Finding The Next Big Thing
Management’s most crucial investments for factories of the future won’t be the hardware or the software, but in the understanding of how new technologies provide new options for powering business success.
By John Teresko
March 1, 2008 — Yesterday’s manufacturing presumptions are not the most useful context for growing profitable plant-floor success. A better strategy for companies in search of the elusive “next big thing” is to accelerate their innovation efforts to gain maximum competitive advantage. The key challenge is in accepting how rapidly the sense of what’s possible is changing and magnifying the potential of the plant floor. Today’s important lesson is that the manufacturing step is being transformed from a hurdle to a strategic potential waiting to be exploited. For example, the latest production equipment can be flexible enough to accommodate last-minute changes in product strategy — even if it means efficiently satisfying a customer via lot sizes of one.
The current status of MTConnect will be demonstrated at AMT’s International Manufacturing Technology Show scheduled for September 8-13 in Chicago. Warndorf says the booth in the Emerging Technology display will showcase MTConnect’s ability to leverage the same software and analysis across heterogeneous machines, as well as to demonstrate MTConnect’s customizability and extensibility to address specific work scenarios and machine features. He says the first factory pilot program for MTConnect is scheduled for Remmele Engineering Inc