Saturday, July 18, 2015

Nice Article on Mazak in Control Design for Machine Builders



Michael Bacidore, Chief Editor for Control Design for Machine Builders wrote a very nice article titled:

Mazak improves OEE with MTConnect

 Below are some very interesting snippets from Mr. Bacidore's article:

 

"Mazak provides MTConnect solutions for standardizing device data on the manufacturing floor to its customers, said Rowland, who’s been with Mazak about 20 years. “We wanted to really know what was going on with our machines," he explained. "Our goal was to improve our OEE using the MTConnect technology. We wanted to see what stopped the machines on the production floor. We evaluated six monitoring software packages and selected Memex Automation. We wanted something simple that could monitor all of the NC signals and a reporting feature that was easy to use for the supervisors and operators, too.”

What kind of data can be monitored out of the Mazak CNC? Programs, CNC status, axis loads, spindle rpm, temperature, overrides. What kind of ROI can be expected? “Anywhere between 3% and 15%, depending on how efficient your operation currently is,” explained Rowland. In September 2013, Mazak implemented a test cell with 12 machines."

The Poor State of Computer Security in our Federal Government



When I was listening to an interview of Katherine Archuleta, director of the federal Office of Personnel Management, and she stumbled in her answer on whether or not the social security numbers were encrypted I was absolutely furious!

How in the hell can our social security numbers NOT be encrypted in 2015 - especially those individuals with clearances?

As CNN reported and I could not agree more with House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, Chairman Chaffetz who said to Archuleta "you failed, you failed utterly and totally," when she would not say why the hacked data was not encrypted.

Here is a nice article by Andrea Peterson on the sorry shape of computer security titled:

It’s not just OPM: Cybersecurity across the federal government is pretty awful