Given the fact that Mother's Day is just around the corner, I thought it would be appropriate to acknowledge another MOM that's made a huge difference in the industry. Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM), otherwise known as manufacturing execution systems (MES),

While U.S. manufacturers brace themselves against the latest wave of bad economic news, manufacturers based in other parts of the world could stand to benefit from some of the factors giving American companies the shakes. So says Germany based supply

What should a manufacturing executive make of the mercurial history and cloudy future of RFID technology? One day (and in one publication) the outlook's sunny, the next barcodes are predicted to live forever, and their cousin, RFID,

We know that this year’s crop of Presidential candidates isn’t really all that interested in manufacturing. Now it appears that they aren’t that interested in science either. An editorial in The Wall Street Journal yesterday ...

If you, like me, are a relatively frequent flyer, the turmoil currently surrounding major U.S. airlines has got to leave you more than a little unnerved. American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and others, in recent weeks, have cancelled scores or hundreds

If you go to the EPA's website, you'll see a big banner at the top of the page promoting Earth Day on April 22nd, a worldwide campaign to protect the environment. Good stuff, indeed. But rather ironic considering the reason I

The reality of global supply chains in the aerospace and defense industry hit full force in the mainstream media in late February when the U.S. Air Force announced that a consortium led by Northrop Grumman and the European Aeronautic Defence & Space Company, the parent company of Airbus, beat out Boeing for a $35 billion tanker aircraft contract.

I agree that Aerospace is truly global now and that our trade with other countries in this industry is pretty good. This reminds me of the debate over the Presidential Helicopter. I am concerned about losing out technical and engineering edge. Can we direct some of that lobbying money to improving our designs and operations?

See more comments on my blog: http://aerospace.discretetalk.com

I've written before about product piracy and the sellers who ply the trade on eBay. But I hadn't searched eBay for evidence until now.There's a lot of it.I found PLC programming software from Mitsubishi Electric. A GE Fanuc PLC training console.

Recently I took advantage of an opportunity to visit the Dia Art Foundation museum in Beacon, NY. This place, as anyone who's been there knows, is spectacular in several ways. It's a large, naturally lit space that is able to accommodate very large works by artists such as Richard Serra, Andy Warhol, and Louise Bourgeois. The vision of these artists, expressed on a large scale, is inspiring.

Last night I was lost in New York City. All you native New Yorkers are gasping in horror, I'm sure. I can hear you now, "It's so easy! It's just a grid of streets. You can go uptown or downtown, or to the east side or the west side. How in the world could you get lost?"

Well, this Bostonian did. I eventually found my way, but it was a very inefficient process.

Your "lost" analogy to manufacturers adapting new technology is appropriate. Most projects are "lost" until someone decides that this must be the destination. Then project participants assess the destination and blame the technology that results in this under achieving location.

How much time do you spend reading blogs? Are there certain blogs you know and love, that you visit regularly and value for their information and insight? Or are blogs on the periphery of your search for information? How important are they to your job?

As a blogger in the Industrial Automation world, I spend much of my day reading blogs, so they are very important to my job. The OPC Exchange blog has a sharp focus on OPC standards, technology and applications. Since OPC is used across multiple industries, manufacturing and levels of business it must follow the 'overarching umbrella' of industrial automation (Which is why The Edge is one of my must read blogs).

Like Eric, I follow a large number of blogs and try to devote an hour or so a day reading the automation-related RSS feeds to which I'm subscribed (http://www.bloglines.com/public/JimCahill).

There are a few that I closely follow that come in like email to my Outlook 2007 client with it's integrated RSS (Newsgator.com now offers a free client for those with older versions of Outlook.) This is a nice way to consume the feeds and be able to forward them on to others around our organization.