The Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition (SMLC) has announced that the SMLC Executive Committee has elected Michelle Pastel of Corning Inc., to serve as Secretary on the Board of Directors, effective immediately.
In search for a new Secretary position, the Executive Committee sought a candidate who would represent the voice of the manufacturing industry to further strengthen SMLC’s leading position in Smart Manufacturing through ensuring industry alignment. Michelle Pastel has already made a positive impact on driving SMLC’s technology development and commercialization plans.
SMLC CEO Denise Swink, states, “Michelle Pastel is leading a corporate renaissance in Corning, exploring and embracing Smart Manufacturing philosophies and potential. We are very fortunate for her leading Corning’s representation in SMLC and contributing her experiences, ideas and enthusiasm for leveraging collaboration opportunities with other SMLC members. She will be a key component of the Executive Committee leadership.”
Michelle Pastel earned her degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of New Mexico. She joined Corning in 1993 as a Systems Engineer, and is currently the Manager of Measurements, Controls, and Systems Innovation in Corning’s Manufacturing Technology and Engineering Division, Advanced Engineering Directorate, focused on collaborating with Science & Technology, as well as Corning’s businesses, to deliver differentiating technology solutions in the areas of measurements, advanced process control, laser processing, imaging systems, and systems integration technologies for products and processes to enable Corning’s research and development programs to innovate new products and manufacturing processes.
Throughout Pastel’s career, she has held technology, engineering and manufacturing positions in many divisions including Corning Optical Fiber, Components Products, Photonics Technology, Optical Networking Devices, and MTE. These roles have included Production Support Leader, Technical Support Leader, New Product Introduction Leader, Process Development Leader, Technology Demonstration Leader, Portfolio Manager, Project Manager, and Department Manager. Through her work in MTE, she also has experience in other businesses including Corning Asahi Video, Consumer Products, American Video, Integrated Die Manufacturing, and S&T.
“I am honored to be given this opportunity and thrilled to be working for the SMLC in this capacity,” states Pastel. “As we work together to implement the Smart Manufacturing philosophy and create the systems that support it, we will undoubtedly improve US manufacturers’ competitive position in the world. This will be an industrial revolution of sorts and I’m excited to be a part of making it possible for each of our organizations.”
SMLC Treasurer, Tom Edgar, states, “Through her practitioner lens, Michelle’s enthusiasm, leadership and commitment to transform the manufacturing industry have proved to be a major contribution to SMLC’s success.”
On July 12, Jim Wetzel, Technical Director at General Mills, accepted the position as SMLC’s new Chair. Wetzel states, “We believe Michelle Pastel represents an ideal champion for Smart Manufacturing; she has demonstrated great leadership skills through identifying opportunities within Corning to leverage and contribute to SMLC’s comprehensive smart manufacturing initiative. The SMLC is honored to have Michelle serve on the Executive Committee and provide a critical role to achieving SMLC’s vision and mission.”
Important information about the organization
The SMLC is a non-profit organization comprised of manufacturing practitioner, supplier, and technology companies; manufacturing consortia; universities; federal agency and government laboratories. SMLC is building the nation’s first open SM Platform for collaborative industrial-networked information applications through at-scale demonstrations. The SM Platform enables manufacturing companies of all sizes to gain easy, affordable access to modeling and analytical technologies that can be tailored to meet cross-industry business-case objectives without having to retrofit existing systems.
SMLC envisions a 21st century SM enterprise (from suppliers, OEMs, and companies to supply chains) that is fully integrated, knowledge-enabled, and model rich. Such visibility across the enterprise (internal and external) would radically improve the ability to inform decisions and drive action.
Partners Involved: Advanced Manufacturing Partnership for Southern California (AMPSoCal); American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE); Alcoa; American Institute of Chemical Engineers; American Society of Quality (ASQ); Association of State Energy Research & Technology Transfer Institutions (ASERTTI); ARC; CalTech – Jet Propulsion Laboratory; Corning; DOE; Emerson; Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI); General Dynamics; General Electric; General Mills; General Motors; Manufacturing Enterprise Solutions Association (MESA); MTConnect Institute; National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO); North Carolina State University (NCSU); Nimbis Services, Inc.; NIST; NSF; OSIsoft; Owens Corning; Pfizer Inc.; Praxair; Purdue University; Rockwell Automation; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI); Savigent Software; Schneider Electric; Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME); Southwest Research Institute (SWRI); Spitzer and Boyes LLC; Sustainable Solutions; Tulane – Center for Polymer Reaction Monitoring and Characterization; UCLA; University of Texas – Austin
This video on YouTube from the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition explains in eight short minutes what Smart Manufacturing is all about. I have been trying to lend what support I can to the effort, as has my friend Walt Boyes of Spitzer & Boyes.
The movement in the United States calls it “Smart Manufacturing.” In Germany, you hear “Industrie 4.0” and sometimes “Smart Industry.” Others refer to “cyberphysical systems.” Also involved in this
witch’s brew of ideas is the Internet of Things—also known as Industrial Internet of Things.
The question that matters goes like this, “Is this all just hype perpetrated by academics, government bureaucrats and suppliers looking for something new to sell?”
This is definitely more than a marketing ploy. We are at a technological inflection point where many technologies are coming together. They are often being proven in the consumer economy and then adapted for manufacturing and machine control.
Networks are a fundamental enabler of this new manufacturing technology. As is advanced database technology (aka Big Data) and the analytics that accompany it.
Now we can add advances in smart devices (think your mobile or smart phone and gyroscopes, GPS, temperature sensors, even vibration sensor, and more) that can provide better knowledge of the state of a device. And we have a way to connect that date and use it.
The mobile computing we’ve been using is shortly going to look positively ancient. Let’s try computational embedded T-shirts. Better cameras. Wrist phones. Google (safety)Glass.
Distributed programming is coming into its own. We have IEC 61499 as a start. National Instruments has a programming language (LabVIEW) that is inherently parallel that can exploit the power of multicore processors and FPGAs. There will be more coming from competitors.
Think of the new power machine and operator interface designers have and will have to make things much better. We are at the beginning of a really cool time in manufacturing technology.
A large gathering, hinted at around 6,000, crowded the ballrooms to hear the first two days of keynotes. This is always an eclectic gathering of engineers and scientists and academics from a variety of industries, specialties, and interests. Contrary to the emphasis of many trade journal pieces you read about age and gender of engineers, there was an amazing number of females in attendance. They were engineers and scientists, not PR and admins. The age range of attendees was gratifying. And the geographical diversity was apparent–although they were all introduced to Texas food.
The keystone of the first day’s general session is always Dr. T’s talk (James Truchard, president, CEO and co-founder). He didn’t sound as evangelical about virtual instruments and the like this year, but he introduced an interesting idea about timing (in programming). Later I heard a talk on cellular data communications where the speaker noted that the issue was becoming less bandwidth and more about 1 msec response. Timing issue. Interesting.
NI Week (this is my 17th) is always a great conference filled with much energy, passionate (for engineers) hallway conversations about technologies and applications and sessions full of curious attendees. And, Texas BBQ.
IoT, Cyber-physical Systems, Bid Analog Data
The foundation idea of The Manufacturing Connection is the idea of a connected manufacturing enterprise. Note the latest posts about the Internet of Things and its application to manufacturing. So imagine my delight about the conference theme of (Industrial) Internet of Things, Cyber-Physical Systems and Big (Analog) Data.
I have been trying to get my mind around integrating the ideas from Industry 4.0 in Germany, the US Smart Manufacturing Coalition, and now what NI is talking about–especially relating to cyber-physical systems.
Unlike what I’m hearing from Germany, NI’s emphasis this year on cyber-physical systems involved the relationship of physical devices, computation and communication. Wireless as the foundation communication platform was evident everywhere. (I noted that the ballroom where the keynotes were held was ringed by WiFi access points. Thank you very much, NI.) Most of the talk was cellular, especially what will define 5G systems. One major NI interest is improving speed and lowering cost of test for the semiconductor manufacturers in the wireless space.
NI’s emphasis on Big Data, which it calls Big Analog Data, is in the process. Although the process can be geographically dispersed, such as an application by CIH (Case International Harvester to us old farming people) who instrument Case combines (the machines that harvest corn and wheat and soy beans), send the data to the cloud and then analyze that data to help farmers and their own product development.
Another interesting application story was that of Airbus where engineers are researching some far out ways to integrate technology and humans in the building of aircraft. Hopefully I can get a deeper dive on that. They are using video feedback from instrumented tools and looking at virtual reality tools for better control of robots that extend the work of humans into areas difficult for human reach.
My prejudice coming in about Big Data relate to integrating into the MES/MOM Layer 3 and the enterprise layer. Not much talk of that–yet–at NI Week. But I bet in the future we start to see more of this.
I am not going to list all the new products. LabView has been upgraded, there is a CompactRIO with an Intel Atom processor, reconfigurable oscilloscope, faster data acquisition (naturally). You can read the press releases online here.
CEO Denise Swink, states, “Jim Wetzel is well-recognized for his ability to strategize, lead large teams and drive technology growth and innovation at great scale. With 35 years of experience in the manufacturing industry, Jim understands exactly, the critical need for SMLC’s existence and mission to tap into uncharted territories in today’s manufacturing space. Wetzel is uniquely qualified to lead SMLC to the next level of the coalition’s juncture. There is no doubt that Jim Wetzel is the right person to lead SMLC at this important time, and he has the unanimous support of our Board.”
Wetzel is currently the Technical Director – Platform Center of Excellence at General Mills Inc. He has 35 years of industry experience, starting with 6 years in the Plastics Industry and 29 years in the Food Industry with GMI. While at General Mills, Jim has had roles in proprietary machine design, Manufacturing System Improvement and Optimization, Product Improvement, Project Management, System Engineering, Control and Information Systems, MES Application Development and Platform Reliability.
In Wetzel’s current role he is responsible for optimizing the existing asset base in GMI Manufacturing Plants. Specifically centered on GMI’s strategic operating platforms, this function is responsible to improve, extend and sustain the assets of Manufacturing through reliability/maintenance, system optimization, and technical innovation. In Jim’s most recent role he was responsible for Manufacturing Execution Systems, Enterprise Manufacturing Intelligence, Maintenance Applications, Engineering Tools (Enterprise project and portfolio management, Process Simulation and Sharepoint /Collaboration for the Technical Community), Control and Information Technical Innovation and Next Generation Application Architecture.
In 1993 Wetzel led the development of General Mills’ MES system. Today it is installed throughout GMI’s plants globally. It has driven significant productivity and quality improvements. This system captures more than 100 Million data points a day across the enterprise and delivers many of the KPI’s for GMI Supply Chain as well as core MES functionality.
“It is an honor to Chair the coalition at this important moment in the organization’s journey,” said Wetzel. “SMLC brings together thought leaders from across the nation to take action, and develop the nation’s first open smart manufacturing platform that will revolutionize the manufacturing industry. I look forward to realizing this vision that many of us have shared.”
Vice Chair, John Bernaden, states, “On behalf of the entire membership, we thank Jim Wetzel for his unwavering leadership, remarkable vision and forward-looking focus that has been instrumental to SMLC’s industry-driven direction and success.”
On February, 25, President Obama announced that UI LABS, a nonprofit research and development organization won the Digital Manufacturing & Design Innovation (DMDI) Institute solicitation. Dean Bartles was selected as Executive Director of the new Institute. To assume this newly created position in UI LABS, Dean took an early retirement from General Dynamics and has transitioned as SMLC’s Chair into an active advisory role. CEO Swink states, “Dean’s new role with UI LABS is well-deserved given his leadership, strong advocacy for U.S. Manufacturing competitiveness and his drive to create change. We are excited for Dean, a champion for the SMLC and advanced manufacturing, in leading the nation’s third National Network for Manufacturing Innovation institute. We are pleased Dean will stay actively involved with the SMLC in this new, important capacity as Chair Emeritus.”
“It has been an honor to work with our members to move SMLC on a clear path toward continued long-term growth and collaboration,” said Bartles. “I believe SMLC is on the right track, and I’m excited to engage and support the SMLC in my new advisory role as Chair Emeritus to the Board. I’m confident that under Wetzel’s leadership, SMLC’s comprehensive vision for manufacturing will come to fruition.”
The SMLC is a non-profit organization comprised of manufacturing practitioner, supplier, and technology companies; manufacturing consortia; universities; federal agency and government laboratories. SMLC is building the nation’s first open SM Platform for collaborative industrial-networked information applications through at-scale demonstrations. The SM Platform enables manufacturing companies of all sizes to gain easy, affordable access to modeling and analytical technologies that can be tailored to meet cross-industry business-case objectives without having to retrofit existing systems. SMLC envisions a 21st century SM enterprise (from suppliers, OEMs, and companies to supply chains) that is fully integrated, knowledge-enabled, and model rich. Such visibility across the enterprise (internal and external) would radically improve the ability to inform decisions and drive action.
The Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition (SMLC) has announced that the SMLC Executive Committee has elected Michelle Pastel of Corning Inc., to serve as Secretary on the Board of Directors, effective immediately.
