I can’t help but feel inspired after a day of inspirational presentations and conversations with manufacturing companies, including ABB, Atlas Copco, and BillerudKorsnäs who were all amongst the speakers at the Industri 4.0 event, covering digitalization, AI and IoT. I want to share with you my key take-aways from the event. As Björn Jonsson from…
In this series we’ve discussed the service buzzwords I believe deserve the most attention in 2018 and in my last blog we discussed cloud’s huge influence on successful service models. My goal throughout this series has been that you leave with an understanding how these key concepts can bring value to your customers and your…
Previously, we discussed the importance of delivering seamless customer service throughout the entire service lifecycle. In this blog we’ll discuss a key buzzword for 2018 that impacts everything from machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), virtual collaboration, predictive maintenance, digital supply chain and more! The Internet of Things (IoT) is changing our world and will be…
We are seeing the growing demand to integrate connected devices for field service operations. In a recent study by IFS, 30 percent of product-oriented companies said they are already using IoT for field service to some extent – a few companies are even harnessing IoT data to automatically trigger work orders or technician dispatches. But…
Over the years there have been many paradigms that claim to optimize production and save the world—bottleneck, forward and backward, finite and infinite scheduling models, DDMRP, Kanban—and almost all failed in some way to deliver manufacturing nirvana. One such stratagem was the Theory of Constraints (TOC). But could a fresh approach to TOC, combined with…
The penalties for poor maintenance can be high—in energy production, loss of revenue and component costs, as well as fines levied for non-delivery. But contrast this with time and/or operation count-based maintenance where a piece of equipment gets maintained whether it needs it or not. This is labor intensive and ineffective in identifying problems that…
We’ve all heard the promises of efficiency improvements and digital transformation made possible by adopting internet of things (IoT) technologies. This assumes, of course, that the observations coming out of the IoT monitoring system are actually correct. No, this blogpost is not about tampering or other cybersecurity concerns—although that topic would be worth a blogpost…
Businesses are constantly told they will go broke if they do not digitally transform and quickly, but for manufacturers it’s not quite as simple. If production goes down even for a day, the impact can be irreversible, with potentially millions in revenue lost. From an ergonomic, economic and environmental perspective, smart factories are heralded as…
In this Q&A, Kenny Ingram, construction and contracting industry expert and Global Industry Director at IFS, answers questions on whether or not construction companies will be able to keep up with demand, along with valuable suggestions for doing so. Kenny has been with IFS for more than 16 years and has worked in the business…
How analysis of the Internet of Things (IoT) yields unexpected information. We recently installed solar panels on our house. For those of you that know me, I’m a bit of a technology enthusiast and I’ve been wanting to do this for quite some time. The salesman came with a great story about how good this…
