Gary On Manufacturing - Gary Mintchell

Mike Boudreaux of Emerson Automation assembled a panel discussion during Emerson Global Users Exchange 2019 comprised of two IT professionals and two OT professionals to discuss the Edge and Digital Transformation. The conversation among the two "sides" is growing closer and closer.

From Clark Griswold's cereal crunch enhancer to some of my experiences in engineering and manufacturing, I ponder how we need to work to benefit our customer and our society rather than being harmful and hurtful. Brought to you by Ignition 8 from Inductive Automation.

Every supplier provides customers with digital transformation these days. Just what is it? How does it relate to IT and OT? What is the business case? Sponsored by Ignition by Inductive Automation.

Platforms come and go--sometimes quickly with turns in technology. IoT platforms were all the rage. Just like IT/OT Convergence and other hyped tech. But engineers are quietly working together to apply the technologies to solve business and industrial problems. Don't watch the hype. Notice when everyone is using it.

There are many reasons to go to IT conferences. There is a lot of digitalization activity in this area. Compute platforms, gateways, edge, IoT, networking, analytics, security, and more. This episode sponsored by Ignition from Inductive Automation and also by Schneider Electric's Foxboro and Triconex upcoming user conference.

If we are ever going to finally bring IT and OT together, indeed break through all of a company's silos, it will be through adopting coaching as a key component of the manager's tool kit. I reference Trillion Dollar Coach by Schmidt, Rosenberg, and Eagle—a book about legendary Bill Campbell and how his coaching made the difference for executives at Google, Apple, and many more Silicon Valley companies. I also take a look at another Bill—Bill Gates—whose 10 top tech trends and 10 top challenges to solve appeared in this spring's MIT Technology Review.

The old IT and OT silo idea is finally a myth--whether you want to believe it or not. Manufacturing and production management are not stupid. They act on what they think is best. Structurally organizing so that IT and OT leaders are placed together and work together is solving the grand data problem of process data integrating into enterprise systems.

There are some things that drive me up the metaphorical wall. Especially concerning discussions of automation and jobs. I've contemplated this issue for years. Lately there was an issue of the Axios Future newsletter. There are times when they stop at a macro level with no understanding of underlying facts. That's a common problem with both economists and journalists.

My concerns: 1. Confusing robots and automation 2. Not understanding the jobs that were replaced 3. Advances in manufacturing that greatly enhance the quality of jobs 4. Confuse correlation with causation

I interviewed CEOs of two startup companies who are developing products based on powerful, yet inexpensive technologies, that promise to disrupt several use cases.