Industrial Transformation Blog

It should be “event season” except, as my daughter says, “everything is cancelled.”  Vendors have three choices in this era of Social Distancing: cancel their event, postpone their event, or go virtual. iBASEt has gone the “postpone” route with a goal of having their customer conference Excelerate 2020 in the fall.  In the meantime, they briefed LNS Research on their progress.

As I previously mentioned in a recent blog on IX Reference Architecture, LNS Research has been at the forefront of research on the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and the technologies’ impact on Industrial Transformation (IX).  In that blog, I also indicated LNS Research was the first to define an IIoT Platform. With market changes and technology advances, we have become convinced manufacturers should be looking beyond IIoT Platforms to a comprehensive view of IX Reference Architectures. A recent LNS Research Spotlight details our thinking. 

Last week’s job report showed what many of us already knew intuitively. The real economy is bad and will likely get worse before it gets better.

It’s been 10 months since GE Digital appointed new CEO Patrick Byrne. In our last blog, after their September 2019 User Group meeting, we said, “GE Digital has re-emerged with renewed focus led by fresh, engineering-grounded, no-nonsense leadership in Pat Byrne. We look forward to seeing if this new positive momentum is sustainable.” So what’s happened since then? Let’s take a look under the hood and see what Pat and his team have been doing. 

LNS Research recently hosted an Executive Roundtable online with manufacturers about their responses to the global pandemic.  Manufacturers are working closely with their local and national public health institutions, unions and Worker Safety organizations (such as OSHA in the US) to develop plans on how to react to the crisis unfolding in front of them.  It should come as no surprise that most manufacturers were quite short-term focused.  Few manufacturers reported on developing medium- or long-term plans yet. 

LNS Research has been at the forefront of research on the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and the technologies’ impact on Industrial Transformation (IX). We all were the first to define the term. We were the first to define an IIoT Platform. With market changes and technology advances we have become convinced manufacturers should be looking beyond IIoT Platforms to a comprehensive view of an IX Reference Architectures. A recent LNS Research Spotlight details our thinking. This blog post focuses on one piece of that Spotlight: what is an IX Reference Architecture?

In the global COVID-19 crisis, an adage commonly attributed to Winston Churchill rings true more than ever: “When you’re going through hell, keep going”. The conventional wisdom is that crises bring out the both the best and the worst in people and organizations. The Coronavirus pandemic is no exception. 

The NAEM Software, Innovation & Technology conference was held March 3-5, 2020, at the Hilton Riverside in New Orleans. This was the fifth consecutive year I’ve attended this conference, this time joined by my research colleague, Chris Follis. This event gathers the Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) and Sustainability (EHSS) software and technology ecosystem for networking and best practice sharing. There was a consensus among participants that we were lucky the event could even be held, given that COVID-19 pandemic social distancing and travel restrictions were really starting to kick in.

This is the fifth consecutive year I’ve attended the NAEM Software, Innovation & Technology conference, this time joined by my research colleague Chris Follis. It was held March 3-5, 2020, at the Hilton Riverside in New Orleans. The timing of the event was fortunate; it was held right before widescale COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions kicked in.

As I sit in my wee home office in rural Belgium, I am regularly reminded by the most recent news flash that we are in lockdown – do not go out! Unless, of course you are exempted by meeting one of dozens of criteria listed in the government FAQ. It is great to see the threat being taken so seriously; we can only hope the rapid growth in new cases will slow down soon. Even so, we can expect to be confined for a considerable period and continue to support our clients as well as ever.