Great First [MC]2 MTConnect Connecting Manufacturing Conference!

By any metric, the first ever [MC]2 MTConnect: Connecting Manufacturing Conference was a resounding success.  This conference took place November 8^th to the 10th, 2011 in Cincinnati, Ohio, and had something for everyone from distributors to end users, to manufacturing technology builders, to software developers, to C-level executives, to students, to professors and to anyone who just wanted to really understand MTConnect.  [MC]2 was very unique in that there were sessions for both business and technical tracks, three two hour hands-on technical workshops, as well as 26 exhibitors who were showcasing their commercially available products utilizing the MTConnect standard. 

We recorded all the tracks, have all the presentations and will make this available to attendees the 2nd week of December.

•Thanks to ALL of you for making [MC]2 a big success!

•Thanks to the [MC]2 presenters, instructors, and panelists!

•Thanks to our sponsors!

•Thanks to the [MC]2 Planning Committee!

•Thanks to MTConnect’s Board of Directors!

•Thanks to all of those folks at AMT who, without their hard and smart work, [MC]2 is not possible!

•Special thanks to all of the attendees!

The Hyatt Regency in Cincinnati, Ohio ended up being a great location.  Here was  the view from the registration area just outside the main Regency Ball Room where we held the General/Business Sessions, The Buckeye Room where we held the Technical Sessions/Workshops and Regency B where we had the 25 exhibitors

Above is the very beginning of the Tuesday night opening reception.   

On the evening of Tuesday November 8^th there was an opening night reception for the 175 attendees from around the globe who came to Cincinnati for [MC]2.  Tuesday evening provided the opportunity for everyone to share their own opportunities as well as spend some time with [MC]2 speakers, instructors and exhibitors.   Wednesday morning Dave Edstrom, president and Chairman of the Board for the MTConnect Institute, kicked off the general session.  Dave discussed the agenda for the new few days where their would be parallel business and technical tracks.  Attendees were very pleased to learn that all business and technical sessions as well as the technical workshops were being recorded.  This allowed individuals to select the session they wanted to attend live with the opportunity to watch other sessions later when these are posted to the new MTConnect website.  We expect these to be posted in the early part of December.

 

 Above is part of the table for all the registered attendees, speakers, instructors and exhibitors.

Above are the MTConnect Institute Founders.





Above are the [MC]2 sponsors.

Above is the [MC]2 audience before we kicked off the first day.  Dr. Dean Bartles is the gentleman in the blue blazer in the foreground.

  Above is me kicking off the [MC]2.  I modeled this after Java One and it worked.  Thank god! :-)   Below was a very important slide in my kickoff for [MC]2.

•  Many, many talented individuals helped make MTConnect real

•  Without these two, MTConnect never gets off the ground in 2006.

•  John Byrd, President of AMT

•  Doug Woods, Chairman of AMT

•   Without the tremendous leadership and incredible hard work of these next three, there is NO MTConnect

•  Paul Warndorf, VP of Technology - CTO for AMT

•  Will Sobel, President of System Insights

•  John Turner, Director FA Consulting & Technology

Above Penny DiCarlo of AMT is interviewing Mike Geldner of Google after he registered. 

Above is Mike Geldner of Google giving his keynote, "Inside The World of Google".

Above Mike Geldner is showing off the first computer he worked on.  Yes, I am old and so are my closest friends :-)

I am thanking Mike for a GREAT keynote!  
 

Mike Geldner of Google gave the first keynote.  Mike has extensive background in the computer industry and has been aware of MTConnect for a couple of years.  Mike gave a talk entitled, “Inside The World of Google”.  Mike fascinated the audience with what it is like to work at the company that literally has over one million job applicants every year.   Here is a very cool video that Mike Geldner of Google put together for the [MC]2 MTConnect Conecting Manufacturing Conference's Sponsoring companies.

After Mike’s keynote, the attendees had the opportunity to attend either the business or technical tracks that would define exactly what MTConnect is all about.   The technical tracks on Wednesday also included excellent workshops taught by Joel Neidig of ITAMCO on “MTConnect 101: The Fundamental of MTConnect” and Nat Frampton of Real Time Development who taught “MTConnect Architecture: Understanding and Building MTConnect Agents and Adapters” in the afternoon.  The were five tremendous business sessions on Wednesday on a variety of topics including “What Is MTConnect”, “Getting Started With MTConnect Connectivity Guide”, “Expert Panel on Monitoring Your Shop Floor With MTConnect”, “Making Money and Saving Time With MTConnect” and “Business Intelligence For Manufacturing”. 

Above, John Turner, President of FA Consulting and Technology is presenting, "Getting Started With MTConnect - Connectivity Guide" with Dave McPhail, President of MEMEX Automation who is seated on the left.

Above, I am speaking Joel Neidig of ITAMCO, who taught the MTConnect 101: Fundamentals of MTConnect Course.  Joel's company was also an [MC]2 sponsor.  Joel wrote the first MTConnect mobile app for the iPhone and Android.  Joel open sourced both sets of code.  Joel was also on the "MTConnect In Real Life Panel" that I hosted.  Joel is a great guy and real thought leader in manufacturing.

Above is a view of just two of the exhibitors during [MC]2.

Above, Randy Lewis of LNS, is discussing the state of the art interconnectivity demo that he worked with seven other companies on for [MC]2 with Will Sobel being the lead. 

Above is a view of one side of the [MC]2 exhibitor section.

The technical and business sessions took a break between noon and 2pm to enjoy lunch while walking among the 26 MTConnect exhibitors showing off their hardware and software MTConnect enabled products.   Later that afternoon both sessions combined again for thought provoking discussions on “MTConnect In Real Life – MTConnect Users Panel” and “Smart Grid and Smart Manufacturing With MTConnect”.  At 6pm we had dinner in the exhibitor areas as well as at 7:30 we started the three Birds Of a Feather (BoFs) which were open discussions on a variety of topics such as connectivity with legacy machine tools, MTConnect-OPC UA, open discussions with MTConnect’s Chief Architect Will Sobel to real life MTConnect case study at TechSolve.  We even introduced the new term BBoF – Bar Birds of a Feather where 30 attendees kept talking about MTConnect well into Thursday morning.  It was a long but very productive day.

Above is the other side of the [MC]2 exhibitor section.

 

Above is a CNC HMI (Computer Numerical Control Human Machine Interface).

 Above is a closeup of a screen showing machine tool data.

 Above are cutting tools from the Kennametal exhibit area.

Above is Dr. Eraldo Jannone da Silva presenting MTConnect as an Integration Tool for the Shop Floor Environment


Prof. Eraldo Jannone da Silva, School of Engineering, University of Sao Paulo


The business and technical tracks were also in place for Thursday with the technical track covering an interesting talk by Dr. Eraldo Jannone da Silva who discussed how they are using the cloud with MTConnect for analytics and scheduling.  Chris Tacke president of OpenNetCF led a brilliant session on “MTConnect Hello World: Building Your First MTConnect Application Using The SDK”.  The business sessions included great sessions on “Supply Chain Visibility Using MTConnect” and “Sustainable Aerospace Manufacturing”. 

 Above is Pat McGibbon, VP of SIR for AMT and Mark Kennedy, Director of Membership for AMT and leading the MTInsight Software Sales effort.  Pat runs all of MTInsight.

 Above is Ralph Resnick, President of NCDMM, discussing Sustainable Aerospace Manufacturing.  Amit Deshpande of TechSolve was the co-presenter with Ralph.  Ralph was pitching in for Corey Kovalcik of NCDMM who had an family emergency.

Above is Paul Warndorf, VP of Technology and CTO for AMT, introducing Steve Luckowski (below).

 

The highlight of the conference may have been the final session by Steve Luckowski (above).  Steve is the Chief for Materials, Mfg. and Prototype Technology Division at Army Research Development Engineering Command (ARDEC).  His talk was titled, “The Role of MTConnect in Defense Manufacturing” and was extremely well received by the audience with lots of follow up questions.  Steve’s talk discussed the experiences DoD has had with MTConnect, Steve’s advice on how to keep moving forward with the open and royalty free protocol as well as an offer to keep working together to improve DoD manufacturing productivity and quality through MTConnect.  Dave Edstrom thanked Steve and remarked, “we could not have asked for a better final [MC]2 session and we are absolutely thrilled to continue working with DoD on improving manufacturing with MTConnect.”  Many attendees commented on the importance of this final session.

  The Role of MTConnect in Defense Manufacturing

Above on the left is Nat Frampton, President of Real Time Development Corporation and the instructor for the MTConnect Adapters and Agents Class at [MC]2.  In the middle is Chris Melissinos waiting to check in with Beth Czupil of AMT.

Above is Chris Melissinos, VP of Verisign and Sun Microsystems former Chief Gaming Officer.  The photo in the upper left is Chris playing with a video game as a kid.  He has not lost the fire, which is great!  Chris gave a talk on "Anytime, Anywhere Manufacturing".   
    

Chris is making a point to the audience.

Above I am thanking Chris for a GREAT keynote!

Above in the blue shirt is Ralph Resnick, President of NCDMM.  In the green shirt is Red Heitkamp, VP of Engineering for Remelle Engineering.  On the far right is Don Martin, President of Lion Precision.  All three are HUGE supporters of MTConnect.

Above is Will Sobel, President of Systems Insights and MTConnect's Chief Architect teaching the "MTConnect:  A Technical Perspective".  I was presenting "MTConnect:  A Business Perspective" at the same time in the main Regency Ball Room.  I decided to have these sessions in parallel to address the very technical and the CxOs.

Above is Doug Woods, President of AMT, during the final wrap up session that he and I did together.  Doug Woods has been a true champion for MTConnect and without Doug's leadership, there is no MTConnect.

Above I am giving the final wrap up presentation thanking everyone for a great [MC]2 and with a call to action and summarizing some of the comments attendees had made.  A very popular request from most attendees on the [MC]2 surveys was it is time for Siemens to become an MTConnect Technical Advisory Group Member.  Siemens was previously an MTConnect observer and we removed the observer status in 2011 because there is so much information on the web about MTConnect it no longer made sense to have it.   I was very pleased that Siemens sent four individuals to [MC]2 and believe if Siemens does join MTConnect, it will be a win for Siemens, a win for MTConnect, but most importantly a win for manufacturing!

•  If you are not a member, please join – free to join, free to deploy

•  If you are a member, stay involved or get involved with MTConnect Working Groups

•  Help get the word out on MTConnect by asking manufacturing equipment providers and software vendors if they ALSO support MTConnect.

“MTConnect will do more for manufacturing in the 21st century than CNC did in the 20th century.”

John Byrd, former President of AMT – The Association for Manufacturing Technology

Mark Albert’s fantastic December 2009 MTConnect article in MMS was truly a game changer.

 

Mark Albert has a very nice blog post here on [MC]2 - thanks Mark!

Thanks for a GREAT [MC]! 

Let’s Kick Butt and 

Put A Dent In The Manufacturing Universe

With MTConnect in 2012!

Below was the complete schedule of [MC]2

Schedule

Show: All Sessions  |  Technical Sessions & Workshops  |  Business Sessions

All Sessions

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

1:00 pm – 7:00 pm	MC2 Conference Registration
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm	Opening Reception

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

7:00 am – 5:30 pm	MC2 Conference Registration
7:00 am – 8:00 am	Continental Breakfast
8:00 am	MC2 Welcome Dave Edstrom President and Chairman of the Board The MTConnect Institute
8:15 am – 9:00 am	Keynote: Inside The World of Google Michael Geldner, Federal Account Manager, Google Inc.
9:10 am – 12:00 pm	Technical Workshop and Sessions
9:10 am – 9:55 am	Technical Session: What is MTConnect: A Technical Perspective Will Sobel, President & CEO, Manufacturing System Insights
9:10 am – 9:55 am	Business Session: What is MTConnect - A Business Perspective Dave Edstrom, President & Chairman of the Board, MTConnect Institute
9:55 am – 10:15 am	Morning Break
10:15 am – 11:00 am	Business Session: Getting Started with MTConnect David McPhail, President & CEO, Memex Automation Inc. John Turner, Director of Technology, FA Consulting and Technology
10:15 am – 12:00 pm	Technical Workshop: MTConnect 101: Fundamentals of MTConnect Joel Neidig, Systems Engineer, ITAMCO
11:00 am – 12:00 pm	Business Session: Expert Panel: Monitoring Your Shop Floor Using the MTConnect Protocol Panel Host: Mark Doyle, VP of Sales, IGear Online, LLC
12:00 pm – 2:00 pm	Lunch and Exhibits: Exhibit Hall
2:15 pm – 4:00 pm	Technical Workshop and Sessions
2:15 pm – 4:00 pm	Technical Workshop: MTConnect Architecture: Understanding and Building MTConnect Agents and Adapters Nat Frampton, President, Real Time Development Corporation
2:15 pm – 3:05pm	Business Session: Panel: How Do I Make Money and Save Time with MTConnect? Dave Edstrom, President & Chairman of the Board, MTConnect Institute
3:10 pm – 4:00 pm	Business Session: Business Intelligence For Manufacturing Gautam Goswami, Senior Director & General Manager, BIRT on Demand
4:00 pm – 4:20 pm	Afternoon Break
4:20 pm – 5:30 pm	MTConnect in Real Life - MTConnect Users Panel Panel Hosts: Ron Pieper, Program Director- MTConnect Solutions, TechSolve, Inc. Paul Warndorf, VP - Technology, AMT-The Association For Manufacturing Technology
5:30 pm - 6:00 pm	Smart Grid and Smart Manufacturing with MTConnect Rob Pratt, Program Manager at Energy and Environment Directorate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm	MC2 Reception and Exhibits
7:30 pm	Room #1: Birds of a Feather: Integrating Flow Meter Data to Monitor Usage of Compressed Air Sri H. Atluru, Research Assistant, TechSolve, Inc. Room #2: Birds of a Feather: TBD
8:30 pm	Room #1: Birds of a Feather: MTConnect Open Q&A with MTConnect's Chief Software Architect Will Sobel, President & CEO, Manufacturing System Insights Room #2: Birds of a Feather: TBD
9:30 pm	Room #1: Birds of a Feather: MTConnect-OPC UA - A Business Perspective Tom Burke, President, OPC Foundation Room #2: Birds of a Feather: TBD

Thursday, November 10, 2011

7:00 am – 12:30 pm	MC2 Conference Registration
7:00 am – 8:00 am	Continental Breakfast
8:00 am	MC2 Welcome
8:15 am – 9:00 am	Keynote: Anytime, Anywhere Manufacturing in the 21st Century Chris Melissinos VP at Verisign and formerly Sun Microsystems Chief Gaming Officer
9:10 am – 12:00 pm	Technical Workshop and Sessions
9:10 am – 9:55 am	Technical Session: MTConnect as an Integration Tool for the Shop Floor Environment Prof. Eraldo Jannone da Silva, School of Engineering, University of Sao Paulo
9:10 am – 9:55 am	Business Session: Panel: Supply Chain Visibility Using MTConnect Panel Hosts: Ron Pieper, Program Director-MTConnect Solutions, TechSolve, Inc. Ralph Resnick, President & Executive Director, NCDMM
9:55 am – 10:15 am	Morning Break
10:15 am – 11:00 am	Business Session: Sustainable Aerospace Manufacturing Corey Kovalcik, Program Manager, NCDMM Amit Deshpande, Machining Systems Engineer, TechSolve, Inc.
10:15 am – 12:00 pm	Technical Workshop: MTConnect Hello World: Building Your First MTConnect Application Using the SDK Chris Tacke, President, OpenNetCF Consulting
11:00 am – 12:00 pm	Business Session: The Role of MTConnect in Defense Manufacturing Steve Luckowski, Chief, Materials, Mfg. and Prototype Technology Division, ARDEC
12:10 pm – 12:45 pm	Closing Session: The Future of MTConnect Dave Edstrom, President & Chairman of the Board, MTConnect Institute Doug Woods, President, AMT - The Association For Manufacturing Technology

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Technical Sessions & Workshops

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

9:10 am – 9:55 am	Technical Session: What is MTConnect: A Technical Perspective Will Sobel, President & CEO, Manufacturing System Insights
10:15 am – 12:00 pm	MTConnect 101: Fundamentals of MTConnect Workshop Joel Neidig, Systems Engineer, ITAMCO
2:15 pm – 4:00 pm	MTConnect Architecture: Understanding and Building MTConnect Agents and Adapters Workshop Nat Frampton, President, Real Time Development Corporation
4:20 pm – 5:30 pm	MTConnect in Real Life - MTConnect Users Panel Panel Hosts: Ron Pieper, Program Director-MTConnect Solutions, TechSolve, Inc. Paul Warndorf, VP - Technology, AMT-The Association For Manufacturing

Thursday, November 10, 2011

9:10 am – 9:55 am	Technical Session: MTConnect as an Integration Tool for the Shop Floor Environment Prof. Eraldo Jannone da Silva, School of Engineering, University of Sao Paulo
10:15 am – 12:00 pm	MTConnect Hello World: Building Your First MTConnect Application Using the SDK Workshop Chris Tacke, President, OpenNetCF Consulting

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Business Sessions

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

9:10 am – 9:55 am	Business Session: What is MTConnect - A Business Perspective Dave Edstrom, President & Chairman of the Board, MTConnect Institute
10:15 am – 11:00 am	Business Session: Getting Started with MTConnect David McPhail, President & CEO, Memex Automation Inc. John Turner, Director of Technology, FA Consulting and Technology
11:00 am – 12:00 pm	Business Session: Expert Panel: Monitoring Your Shop Floor Using the MTConnect Protocol Panel Host: Mark Doyle, VP of Sales, I/Gear Online, LLC
2:15 pm – 3:05 pm	Business Session: Panel: How Do I Make Money and Save Time with MTConnect? Dave Edstrom, President & Chairman of the Board, MTConnect Institute
3:10 pm – 4:00 pm	Business Session: Business Intelligence For Manufacturing Gautam Goswami, Senor Director & General Manager BIRT onDemand
4:20 pm – 5:30 pm	MTConnect in Real Life - MTConnect Users Panel Panel Hosts: Ron Pieper, Program Director-MTConnect Solutions, TechSolve, Inc. Paul Warndorf, VP - Technology, AMT-The Association For Manufacturing
5:30 pm - 6:00 pm	Smart Grid and Smart Manufacturing with MTConnect Rob Pratt, Program Manager at Energy and Environment Directorate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Thursday, November 10, 2011

9:10 am – 9:55 am	Business Session: Panel: Supply Chain Visibility Using MTConnect Panel Hosts: Ron Pieper, Program Director-MTConnect Solutions, TechSolve, Inc. Ralph Resnick, President & Executive Director, NCDMM
10:15 am – 11:00 am	Business Session: Sustainable Aerospace Manufacturing Corey, Kovalcik, Program Manager, NCDMM Amit Deshpande, Machining Systems Engineer, TechSolve, Inc.
11:00 am – 12:00 pm	Business Session: The Role of MTConnect in Defense Manufacturing Steve Luckowski, Chief, Materials, Mfg. and Prototype Technology Division, ARDEC

The Three Open Pillars of MTConnect

The Three Open Pillars of MTConnect

Nov 10, 2011 – Dave Edstrom  

(NOTE:   I wrote this article for the November 2011 IMTS Insider.)

MTConnect is based on three open pillars of technology:  HTTP, XML and open source. While many readers will understand what these technologies are, the most important point to understand are the key implications of these three technologies to manufacturing from a business standpoint. 

As a brief reminder, let’s define these terms before we look at the implications. 

HTTP stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. HTTP is simply the protocol or rules of the road for communications on the web. HTTP is what you type in your browser when you go to http://MTConnectConference.org for example. HTTP has a small number of verbs to get information from a website such as get, put and post. When you enter in your favorite website in the browser window, what happens below the covers is our browser sends an HTTP “GET” command to your favorite website and website returns the text and images back to your browser for display. A very simple protocol that just works.

XML stands eXtensible Markup Language. XML is THE language and data dictionary of the Internet that is used for exchange of information between computers and applications. One of the unique aspects of XML is that it is both human and machine-readable. Another way of saying this is to state that XML is self-describing. The absolute key part of XML is the eXtensible part. What eXtensible means is the ability for anyone to add their new words and definitions by simply using XML. There are literally millions of examples of companies, organizations and individuals using XML for the exchange of information on the Internet. This exchange can be between devices, applications and anything that wants to exchange information in a clean simple format so that no bits are dropped in meaning. A simple example would be this snippet of XML:

Humans and computers can easily read the XML. This example could be used to exchange information on the MC2 conference’s presenters with two pieces of data for each presenter – first_name and age. The age is obviously my age in years and first_name is my first name, but how does a computer easily know that? Because there is another file that is basically the XML dictionary or schema for this simple five line XML example that defines that age must be an integer and first_name must be characters in the alphabet. If someone would put in a number or special character for the first_name that would not be valid in XML. If someone were to type in “Fifty-two” for age that would not be valid because that is not how we defined age. The tag simply means, “I am defining an element called “MC2”.  What comes after the are the parts that make up “MC.” The tagsimply means, “I am finished defining an element called “MC2.” There is obviously more to know on XML, but these are the basics that one needs.

What exactly does open source mean? Open source refers to how others are able to use the source code or the instructions that a programmer types in to create software. The important part of open source is not simply making those instructions available for individuals to read, but also for others to take that software and build upon that software. There is an official definition of open source at the Open Source Initiative atOpenSource.org.

The definition provided by the Open Source Initiative is simply one organization's definition of the principles that must be followed if organization is going to call its software open source. There are a lot of different source code licenses out there that have their different twists on those ten definitions, but the overall principles remain the same.

Now that we know what these technologies are and how they basically work, let’s examine the most important question – what are the business implications of MTConnect using these technologies.

For the most part, end users typically do not care about protocols. Protocols are the details that are below the covers. Do you really care about the protocol that is used for your mass air flow sensor on your car’s engine when it speaks to your car’s various computer systems in the engine compartment? Not unless you are a true gear head do you care.

However, there are examples where users absolutely do care about protocols. What end users do care about is choice. When someone buys a new cellphone they expect it to have Bluetooth.  When someone purchases a new notebook computer, they expect it to come with Wi-Fi. When someone downloads a new browser, they expect it to support HTTP.  Why do users care about these protocols? Simple, they want connectivity to a huge number of devices, hotspots and websites – they want choice. The key business implication of using HTTP and XML for MTConnect is that by using the protocol and language of the Internet we are providing tremendous choice of applications. 

The first key business implication of the power of MTConnect using HTTP and XML is very easy to show. Let’s look at the most ubiquitous applications out there – browsers. Pull up your favorite browser and type in http://agent.mtconnect.org/probe. What do you see? You will see a few pages of XML that are basically describing three things. First, you will see general XML explaining where the schema or dictionary for this device lives on the Internet.  Second, you will see Components which is a physical description of this device. Third, you will see Data Items which simply describe what information can be read from this device. Even if you know absolutely zero about XML, you can read this file and understand to a large degree what this device is and what information can be read from it. This is quite obviously not an end user application because this is not how you want information presented to users. They key point here is that you did not have to have a special program just to read the data, the browser easily read the data when you just pointed your browser at the MTConnect simulator. 

Another example is that you can go into Excel to easily read MTConnect data. Here is the url http://photonsandelectrons.blogspot.com/2011/06/easy-mtconnect-and-microsoft-excel.html to see the exact steps.

Are you going to be using just a browser or Excel as your manufacturing floor dashboard? No, of course not. You will be using one of the many monitoring programs out there that support MTConnect.  ALL applications on the Internet today that were not written in a cave in the 1960s can speak XML and use HTTP right out of the box. What this means is that it is just brain dead easy for software developers to EASILY add the ability to read MTConnect data. When I have conversations with software vendors about MTConnect and explain how we designed MTConnect with HTTP and XML, the response is universal “this will not be a problem at all for us to add MTConnect support because we support HTTP and XML today.” It’s all about applications and when you make it brain dead easy for application providers to embrace your protocol that means choice for end users.

The second business implication of using HTTP and XML for MTConnect is that it is NOT an either/or proposition with a company which has a proprietary mechanism to connect to their manufacturing equipment. This is a BIG area of confusion. Some manufacturing equipment providers are even confused. For example, some manufacturing equipment providers think, “well, if I support MTConnect, that means I can’t support my current proprietary protocol.” That makes about as much sense as saying, “well, if I put the Firefox browser on my PC I have to then take off Internet Explorer.” No, you don’t. The two are not mutually exclusive. As a matter of fact, providing BOTH is the best strategy in the beginning. In this way, the maker of the manufacturing equipment can offer the benefits of a truly open protocol that is easily capable of talking to countless applications along with their legacy, proprietary protocol. What does this do for customers? It gives them choice! 

If you are a shop owner, plant manager or anyone in manufacturing for that matter, the question you should be asking all of your manufacturing equipment providers and your software companies is, “do you also support MTConnect?” If the answer is no, then your follow up response should be, “you should because MTConnect is an open and royalty free protocol that gives users choice and  it opens up a world of applications.” You can have them checkout MTConnect.org or drop me a note and I will reach out to them to them if they need further convincing.