Industrial Automation

As I get ready for my presentation on The Factory of the Future, Today: Lessons Learned from Deploying IoT at the Design & Manufacturing Conference, I think the main value I get out of these conferences is networking with peers and staying relevant in a fast-evolving job market. Companies are al…

I know, I know – It’s a topic that’s been kicked around for years. However machine builders, OEM’s, and even end users continue to put unmanaged switches in applications where a managed switch is clearly a better choice. Helping guarantee your machine performs its best, has maximum uptime, and doesn…

What is ADMS and why are utilities implementing or considering ADMS? Gartner describes ADMS as: The software platform that automates outage restoration and optimizes the performance of the distribution grid. ADMS functions being developed for electric utilities include: Fault location, isolation, a…

In the first blog of this series, we talked about some of the unique security challenges that manufacturers face. The more connected your environment becomes, the more difficult it is to integrate your enterprise IT with your industrial technologies.  Here are the rest of the Security 7: Play zone…

There’s no better example of the recent trend of “Made in America” products than this year’s Ralph Lauren’s Olympics uniforms. But Ralph isn’t the only one leading the “Made in America” charge. Photo Credit: Fortune Walmart is also capitalizing on the trend. According to them, “Made in the USA” is…

This is part 1 of a 2 part series. Next week we’ll reveal part 2. Manufacturers who are better at connecting factory systems with enterprise networks undoubtedly create a more agile, efficient, flexible and profitable business, as exemplified in a recent case study we had with Daimler Truck N…

It’s been a couple weeks since Cisco Live wrapped up. With roughly 25,000 attendees each year, it is a gold mine for new content, hands-on learning, IoT discussions and…well, fun. While I spent a fair amount of hours perusing the show flow, ogling the astonishing 250 booth displays, I also spent a l…

A jam-packed media briefing room in Tokyo was the site of a big announcement this week. FANUC, the world’s leading maker of industrial robots, announced a collaborative effort with Cisco, Rockwell Automation, and Preferred Networks (PFN) to jointly develop and deploy the FANUC Intelligent Edge Link…

We’re excited to be at Hannover Messe this week and even more excited to announce that our network architecture now supports the PROFINET standard. This is a big step on our journey towards the Industrie 4.0 Initiative, and in helping our manufacturing customers achieve the business benefits of full…