With the rushed production schedules at plants, having key process information is not the only data needed, but key device data allows scheduled maintenance.

While the vocabulary doesn’t have to be large, each machine should know about stops and starts upstream and downstream.

Industrial heat pumps provide chilling and freezing, and reclaim the heat energy lost in chilling to save money on heating water for cooking and cleaning—but is retrofitting possible?

Unlike wet ingredients, the handling of dry powder ingredients and products usually requires specifically designed process areas to prevent dangerous situations that could result in worker injuries or death.

While you can measure and chart OEE manually, today’s AI and ML-based technologies with smart sensors can help processors find the little things that can improve availability, performance and quality — leading to autonomous manufacturing.

AI looks to be a panacea for making better inspection choices, but knowing specifically what the inspection criteria should be needs to be in place before employing an AI-based system.

Chances are you could have been affected by the CrowdStrike update to Windows systems, but fixing the problem required personal onsite attention.

Ahmik Hindman, senior networks and security consultant at Rockwell Automation, recently spoke about how food manufacturers can assess cybersecurity risks, implement security patches and build a cybersecurity risk management system.

Even though new processing and packaging equipment today has maintenance tools built in, proper planning and integration into an enterprise maintenance management system makes repair activities easier to track and helps prevent a stockroom full of expensive parts that are never needed.

AI, machine learning and robotics not only improve product flow, but also can attract young talent that’s grown up with computers and easily adapts to new technologies.