Dave Edstrom Resigns as the CTO of MEMEX to Pursue Personal Interests

October 12, 2016 07:00 ET

BRIEF-Dave Edstrom resigns as the CTO of Memex to pursue personal interest... on Reuters

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Dave Edstrom Resigns as the 

CTO of MEMEX to Pursue 

Personal Interests

COO of U.S.A. Operations to Serve as Interim CTO

BURLINGTON, ON--(Marketwired - Oct 12, 2016) - Memex Inc. ("MEMEX" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: OEE) announces that Dave Edstrom has resigned as the CTO of MEMEX effective Monday, October 10^th 2016. Dave Edstrom started with MEMEX in January 2014 and will continue in a transition role over the next 30 days. Rick Mosca, the current COO of MEMEX U.S.A. operations, has stepped in to serve as interim CTO of MEMEX.

Rick Mosca has over 30 years of software engineering experience. He started as a developer and has successfully held several technical leadership positions. Additionally, he has run software engineering divisions at Fortune 500 companies and held the position of a principal at a custom software engineering consulting firm.

Over Mr. Edstrom's tenure as MEMEX's CTO, he has played a fundamental role in MEMEX's technology development initiative. His legacy at MEMEX includes: MERLIN Tempus; MERLIN Tempus Enterprise Edition, the next generation of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) communication platform; MERLIN OPTIME, a free gateway to Real-Time manufacturing analytics; along with MERLIN MTC-One, a new breed of IIoT hardware.

In his statement, Dave Edstrom said, "I came to MEMEX almost three years ago, as the CTO to run the Software and Hardware Development division, be an evangelist, and help MEMEX grow. I am extremely proud of what has been accomplished in that time period. At IMTS 2016 we introduced new industry leading products MERLIN Tempus, MERLIN Tempus Enterprise Edition, the MTC-One, Financial Overall Equipment Effectiveness, and MERLIN DNC. I believe these products will pay dividends for many, many years to come. With this strong array of new products, MEMEX will continue to extend its lead as the market innovator and the market leader in measuring manufacturing excellence. I want to be clear, while I am resigning from MEMEX as the CTO, I am not going to another company, and certainly not a competitor. I am quite lucky in that I can take an extended time off to travel, to see friends, relatives, and just kick back. I was very fortunate to have worked with the best development team in the industry at MEMEX and could not be more proud of their smart, creative, and hard work. I wish everyone at MEMEX the absolute best!"

"Dave Edstrom came here from the MTConnect Institute as President and Chairman of the Board, and author of 'MTConnect: To Measure Is To Know' as MEMEX's first CTO," said CEO and President David McPhail. "Dave Edstrom made it clear from the beginning that he wanted to 'put a dent in the manufacturing universe.' Under his leadership, I believe we have done that with all of our new products. Dave was a prolific writer, speaker, and thought leader for MEMEX. Dave was selected as one of 30 visionaries around the globe by Smart Manufacturing Magazine, and he certainly has been a visionary for us. We wish him the best as he takes an extended break from the work life."

About MEMEX:
MEMEX, the developer of MERLIN, an award winning IIoT technology platform that delivers tangible increases in manufacturing productivity in Real-Time, is the global leader in machine to machine connectivity solutions. Committed to its mission of "Successfully transforming factories of today into factories of the future" and encouraged by the accelerating adoption and success of MERLIN, MEMEX is relentlessly pursuing the development of increasingly innovative solutions suitable in the IIoT era. MEMEX envisions converting every machine into a node on the corporate networks, thereby, creating visibility from shop-floor-to-top-floor. MEMEX, with its deep commitment towards machine connectivity, offers solutions that are focused on finding hidden capacity by measuring and managing Real-Time data. This empowers MEMEX's customers to effectively quantify and manage OEE, reduce costs and incorporate strategies for continuous lean improvement. For further information, visit www.MemexOEE.com

Contact Information

• 
  Media Contact
  Memex Inc.:
  
  David McPhail
  CEO
  Phone: 519-993-1114
  Email: Email Contact
  
  Rashi Rathore
  Marketing Specialist
  Phone: 905-635-3040 ext 103
  Email: Email Contact
  
  Investor RelationsSean Peasgood
  Investor Relations
  Phone: 416-565-2805
  Email: Email Contact
  

The IIoT or Industry 4.0: Who will win? - Dave Edstrom & David McPhail's article at Manufacturing Automation

I am often ask do discuss, write or present on the topic of IIoT or Industry 4.0: Who will win?  Myself and David McPhail wrote an article on this hot topic for Manufacturing Automation.

Below are some of the highlights from our article.

"At Memex, we are frequently asked questions about both the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Industry 4.0. The questions usually start off, “What do you see happening in [IIoT/Industry 4.0]?” The conversation will quickly zero in on their real concern, which is to find an answer to the question: “What and when should I be doing something with [IIoT/Industry 4.0]?”

Conceptually, are either IIoT or Industry 4.0 really new in manufacturing? The answer to that question is an emphatic “no.” One only needs to go back 36 years to the Manufacturing Automation Protocol (MAP) effort led by GM to see just one standardization attempt applied to manufacturing. For either to be successful, they must provide a net bottom line benefit for the dollars invested by delivering tangible and measurable business outcome(s).

At Memex, we would argue what is changing even faster is that manufacturing is catching up, and even surpassing, other industries in truly understanding what is happening on the plant floor. Only two to four per cent of all shops or plants are monitored, a fact Dave Edstrom, Memex CTO, picked up when surveying the industry during his time as president and chairman of the board of the MTConnect Institute. When asked, most plant or shop managers will state their plant utilization is in the 65 to 75 per cent range. When hardware/software is deployed that can properly quantify this number, it is shown time and again to be actually 25 to 32 per cent. A significant inflection point for both IIoT and Industry 4.0 is MTConnect. A fact that cannot be overstated is that the open and royalty-free manufacturing interconnectivity standard MTConnect has been a huge enabler for manufacturing and provides the viable highway for information sharing from the shop floor to the top floor."

Below is where we discuss the critical importance of the platform.

"Now that we have provided the definitions directly from the sources and the relevant context, let’s look at how we would respond to the next question, “What does Memex see happening in [IIoT/Industry 4.0]?” For many, IIoT means that after a plant has attached all of their manufacturing equipment, they come to the conclusion that data analysis begets more data analysis and they want to start adding sensors — everywhere. These sensors include coolant, vibration, temperature, humidity, motion, current and amperage, to name just a few. These sensors come into play after shops have electronically connected to their major assets, such as machine tools and operators. This attention on connecting everything in manufacturing underscores the importance of interoperability, the first design principle of Industry 4.0.

What both of these efforts are trying to establish is to be the platform for manufacturing. What is a platform? Microsoft Windows, Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android and Apple’s OS X are all examples of platforms. A platform is not just the operating system, but it is also the rules of the road in terms of interoperability between systems, security, licensing, interfaces, reference implementations, working groups and countless other critical aspects of a platform. Building a platform that becomes an industry standard is extremely difficult and expensive."

 A question that we ask in the article.  Note that I always wanted to get my favorite Woody Allen quote in my writing and I do here :-)

"What should a shop owner or plant manager being doing today with either IIoT or Industry 4.0?

The tremendous interest in both Industry 4.0 and IIoT are proving the point that many of us in manufacturing have known for years manufacturing is ripe for analytics. Both Industry 4.0 and IIoT fall into the data-driven manufacturing camp. Woody Allen once said, “If you live in a country run by a committee, make sure you are on the committee.” Your level of involvement today with these efforts should directly reflect the possible outcomes and the tangible net business benefits to your business. If you are running a large plant with many software developers, you might want to invest some of a software developer’s time into either investigating these efforts or possibly joining Industry 4.0."

We finish up with the critically important question:

"What steps should a plant manager take with either IIoT or Industry 4.0?

• Realize these efforts are a means to an end, not an end in itself.
• The bottom line with any effort in manufacturing should answer the fundamental question, “How does this help me improve my efficiency so I can make more parts and more profits with less resources in less time?”
• Far and away, the best investment of time is to truly understand what is happening on your plant floor. The way to accomplish this is with a shop floor monitoring system. The ROI of shop floor monitoring is measured in weeks and months, delivering an average of 300 per cent Internal Return Rate of capital — the percentage is based on the information we track from our customers.
• When it comes time to connect your assets on your shop floor, use MTConnect as the interconnectivity standard.
• If you are one of the less than five per cent who have completely connected your plant floor and can see exactly what is happening on any given manufacturing asset at anytime and from anywhere, then you should start looking into where it makes sense to work with Industry 4.0.

In our opinion, IIoT for manufacturing is really about adding sensors to manufacturing and the basic challenge is interoperability; interoperability is always the challenge in computers.

Will IIoT or Industry 4.0 be the MAP of the 21st century and end up in the graveyard of industrial standards initiatives that promised much but didn’t deliver, or will both truly be worthy of the term “revolution?” Only time will tell, but our bet is it doesn’t matter what you call it, if you are not connecting your plant’s assets to be monitored, then it is not if you will go out of business, but when. "