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AI in Manufacturing: What Your Machines Can Teach… Your Other Machines

What’s the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in Industry 4.0? It’s not easy to answer. AI isn’t a single technology; it’s better described as a broad field of inquiry into the development of machines that solve problems normally solved by human intelligence (along with problems we can’t solve!). For Industry 4.0, the AI innovation with the most impact (so far) is machine learning (ML). What is ML? ML algorithms create models based on historic data that return accurate predictions when given new data. “Machine learning is not intelligence in the true sense,” says Scott Genzer, data scientist at RapidMiner, [...]

By |2023-07-11T16:40:52+00:00July 11th, 2023|Artificial Intelligence, Innovation, Next Generation Manufacturing|Comments Off on AI in Manufacturing: What Your Machines Can Teach… Your Other Machines

The Power (and Peril) of Parenting in the Workplace

  By John Brandt with Jenny Sherman When I was as Editor-in-Chief at IndustryWeek (IW) magazine, my kids were toddlers.  And as anybody with kids will tell you, toddlers resemble nothing more than tiny, hilarious drunks, but with significantly less common sense. They survive for two reasons: parents who worry obsessively about them, and the fact that they mysteriously bounce, instead of break. This means that most parents — including me — live through a terrifying stage of life during which we continuously invent endless scenarios of all the ways our lurching progeny might hurt themselves, even as [...]

By |2023-06-14T17:15:14+00:00June 14th, 2023|Humor|Comments Off on The Power (and Peril) of Parenting in the Workplace

NAFEM Helps Manufacturers Find the Data They Need to Grow

MPI Customer Spotlight: NAFEM For a manufacturing company, plugging into the power of a community of peers can be both a lifeline and a launch pad. No one knows this better than the 500 member companies of NAFEM, the North American Association of Food Equipment Manufacturers. These manufacturers are the foundation of the foodservice industry. As NAFEM Executive Vice President Deirdre Flynn says, “If you've had the opportunity to eat outside of your home... our members are the people making the equipment and supplies that allow the chef to put their signature on the dishes you love.” When manufacturers [...]

By |2023-05-22T17:06:44+00:00May 22nd, 2023|Customer Spotlight|Comments Off on NAFEM Helps Manufacturers Find the Data They Need to Grow

A 10-Year Journey: Changing Green Practices in Manufacturing

Ah, 2010. Does it feel like yesterday... or a lifetime ago? We were two years into a recession. The iPhone was a new invention. The BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, the earthquake in Haiti, the passing of the Affordable Care Act: all on people’s minds. Remember the vuvuzelas at the FIFA World Cup in South Africa? It was simpler time. Maybe. It was also the year The MPI Group started tracking data on the green practices of manufacturing plants around the world. Ten years later, in 2020, we conducted our most recent MPI Manufacturing Study. Looking at the data [...]

By |2023-04-11T13:12:39+00:00April 11th, 2023|Manufacturing, MPI Manufacturing Study, Sustainability|Comments Off on A 10-Year Journey: Changing Green Practices in Manufacturing