Thursday, November 22, 2007

Plant floor data connectivity ILS Technology LLC, a spinoff from IBM that offers connection of manufacturing data directly to a variety of common enterprise databases, has announced that its deviceWise 2.0 framework has been adopted by Softing AG for integration into its OPC-UA Factory Gateway solution. Pilot production of the solution based on the partnership is expected in early 2008. 11:22:19 AM    comment []

Partners for performance Wipro Technologies, the global IT services business of Wipro Limited, and GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, will be working together globally to provide production management solutions to the consumer packaged goods and pharmaceutical industries. The focus will include implementation and standardization of manufacturing execution systems, integration to provide visibility into  manufacturing operations improving quality, regulatory compliance and traceability, and enabling process analytical technology approach through manufacturing intelligence. 11:17:53 AM    comment []

Thinking Lean on Thanksgiving From the Evolving Excellence blog, Lean is not a Metric. Excellent thoughts on what Lean means, including this quote: I would even take it a couple steps further.  Lean, and especially TPS, is about two things: creating value from the perspective of the customer and respecting people.  It is not about stellar implementations of 5S, kanban, hoshin kanri... or inventory reduction.  Those are just tools and metrics that in a very general sense can usually help create value for the customer.  But we must not lose sight of the focus on value creation. 11:10:39 AM    comment []

Researching wireless Dust Networks has to be the most aggressive of the mesh networking technology developers. At least in the industrial space. It has partnered with technology companies and standards organizations. Now it has launched an outreach to the university research community. The Dust Networks Research Innovation Program is designed to foster continued innovation of wireless sensor network applications in the academic and research communities. Part of the program is the SmartMesh-XT Research Development Kit. The program also provides access to the Dust Networks Research Support Community -- a forum for sharing information, ideas, best practices and practical development and deployment solutions. The development kit "all the tools necessary for prototyping and application development based on Dust Networks' WSN technology. It is available in both 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz versions. Included in the kit are: one packaged manager twelve evaluation motes SmartMesh Console user guides batteries, power supply and cables international power adapter kit (2.4 GHz kit only) LVTTL converter and serial cable for connecting a mote to a PC via RS232 documentation software tools and utilities sample code including API libraries and usage examples 11:06:41 AM    comment []