the vacuum of failed business ideas. I also ran out of time to maintain yet another Website.
So, I will be reposting the work I did there and then building upon that work as an Interoperability Series.
There are key technologies and thinking when it comes to interoperability. The foundation is that we want to break silos of people and technologies so that applications can interoperate and make life easier for operations, maintenance and engineering. This will also improve the efficiency and effectiveness of operations. Much of the work so far is led by MIMOSA.
Interoperability demo
Two years ago, the foundation came together in a pilot demo at the ISA Automation Week conference of 2012. Here is the report from then.
After years of preparatory work, the OpenO&M Initiative participants organized a demonstration pilot project of information interoperability run like a real project building a debutanizer. It demonstrated the full lifecycle of the plant including all the facets of plant from design through construction to operations and management. The demonstration was held two days at the ISA Automation Week Sept. 25-26, 2012 in Orlando.
A panel of some of the people who worked on this project presented their work and showed live demonstrations.
One of the most important advances in the project was that now the three major design software suppliers–Aveva, Bentley, and Intergraph were all involved with enabling export of design data to a standard interface.
EPC for the project was Worley Parsons. Cormac Ryan, manager, Engineering Data Management, Americas, explained the development of the P&IDs using Intergraph’s Smart Plant P&ID generator. It produced a traditional P&ID. Not only a diagram, it is a database-driven tool containing lots of reports and data. The data was published in ISO 15926 format and made available to the rest of the team.
Jim Klein, Industry Solutions Consultant from Aveva, used a schema similar to the Intergraph one. It acted as a second EPC duplicating the data with the object-based database behind the drawing. It can store and link to an engineering database that contains much more data. For example, clicking on a pump diagram can show specifications and other important design information. This data was published out to instantiate the object in a maintenance management system or to create new data as it gets revised during the engineering process. Information can communicate to a “MIMOSA cloud” server.
George Grossmann, Ph.D., Research Fellow, Advanced Computing Research Centre, the University of South Australia, explained a transform engine using Bentley Open Plant received in 2 formats–owl and ecxml. These data go to iniSA 15926 transform engine. This engine takes input from all three suppliers, exports in ISO 15926 then to MIMOSA standard exports in CCOM XML.
Next up Ken Bever, with Assetricity and also CTO of MIMOSA discussed the transform from CCOM XML to the Assetricity iomog register, assuring that information was mapped to the asset and then sent to IBM’s IIC application in a standardized way. The information was then sent to OSIsoft PI historian. From PI, data is then accessible to maintenance management and operations management applications. All data references back to the ISO 15926 ontology.
Bruce Hyre, from IBM, explained how the IIC application is a standards-based platform that federates data and provides analytics. It takes CCOM, feeds it into a model server, which then provisions tags in OSI PI server. His demonstration showed the actual live P&ID from the EPC. He added, “But our focus is on the data supporting that P&ID–the tag list/model tree. You can subscribe to a tag, see information from the upstream systems.” Therefore the demonstration showed that data have gone end-to-end from design to the PI server to provision the tags with the live data from the design. 1092 tags were provisioned in this demonstration.
A video of the presentation can be found on the MIMOSA Website.
Program manager is Alan Johnston. Contact him for more information or to lend your expertise to the effort.
