Are the next steps of IT/OT convergence at hand? Siemens would say yes. IT and OT are blending more than ever in some new offerings under an umbrella of data-driven manufacturing. Siemens just announced the expansion of their Totally Integrated Automation (TIA) framework into Industrial Operations X. Industrial Operations X includes Industrial IoT, Industrial Edge,…
- Pre-publication highlights of a new survey on AI for Decision-Making in Manufacturing including the use and perception of MES.
- How MES can support a manufacturer in winning new customers, new contracts, and staying a preferred vendor.
- How technologies such as the industrial internet of things (IIoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and digital twins can enhance MES.
- What MES can offer to streamline frontline work for experienced and new employees.
- What is required for MES to keep up with ever-changing products and order mix.
- How integrated adaptive scheduling can improve OEE, on-time delivery, and cycle times to boost your standing as a supplier.
- The role of Low-Code and DevOps technologies in enterprise rollout and ongoing MES success.
- How much progress manufacturers are making on the many aspects of IT and OT data management required to use and analyze production data effectively.

Table of Contents
- Rapid Life Sciences Innovation
- New Realities and Opportunities
- Manufacturing Must Keep Pace
- Digital Twins: Marrying Virtual and Real
- Operations Digital Twin Examples
- Digital Twin of Operations Accelerates Progress
- Twin Benefits in Operations
- Virtual Uses through Validation
- Virtual Uses Post-Approval
- Benefits of Virtual to and from Real
- Closing the Virtual-to-Real Loop
- Considerations for Useful Virtual
- Enterprise Transformation
- Clearing the Way for Acceleration
- Recommendations
- Acknowledgments
Rapid Life Sciences Innovation
Speed to Market Innovation has always been at the heart of life sciences companies’ success. Being quick to market helps both profits and patients. Of course, fast is relative, with most drugs and biologics taking 10-15 years from Phase I to approval, and medical devices taking three to seven years from concept to approval. The question is: Can life sciences companies accelerate this innovation process and make it more reliable? We have seen that they can by using current software and methods. It’s important to remember that innovation and supporting software serve not only R&D but also operations. Quality by Design Every aspect of innovation must increasingly aim for Quality by Design (QbD). For drugs, the EMA website defines it: “Quality by design is an approach that aims to ensure the quality of medicines by employing statistical, analytical and risk-management methodology in the design, development, and manufacturing of medicines.” Modeling and simulation allow a virtual test of a design against quality and regulatory requirements. This can result in improved product quality and patient safety before physical prototypes are built. In short, ensuring data-driven approaches early on can generate better outcomes at every stage of the product lifecycle. The chart below shows that concept. Figure 1. Accelerating Innovation Has Profits Benefits Throughout the Life Sciences Lifecycle
Recommendations
Recommendations and Next Steps Based on this research and our experience, we recommend that Life Sciences companies in biologics, pharmaceuticals, or medical devices:- Treat this as a transformational operations innovation acceleration initiative, not an IT project.
- Educate and create a vision everyone shares for a more agile manufacturing operation that accelerates innovation.
- Distinguish operations twinning from a Metaverse or gaming approach: it is for running the business, not training or purely visual representation.
- Carefully review your options to ensure the digital twin platform will support the organization now and in the future.
- Get started with twinning high-impact areas and build on the success to get maximum value and momentum.
- If you don’t have enterprise-capable manufacturing planning, scheduling, S&OP, and execution software, be sure those investments are in the plan.
- Be sure the top executive team sponsors and fully resources the program – including dedicating some of your best people and incenting everyone.
- Set an expectation that the twin will become a crucial aspect of daily operations: you will see what happens as things change and conduct what-ifs to gain speed and confidence in decisions.
- Keep the end in mind: virtual and real, constantly driving quality, innovation, improvement, and speed.


Table of Contents
- Profitability Demands Compelling Yet Efficient Design
- Communication and Complexity are Top Challenges
- Design Complexity is Growing
- Complexity Requires Multidisciplinary Collaboration
- Current Collaboration Has Room to Improve
- Importance of Design Integration
- Integration Approaches are Insufficient
- BIM as a Solution for Design Integration
- BIM is Maturing to Become the System of Record
- Importance of Design Integration Approaches
- Companies are Adopting Multidisciplinary Design
- Multidisciplinary Design Provides Valuable Benefits
- Perspectives on Multidisciplinary Design
- Multidisciplinary Design Faces Challenges
- Challenges Lead to Business Impacts
- Value of a Single BIM Authoring Environment
- Views on a Single BIM Authoring Environment
- IPD is Growing and Requires Multidisciplinary Design
- Fear of Trading off Capabilities
- Conclusions
- About the Research
- Acknowledgments
Executive Summary
Collaboration Design in AEC Our survey investigated the current state of collaboration and multidisciplinary design in the AEC community. The research focused on current approaches to collaboration, the readiness to adopt advanced design tools, and how these factors impact project success and profitability. The study focused primarily on the design and design coordination phase of the full built-project lifecycle and does not significantly include the experience of the construction community. About three-quarters (72%) of the research respondents are architects and the vast majority of companies offer architectural and/or engineering services.

Conclusions
Communication is the Biggest Challenge


- Plant floor logistics with two-way communication to AGVs and AIVs is much-needed in the increasingly automated plant floors iTAC serves.
- Data analytics are designed to work with iTAC’s #IIoT or other IoT platforms. The IIoT.Edge and SMT. Edge products offer AI-based analytics at the edge using algorithms iTAC offers but are also open for customers to develop or use their own algorithms.


- Visibility to manufacturing capabilities
- Untimely design data
- Visualizing assembly processes
- Predicting impacts on sustainability
Table of Contents
- Improve Manufacturing Engineering to Increase Profitability
- Address Process Designer Challenges
- Recognize the Opportunity
- Quantify the Potential
- Identify Performance Drivers
- Find Issues Earlier in Design
- Use more 3D and Simulation
- Leverage More Integrated Solutions
- Use More Advanced Communication and Collaboration
- Top Performers Show the Way
- Recommendations and Next Steps
- About the Research
- Acknowledgments
Improve Manufacturing Engineering Performance
Improve Performance in the Face of Complexity How can high tech manufacturers improve manufacturing engineering? We surveyed 177 people directly involved with manufacturing engineering and found that modernizing processes and technology drives higher manufacturing engineering productivity and performance. These improvements are crucial to profitability as customers demand high quality, more personalized products at increasingly faster time to market; all despite rising product and manufacturing complexity. Modernize Manufacturing Engineering Survey results show that Top Performers (see definition in eBook) in manufacturing engineering have increased maturity in the way they plan, validate, and communicate manufacturing operations. These leading companies waste less time on non-value-added activities, find issues sooner, and spend less on physical prototypes. They accomplish this through best practices, including:- More advanced collaboration and communication methods
- Increased use of 3D and simulation to plan and validate manufacturing operations with virtual, digital twins
Recognize the Opportunity
Manufacturing Engineering is Ready for an Upgrade It’s time for change. Manufacturers must digitalize production planning to reduce cycle times, increase efficiently, and deliver quality. High tech companies need to adopt new techniques to validate manufacturing earlier in the process, in parallel with product design.
Recommendations and Next Steps
Make a Strategic Improvement Today’s product, manufacturing process, and market complexity demand new ways of working. The Top Performers are transforming manufacturing engineering through digitalization, better collaboration, 3D, and simulation allowing them to overcome efficiency, quality, and cost challenges. Using virtual, digital twins offers manufacturing engineers both the ability to improve their own performance and a strategic opportunity to increase overall product development profitability. These leaders spend 17% less time on non-value-added activities in manufacturing engineering, directly reducing development cycle times. Improve Time to Market Survey respondents report that they can reduce time to market by 37% by using 3D and simulation to plan and validate manufacturing operations. This is done, in part, by increasing efficiency, reducing time-consuming physical prototyping, and lowering rework by finding issues sooner in product development. This is critical in the high tech industry where time to market drives market share and products have such short lifecycles. Reduce Cost Survey respondents share that they can eliminate 36% of their prototypes by increasing manufacturing engineering maturity, leading to significant cost savings per product. They do this by shifting validation and issue identification sooner in the product development process so they need fewer physical prototypes.

Table of Contents
- Introducing the Buyer's Guide
- Diagnosing BOM Management Issues
- The BOM Management Status Quo
- The BOM Management Business Case
- Analyze BOM Management Solution Capabilities
- Assess Service Requirements
- Consider Vendor Requirements
- Special Considerations
- Conclusions
- Recommendations
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
Introducing the Buyer's Guide
Managing Bills of Material (BOMs) is a fundamental need for any manufacturer. Without effective control of product structures, companies struggle with inefficiency and errors. On the other hand, improving the maturity of BOM-related processes helps manage complexity, increase product personalization, improve efficiency, prevent mistakes, and enhance collaboration across departments and the supply chain. The resulting benefits can be strategic, leading to increased innovation, agility, and faster time to market that impact top-line financial performance. BOM management is now essential as the foundation for the digital enterprise and serves as the backbone of the digital twin. Effective BOM management is also critical for manufacturers to confidently change products to adapt to market challenges like chip shortages and supply chain disruption.
Analyzing BOM Management Solution Capabilities
Perhaps the most obvious place to start when evaluating new software solutions is functionality. This section covers multiple types and uses of product structures, including Engineering BOMs (EBOM), Manufacturing BOMs (MBOM), Service BOMs (SBOM), and others such as those used for simulation or compliance analysis. For the purposes of this analysis, we’ve broken BOM management into seven main focus areas:- Developing product structures
- Managing revisions and change
- Supporting product variability
- Associating information
- Transforming BOMs
- Visualizing products
- Reporting, analyzing, documenting
- Controlling and securing product-related data
- Quickly finding and reusing information
- Sharing product knowledge with other departments (and beyond enterprise boundaries)

Conclusion
BOM management helps manage complexity and streamline operations. It provides an important, foundational element that serves as the backbone for all engineering, manufacturing, and service activity. An accessible, trusted source of product structure information is valuable and improves traceability and control. Effective BOM management provides enterprise-level benefits, improving business performance and alleviating disconnects across the business. The net result is efficiency and cost gains combined with revenue improvement from better collaboration and faster time to market, making BOM management an essential operational tool and a key driver of improved profitability. Supporting BOM management at the enterprise level requires the right solution. Companies should develop a requirements list that helps encourage a holistic decision encompassing software functionality, service-related needs, vendor requirements, and any special considerations based on their industry, size, and product strategy. Finally, the plan should look beyond current needs to support the digital future where the Digital Twin, Digital Thread, AR, VR, and IoT rely on sound BOM information.Recommendations
Based on industry experience and research for this report, Tech-Clarity offers the following recommendations:- Think big, but remain agile and take BOM management improvement in steps
- Recognize the importance of accurate, complete, timely, and accessible product structures
- Develop a comprehensive, multidiscipline, and multi-CAD BOM management capability
- Look for functionality, but extend requirements to vendor and service considerations
- Look for a Cloud / SaaS solution to reduce risk, ease adoption, and ensure vendor market competitiveness
- Consider any special needs for your business, industry, or geography
- Provide the foundation for the digital enterprise to compete today and into the future
- Get started
Product Updates in Onshape
David also shared an overview of some of their key product releases over the last year, including: PCB Studio: Supports concurrent ECAD and MCAD design.- Render Studio: Offers photorealistic imagery
- Onshape Simulation: Gives design engineers easy access to structural analysis during design
- Frames: Enables quick design of structural frames
- Variables Studios: Provides a way to define and modify common variables across parts and assemblies
Agile Product Development
Jon Hirschtick shared his perspective as well. He stressed that they see much interest from companies looking to apply the Agile Methodology they use for software development to hardware (see graphic below). He cited trends driving this interest include:- Product development tools have evolved
- The new generation workforce wants to work in a more agile way
- The pace of change is so significant, companies need new methodologies to allow them to quickly adapt and pivot
Simulation in Onshape
I believe their approach to simulation could also be a key enabler for Agile. With it, design engineers do not have to worry about translating or meshing their model, and the software already understands assembly constraints. Consequently, design engineers, including those unfamiliar with simulation, can apply loads and view the results. Our research consistently shows that the activities involved with preprocessing, particularly defining the mesh, are one of the biggest bottlenecks for design engineers’ use of simulation. Onshape’s approach automates much of this, making it easier to adopt. Since Onshape Simulation is cloud-based, the processing is done on the cloud, without slowing down the engineer’s workstation. Another engineer can pull up the model and make changes, and the engineers can work together to evaluate the results. With this approach, the potential for supporting the Agile Methodology during short sprints of design, prototype, and test looks very powerful. I look forward to seeing the new developments in 2023. Thanks to Coray Thibaut de Maisieres and the Onshape team for putting on a great event.

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- Learn how disconnected data and processes derail product introduction, leaving time and money on the table
- Find out how using a single digital thread delivers accurate information every time, from design to commercialization
- Discover the fastest, most accurate way to launch quality products across every channel



Table of Contents
- Improve Manufacturing Engineering to Increase Profitability
- Address Process Designer Challenges
- Recognize the Opportunity
- Quantify the Potential
- Identify Performance Drivers
- Find Issues Earlier in Design
- Use more 3D and Simulation
- Use More Advanced Ways to Support 3D / Simulation
- Leverage More Integrated Solutions
- Use More Advanced Communication and Collaboration
- Quantify the Improvement
- Recommendations and Next Steps
- About the Research
- Acknowledgments
Improve Manufacturing Engineering Performance
Improve Performance in the Face of Complexity How can manufacturers improve manufacturing engineering? We surveyed 177 people directly involved with manufacturing engineering and found that modernizing processes and technology drives higher manufacturing engineering productivity and performance. These improvements are crucial to profitability as customers demand high quality, more personalized products at increasingly faster time to market; all despite rising product and manufacturing complexity. Modernize Manufacturing Engineering Survey results show that Top Performers (see definition in full eBook) in manufacturing engineering have increased maturity in the way they plan, validate, and communicate manufacturing operations. These leading companies waste less time on non-value-added activities, find issues sooner, and spend less on physical prototypes. They accomplish this through best practices, including:- More advanced collaboration and communication methods
- Increased use of 3D and simulation to plan and validate manufacturing operations with virtual, digital twins
Recognize the Opportunity
Manufacturing Engineering is Ready for an Upgrade It’s time for change. Manufacturers must digitalize production planning to reduce cycle times, increase efficiently, and deliver quality. Companies need to adopt new techniques to validate manufacturing earlier in the process, in parallel with product design.
Recommendations and Next Steps
Make a Strategic Improvement Today’s product, manufacturing process, and market complexity demand new ways of working. The Top Performers are transforming manufacturing engineering through digitalization, better collaboration, 3D, and simulation allowing them to overcome efficiency, quality, and cost challenges. Using virtual, digital twins offers manufacturing engineers both the ability to improve their own performance and a strategic opportunity to increase overall product development profitability. These leaders spend 17% less time on non-value-added activities in manufacturing engineering, directly reducing development cycle times. Improve Time to Market Survey respondents report that they can reduce time to market by 37% by using 3D and simulation to plan and validate manufacturing operations. This is done, in part, by increasing efficiency, reducing time-consuming physical prototyping, and lowering rework by finding issues sooner in product development. Reduce Cost Survey respondents share that they can eliminate 36% of their prototypes by increasing maturity, leading to significant cost savings per product. They do this by shifting validation and issue identification sooner in the product development process so they need fewer physical prototypes. Increase Quality Responding companies also indicate that they can reduce ECOs by over one-third. They do this by improving manufacturing process design using virtual technologies. Top Performers are more likely to find physical manufacturing issues in a virtual model than Others who are more likely to discover them in physical prototypes and actual production. Get Started It’s time to improve manufacturing engineering productivity and performance. Companies can follow the lead of the Top Performers to increase maturity in how they plan, validate, and communicate manufacturing plans. To increase maturity, manufacturers should adopt the best practices of the Top Performers, including using integrated solutions such as 3D and simulation for manufacturing engineering.
[post_title] => Transforming Manufacturing Engineering [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => transforming-manufacturing-engineering [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-01-30 13:57:29 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-01-30 18:57:29 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://tech-clarity.com/?p=17806 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [17] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 17798 [post_author] => 2574 [post_date] => 2023-02-02 11:13:32 [post_date_gmt] => 2023-02-02 16:13:32 [post_content] => As a production metrics maven, I’m energized by a recent briefing for Jim Brown and me with Edge2Web, Inc. about their expansion to a second platform and first foray into applications. Now its low-code IoT tools Director and Flow Server run both on Siemens Digital Industries Software MindSphere and Amazon Web Services (AWS). This opens new horizons for customers that have selected the AWS IoT platform for both user-facing and back-end smart factory software development. Their new Factory Insights manufacturing intelligence and OEE application sits on Amazon Web Services’ IoT SiteWise. The OT data it ingests is in an open platform, accessible to many tools and ready for integration. Built on Edge2Web’s proven low-code tools for IoT, this dashboard and scorecard-oriented application has value out of the box. It is also highly configurable and extensible to match the process, terminology, and priorities of each plant. While it is early days, we suspect the manufacturers who select Factory Insights are likely to have an easier time scaling out from a proof of concept to full enterprise-wide use. I also love that a free sandbox version is available for people to get a feel for setting up performance monitoring in Factory Insights. Thank you, Fred Holahan, for taking the time to update us on this exciting development!


- Jim Brown, President of Tech-Clarity, reviewing findings from his recent research and leading the panel discussion.
- John Baumann, CEO of ThinGap, providing his experience in expanding the role of PLM for manufacturing of sophisticated and precise electric motors
- Deb Mishra, CEO of QuadRite, sharing his experience applying technology to drive operational excellence

Table of Contents
- MES: Pivotal Solution
- Escalating Pressures and Expectations
- Eight Aspects of Industrial Competitiveness
- Three Architectural Characteristics of MES
- Comprehensive Digital Twin Driving Insights
- Digital Thread as a Foundation
- Personalized MES for Great User Experience
- How Characteristics Map for Competitiveness
- Identifying MES with the Three Characteristics
- Recommendations
- Acknowledgments
MES to Support Today's Operations
Overcoming the Operational Squeeze As the world has become less predictable, manufacturers have had to learn to change direction quickly to compete and thrive. Eight critical aspects of industrial competitiveness prevail today, including innovation, sustainability, and resilience. Ensuring operations can deliver these capabilities is no mean feat. Operations are complex and can’t be simplified, but the IT systems that support and run them can be much more approachable and quicker to implement and tailor to specific needs. Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) are crucial to support industrial competitiveness, and three characteristics are foundational.Three Architectural Characteristics of MES
Beyond Functionality Historically, MES needed the right functionality to fit production’s needs. That is now necessary but not sufficient. To be an effective system for digital transformation, it also needs to have three crucial architectural characteristics. Digital thread to ensure information connectivity; the ability to personalize it both by functionality and user experience; and to leverage all facets of a digital twin to reliably reflect and improve performance. #1 Digital Thread-ready Top-performing companies tend to be more effective at data availability and continuity across steps and their company and ecosystem.2 To facilitate this, MES must be open and capable of data enrichment. MES must contextualize data in required formats across domains and disciplines. Two-way information flow must occur with enterprise applications, including product lifecycle management (PLM), supply chain management (SCM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), etc., and Operations Technology (OT), such as automation, equipment, IoT, historians, and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA). #2 Personalized For MES, one size does not fit all. Functional details must serve the language and culture of the specific industry. Beyond that, composable architectures provide a way to address pain points quickly with new functionality. Ideally, the system also provides a low-code user interface for citizen developers to tailor screens and data flows to each role in each plant—perhaps even the individual! Low-code used with suitable MES can deliver workflows for plant employees to access the data they need from (and contribute seamlessly to) the digital thread. #3 Leverages a Comprehensive Digital Twin A digital twin is a virtual model that can both predict and stay in sync with tangible assets and activities as conditions change. In the best case, MES uses models not only of the process and its performance but also of the products it produces. This interaction of the product, process, and performance is what’s physically occurring in the plant. This combination enables manufacturing engineering to better craft the process for each product variant. It also supports ongoing continuous improvement (CI) across all teams.
Recommendations and Next Steps
- Set your strategy and priorities for the company and each site considering the eight aspects of competitiveness: decide which matter most to you now? How can they support one another? What priorities and needs do you foresee in the future?
- Assess plant operations’ capabilities to support each aspect of competitiveness and create a “heat map” to prioritize IT needs in each facility by top priority, most significant gap, quickest likely improvement, or a combination.
- Consider the MOM space and the entire business information and process flow needs in scoping your MES project. Remember, MES is at the center, so it must interact well with people and other systems (i.e., PLM, logistics).
- Create a clear set of goals for your MES selection that will drive both obvious near-term benefits and longer-term abilities to remain competitive. Base this firmly on company strategy and priorities.
- Educate up and down the organization that MES is not just the functions and modules you need in the plant(s) or data conduit between engineering, IoT/OT and IT, but the structure to ensure all of the data from those becomes usable in-context information.
- Evaluate MES based on a full definition of the three characteristics: digital thread-ready, available to personalize fully, and leverages a comprehensive digital twin.
- Consider the software provider’s ability to support your company’s long-term needs and their experience in your industry segment(s). Seek a trustworthy partner who can add domain expertise over the long haul.
- When you conduct reference calls to peers in your segment who have used the latest versions of an MES offering, expect good results but focus on challenges, timeframes, and not just plant but overall business impact.
- Be prepared to have conflicting views of the best MES solution, but ensure that the overall business objectives and long-term digital transformation possibilities stay at the forefront of your selection approach.

All Results for "All"
OpenBOM becomes a Digital Thread Platform (Insight)
I was recently able to catch up with Oleg Shilovitsky for an update on OpenBOM. In addition to his high blogging productivity, he and the OpenBOM team have been even harder at work developing new capabilities and expanding their reach. I’ve enjoyed following OpenBOM’s progress because they take a practical approach to solving manufacturer’s problems,…
Expect More from Your MES
What are realistic expectations for a manufacturing execution system (MES)? Should you expect more from MES? MES has been available for decades. That is good news and bad news. Those with experience of older systems – and even many MES offered today – may have a limited view of what such a system can do….
Accelerate Life Sciences Innovation with Operations Digital Twin
How can manufacturing software accelerate life sciences innovation? By combining MES with an operations digital twin. Please enjoy the summary* below. For the full research, please visit our sponsor Dassault Systemes(registration required). Table of Contents Rapid Life Sciences Innovation New Realities and Opportunities Manufacturing Must Keep Pace Digital Twins: Marrying Virtual and Real Operations Digital Twin…
Is the Digital Twin Attainable?
How can industrial companies achieve value from their digital twin initiatives? Are their goals achievable? We’ve all heard the promises of significant value from digital twins, let’s discuss how to reach that value. Jim Brown will host a webinar with Prashanth Mysore and Fabien Roger of Dassault Systemes to share examples of how companies use…
The State of Collaborative Design in AEC
How well is collaboration working in the AEC industry? We surveyed 393 people whose companies design, engineer, or construct the built environment to find out about collaborative design in AEC, including multidisciplinary design and BIM. Please enjoy the summary* below. For the full research, please visit our sponsor Graphisoft (registration required). Table of Contents Profitability…
Hexagon Launches Digital Reality Platform, Nexus (Insight)
We spoke with Hexagon following a recent event launching their Nexus platform. Hexagon already offers a wide range of solutions supporting the product lifecycle, including design and engineering; production; and metrology and inspection portfolios from its Manufacturing Intelligence division and others including the newly acquired Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) and quality management (QMS, ETQ) solutions….
An Ecosystem Enabling Manufacturers and Industry 4.0 Providers to Flourish with Julie Fraser
What are some keys to success with Industry 4.0? And what does mindfulness have to do with it? Listen to this fireside chat with Julie Fraser, hosted by the Industry 4.0 Club’s Mike Ungar and Mike Yost to start thinking about your ecosystem for success. An ecosystem is the environment in which a variety of…
iTAC MES/MOM Adds Low-Code, Logistics, and Edge Analytics (Insight)
I recently got an update briefing from iTAC Software AG, which was eye-opening. It appears you can now get deep out-of-the-box MES/MOM functionality plus low-code ways to extend the software. This company has offered #MES for many years but has recently expanded on many fronts. The original company philosophy of bidirectional integration with equipment has…
Transforming High Tech Manufacturing Engineering
How can high tech manufacturers improve manufacturing engineering? We surveyed 177 people directly involved with manufacturing engineering and found that modernizing processes and technology drives higher manufacturing engineering productivity and performance. These improvements are crucial to profitability as customers demand high quality, personalized products at increasingly faster time to market; all despite rising product and…
Enable Digital Transformation with Digital BOMs
Why is effective bill of material management critical to digital transformation? What should you look for in a BOM management solution? Our white paper serves as a reference tool for manufacturers selecting a system to improve the maturity of their BOM management practices. Please enjoy the summary* below. For the full buyer’s guide please visit…
Onshape Live 23 Reveals Significant Progress
Onshape, a PTC Technology recently held their Onshape Live 23 virtual event. It was a nice overview of progress over the last year, customer success stories, and previews of what’s coming. Loretta Faluade kicked things off and then introduced David Katzman as the new General Manager of the Onshape business at PTC. David provided an update highlighting their 3 million users, 99.9%…
GE Enhances Cloud MES for TCO, Flexibility (Insight)
There is more exciting news from GE Digital on its newest Proficy MES version. In a previous discussion, we learned that all of the GE Smart Factory Portfolio are becoming available not only on-premises but also on cloud or hybrid. As a fully-hosted managed service for MES-as-a-Service, MES can always be up to date with…
The Product Information Disconnect
How can manufacturers overcome their product data gaps to improve new product introduction and drive product profitability? Jim Brown joined Propel’s Converged Live webinar, The Product Information Disconnect: How Collaboration Drives Business Value and Customer Loyalty, to preview his latest research on the product information disconnect and how to solve it. View the webinar on demand to hear…
Update on CoLab as the Design Engagement System (Insight)
We spent some time with CoLab to get an update on their solution and their progress. We’ve been following CoLab and their goal to become the “system of engagement” for engineering. I’ve referred to them as the potential second half of the PLM promise because they go beyond data and process management to provide a…
Siemens Shows Progress with Mendix Lowcode for Industrial Applications (insight)
We just learned a lot in an interesting update briefing on Mendix from Siemens. Jim Brown was introduced to #lowcode almost 20 years ago and was excited about the potential when Siemens acquired Mendix. They’ve kept their promise and let Mendix compete in their traditional industries, such as financial services and insurance. They’re also using…
Transforming Manufacturing Engineering
How can manufacturers improve manufacturing engineering performance despite increased complexity? We surveyed 177 people involved in manufacturing engineering to find out. The results show that the leaders in manufacturing engineering have increased maturity in the way they plan, validate, and communicate manufacturing operations. These Top Performers waste less time on non-value-added activities, find issues sooner,…
Edge2Web Moves from Tools to Manufacturing Intelligence Application on AWS (Insight)
As a production metrics maven, I’m energized by a recent briefing for Jim Brown and me with Edge2Web, Inc. about their expansion to a second platform and first foray into applications. Now its low-code IoT tools Director and Flow Server run both on Siemens Digital Industries Software MindSphere and Amazon Web Services (AWS). This opens…
PLM for Operational Excellence
How can PLM, traditionally an engineering-centric solution, drive innovation, agility, and operational excellence throughout the entire product lifecycle? Attend this webinar to learn how the right PLM can help manufacturers focus on the big picture, not just engineering, to develop profitable products. Hear from: Jim Brown, President of Tech-Clarity, reviewing findings from his recent research…
Three Characteristics of MES that Support Eight Aspects of Industrial Competitiveness
What do manufacturers need in MES to be competitive both today and in the future? Hint: it goes well beyond strong functional support and into what may sound like buzzwords, but are truly crucial architectural elements. In this paper, we group them into three elements: digital thread-ready, personalized, and leveraging a comprehensive digital twin. Each…