Wayne Labs has more than 30 years of editorial experience in industrial automation. He served as senior technical editor for I&CS/Control Solutions magazine for 18 years where he covered software, control system hardware and sensors/transmitters. Labs ran his own consulting business and contributed feature articles to Electronic Design, Control, Control Design, Industrial Networking and Food Engineering magazines. Before joining Food Engineering, he served as a senior technical editor for Omega Engineering Inc. Labs also worked in wireless systems and served as a field engineer for GE’s Mobile Communications Division and as a systems engineer for Bucks County Emergency Services. In addition to writing technical feature articles, Wayne covers FE’s Engineering R&D section.
Good data—and lots of it—is key to making artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) production, inspection and packaging systems work without a hitch, plus well written algorithms to analyze the data and make decisions that will help people and machines function more intelligently.
Consumers may discard the stems of mushrooms when they prepare salads, or use them in cooking, but startup Chinova Bioworks has found a way to make use of the fibrous stems of white button mushrooms.
Without sensor data, you can’t control a process—much less begin a digital transformation at your facility. KPIs (Key performance indicators) are a way to measure how your process, packaging or even your palletizing areas are performing, but to get these KPIs requires sensor data.