Membrane switches first debuted in the 1980s, as low-cost and fairly low-tech user interfaces. Though many still hold this perception of them, membrane switches have advanced significantly over the last 30 years to the point where today’s applications are virtually unrecognizable from their first uses. As people have become fully accustomed to using touchscreens in their day-to-day lives, we are seeing the use of these interfaces expand into other areas, including the medical device market. Though touchscreens are slick and offer a familiar user experience, the membrane switch offers significant advantages over touchscreens, with high durability, and a more precise and pleasing user experience. In advance of the American Medical Device Summit, we spoke with Ken Boss, resident interface guru at JN White, about why membrane switches are still the ideal user interface for the medical device market.
Read More →Operational Machine Learning Use Cases
Falkonry is a leading provider of operational machine learning for industrial companies who are looking to achieve significant improvements in the throughput, quality and yield of their operations. Their ready-to-use machine learning system, Falkonry LRS, enables operations teams to discover patterns hidden in their existing operations data. It also helps apply predictive analytics and receive actionable insights, all without requiring data scientists.
Read More →US Medtech Industry Looking at Ireland as a Resource
While the American medtech industry is thriving, it still must deal with challenges that include higher production costs, finding skilled staff and the ongoing issues innate to a highly regulated sector. Then there are global concerns such as competition, funding and the high cost of research. With Europe and the United States being the key markets, many U.S. medtech firms have located some of their operations in Ireland in order to take advantage of an established, flourishing life sciences sector, strong governmental support and easy access to the lucrative European market. Among the more than 300 companies with Irish facilities are Boston Scientific, Abbott, Vistakon, Medtronic, Teleflex, Stryker, Cook Medical, Zimmer Biomet, DePuy Synthes, Hollister, and BD. The medtech field in Ireland employs more than 32,000 people, which is the highest per capita in Europe. One-quarter of the world’s diabetics — 30 million people — rely on an injectable device manufactured in Ireland, while half of all ventilators used by acute hospitals worldwide are also made there. Meanwhile, three-quarters of global orthopedic knee products were produced in Ireland. There are several important reasons why American medtech companies have been choosing Ireland as their European base of operations, benefiting from Ireland’s manufacturing expertise, R&D facilities, pool of trained workers, data analysis skills, collaboration between companies, financial advantages, and regulatory advantages.
Read More →Be the Customer of Choice: How to Get Suppliers Working with You, Not Against You
In today’s economy, resources are limited – and that includes the shrinking pool of elite suppliers who can make or break your organization’s brand and product standing. More than ever, businesses must work to earn their spot on a short list of preferred customers to the best and brightest in the market. With the right partnerships, your organization stands to learn, grow, and evolve into your next big opportunity. This whitepaper by Intelex explores the following 3 tactics that are critical to a successful supplier partnership:
Read More →Chemical company serves customers better and faster with Siemens AX4
Global chemical giant BASF operates production plants in several countries and is committed to creating additional value for its customers and increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of their processes. For its logistics, the company relies on a network of hundreds of carriers. One of BASF’s objectives was to manage logistics processes and enable teams to collaborate smoothly along the transport chain. The goal was for each shipment from BASF to automatically move through a standard workflow, from the production site to the recipient. With the installation of the Siemens AX4 cloud-based logistics platform, BASF could optimize management of their logistics network, automate communications to the carriers, transfer accompanying shipment documents from AX4 to the carrier system, and get status reports from the carrier. This new digital technology set the foundation for successful collaboration between BASF and its logistics network for all transport data. Siemens AX4 allowed for the integration of partners into the BASF network, and better control of transportation-related costs through the standardization of logistics processes. If you want to discover how Siemens AX4 can increase the transparency of your entire supply chain, visit http://www.axit.de/en/digitalization to learn more.
Read More →3 Critical Components for a Full Industrial IoT Solution
As manufacturers have likely heard again and again, there are many benefits to implementing Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) solutions. Though no two environments are the same, there are some key benefits that all manufacturers will appreciate: new revenue streams, cost savings, flexibility, and increased visibility, which enables better decision making. In rapidly changing markets, the IIoT allows companies to stay relevant, giving them data to guide decisions and make a business case for innovation, allowing them to put out products faster and at a lower cost. But many manufacturers are still hesitant to implement a full IoT Solution. Some are held back by budget concerns; more still are held back by fear of the unknown. It’s hard to know where to start. Technology changes so quickly that one can get overwhelmed and fear the risk of making the wrong decision. Most lack in-house knowledge and hiring a whole implementation team can be an expensive, risky, and time-consuming proposition.
Read More →3 Key Components to Enable Predictive Maintenance
The ultimate goal of predictive maintenance is to reduce valuable machinery downtime. Predictive maintenance has become an essential tool for almost every industry because of its efficiency in detecting faults during the early stages of failure, allowing for a much simpler, safer, and cheaper repair solution than the alternative: catastrophic failure. Today, companies are adopting predictive technologies at staggering rates. According to Markets and Markets Research, the market size for predictive maintenance technologies is just above $1.4 billion and is expected to eclipse $5 billion by 2021 with the help of IoT. As with any program, there is a very simple formula for predictive maintenance success. There should be an owner, someone who is held accountable and responsible. There should also be attainable goals for the program; understanding what program success looks like may mean that the owner needs to go through extensive training. An evaluation of current program maturity should follow with a comparison with best practice. Then a proper roadmap can be built to bridge the current state to the future, best practice state. Because most companies operate with limited resources, one of the toughest jobs is going to be prioritizing the time, money, and energy spent on certain initiatives to close the gap.
Read More →Smart technology for a smart future connect Siemens and Dürr
Dürr is a mechanical and plant engineering firm seeking to become a global leader in digitalization by actively promoting this transformation through core “smart” areas. One aspect involved increasing end-to-end visibility in logistics processes. A focal point was on information – the faster information is available, the more value it offers. Based on this strategy, the Siemens AX4 platform would act as a single point of entry for Dürr by bundling data, documents, and information from various sources for status updates, provide constant monitoring of a component’s location, and supply real-time tracking information for precise ETAs. Dürr benefits from the Siemens digital tools which has resulted in more control of the global enterprise’s construction and worldwide assembly projects, end-to-end supply chain visibility and complete process integration of plants, customers, and service Providers, and visualization of the supply chain from loading at production to the construction site staging area. To learn how to keep your company highly efficient, visit http://www.axit.de/en/digitalization for more information.
Read More →Leadership Spotlight: Dan Key, SVP, Chief Supply Chain Officer, Axalta Coating Systems
Dan Key is an accomplished senior executive with a 30-year track record in leading operations, supply chain, distribution, procurement, product management, and general management of global businesses. He is an expert in transforming, acquiring, growing, divesting, and repositioning assets throughout the world within both public and privately-owned companies. Dan is known for his approachable and inclusive style of leadership and he excels at rallying cross-functional teams around a unified vision. Over the course of his career, he has repeatedly contributed to EBITDA growth year-after-year through rigorous cost control and throughput improvements, leveraging deep experience in leading end-to-end supply chain and operations across 31 countries. Dan is currently the Senior Vice President, Chief Supply Chain Officer, at Axalta Coating Systems. Axalta is a $4B paint and coating company serving the transportation, refinish, and industrial markets. Dan manages 50 global sites with over 6,000 employees in 19 countries with an annual COGS spend of over $2B.
Read More →Siemens AX4 helps drive success for Deutz
Deutz is a worldwide provider of diesel and gas engines, and a company that prides itself on spirit, passion and a commitment to quality. To achieve better performance, Deutz initiated measures to increase the quality and reliability of inbound and outbound shipments. In addition to simplifying workflows, the IT solution needed to adapt to Deutz’s SAP system and eliminate manual input along the entire process. Deutz also wanted to avoid investing in its own IT infrastructure and cut its process costs. Siemens AX4 logistics platform offered solutions including that integrated global suppliers, carriers and service providers into a single system and provided central access of logistics data for Deutz as well as its suppliers and carriers. By significantly increasing productivity, and improving reliability and on-time performance through automated workflows, the AX4 cloud-based platform allowed Deutz to maintain their “customer value, quality, and technology come first” philosophy. With this implementation, their desire to cut costs was also realized because there was no need for an additional investment to increase warehouse space. To find your digital logistics solutions and get on the road to success, visit http://www.axit.de/en/digitalization for more information.
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