Gary On Manufacturing - Gary Mintchell

Here's a video essay from NI Week. Day 3 keynotes feature students and a noted guest. This year's keynote was not a disappointment. Three groups of college students accepted various challenges including building an electric car (and driving it cross-country), building a more environmentally friendly car, and finally building a car that a blind person can drive. Finally, Dr. Mishio Kaku, noted theoretical physicist and TV personality, discussed the future.  He closed with an interesting thought that relates to my dialoge with Martin Ford by discussing the types of jobs that will dominate in the future.

In this audio/video essay, Gary takes a look at the environment of risky behaviors that can lead to safety and secutiry breechs. He looks at the BP oil rig situation and the virus that targeted Siemens WinCC HMI/SCADA. Links to articles can be found at http://www.garymintchellsfeedforward.com.

Gary discusses digital manufacturing--specifically virtual commissioning--with Tom Hoffman of Siemens PLM. Check out the benefits of working out machine ideas on a computer before cutting steel.

Gary discusses the recent Siemens PLM conference, digital manufacturing and cool design tools.

Gary wraps up information from the MESA International conference in Dearborn, MI June 21-23.

Gary discusses the MESA International Strategic Initiatives Model of MES with Doug Weaver. Doug is a practitioner in his day job and also Treasurer and Chair of the Website Committee of MESA International. The model can be found at http://www.mesa.org/en/modelstrategicinitiatives/MSI.asp. The model describes the links between software modules that comprise Manufacturing Enterprise Solution applications and corporate strategic initiatives such as real-time enterprise or Lean. We talked at the MESA International Conference in Dearborn, MI on June 23, 2010.

An essay on thought leadership.

Gary discusses what automation means to future unemployment (The Lights in the Tunnel by Martin Ford), the value of working with your hands (Shop Craft as Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford), decentralized organizations (The Starfish and the Spider), along with recapping the Packaging Automation Forum, Emerson/Fisher's new Laboratory and ABB's user conference.

Automation World Editor in Chief Gary Mintchell interviews Charlie Fialkowski, U.S. Process Safety Manager for Siemens Industry Inc. about standards updates for burner management system safety including a discussion of programmable safety logic controllers, NFPA, ISA 84 and Technical Report 05 of the ISA S-84 Committee.

Gary discusses how organizations can be insidious in enticing people into ethical lapses referring to the current news about Toyota and the Pope. Industrial Ethernet market share is next up for discussion followed by reading for his May issue of Automation World article about creating a safety culture. He finishes with thoughts about an interview with auto industry analyst James Harbour and whether automation will completely replace jobs.

Gary discusses the need for education, company sponsored education, and talks about entrepreneur education at Stanford, Vivek Wadhwa writing at TechCrunch on why America needs to invest in its workforce, a Robert Scoble video interview and finally refers to a Seth Godin blog with a video on what a teacher makes.

Gary discusses power and energy in this update on sustainable manufacturing as a corporate strategy.

Thoughts on automotive manufacturing pondering post by Kevin Kelly, is large petrochemical peaking for a new reality in process, networking, Ethernet, wireless sensor networks and the Internet of Things.

Gary discusses the rising stock prices for some automation companies, leadership, SME getting high school students involved in manufacturing, sustainability as a manufacturing model and wireless control.

In news from the last couple of weeks, Gary discusses changes to the upcoming Pack Expo, the need for visionary leadership, upcoming conferences for WBF and MESA.

Gary discusses happenings at the 14th annual ARC Forum in Orlando. There were product announcements from many companies, an indepth discussion of the multi-year Invensys strategy that has led to the formation of IOM, WBF and OMAC and their separation from ISA and a few thoughts about wireless from the Forum.

Gary reviews several earnings reports from the automation industry and then reports from MESA International and Cambashi research on manufacturers improving financial performance and manufacturing performance using well defined metrics and automated data gathering. The latest edition of the popular Packaging Automation Forum is announced. Then a few thoughts on Toyota, Lean and entrepreneurship in automotive manufacturing.

Gary wonders about what we'll see in automation in 2010. Also introduces OurISA, a movement to generate grass-roots ideas into a professional engineering society.

Re-release (hopefully this one transferred in its entirety) of Gary's update of ISA Expo and Advantech Conference. Recorded in Suzhou, China.

Gary interviews David Deitz, director of product marketing for Delta V, at the Emerson Global Users Exchange in Orlando about the rollout of the new DeltaV version 11 and its significant new features.