Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Omron Finally Makes RFID Splash I saw a lot of cool ideas for RFID tags at an editor's event at Omron Electronics in Schaumburg, IL somewhere around 6 years ago. I've been wondering when it would make a statement given all the RFID hype over the past two years. Well, here it is. Japan's Omron targets RFID tag market. Major sensor maker will invest $20 million to capture a larger share of the global RFID tag market. [Computerworld News] 9:27:02 PM    comment []

New Software I met David Brouchu, marketing vice president of Acumence at the MESA conference a couple of months ago, and he introduced me to the company. The company's software is sort of an MES solution that, like many in that space, began as a specialized solution for a particular industry--in this case beverage can manufacturing. They are broadening the market reach with software designed to monitor and report on manufacturing performance. The latest release, version 5.5, includeds new KPI alerting features among several others. Other version 5.5 features and enhancements include: Automatic updates; one-time plant license will enable as many user connections as desired; downtime Gantt Chart; Trend Chart plots process variables, KPIs, speeds or variables; easier-to-use dashboard designer; and one-click export Microsoft Excel or Adobe PDF formats. Acumence develops software for monitoring and analyzing manufacturing processes. Company Co-founder Joe Jablonski points to the data model of Plant Analytics Server as its competitive differentiator. 6:39:01 AM    comment []

Innovation Challenge Now, here's a challenge. I hope Bill's successful. But it takes more than one email message. I'm sure he knows (or I hope he does) that he has to pound that message home every day in every way in every meeting and trip. Now, if he could just fire Matt Millen and turn around the Lions at the same time... Attention All Employees: Ford Is Serious About Change. Ford's chief executive told employees that those who could not support the company's drive for innovation should find something else to do. By MICHELINE MAYNARD. [NYT > Business] 6:15:06 AM    comment []