Mike Geldner of Google To Speak at [MC]2

I am extremely pleased to announce that Mike Geldner of Google has agreed to speak at the first ever MTConnect Connecting Manufacturing Conference [MC]2

Mike is a long time friend, absolutely brilliant and just a great, great guy.  Plus, he is a Corvette guy :-)

Mike is the Keynote Speaker on the first day and will be presenting:

           "Inside The World of Google"
Below is Mike's brief bio:

Michael Geldner joined Google’s Enterprise division in July of 2008 as a Federal Account Manger. He is currently responsible for Google’s business with several large US Department of Defense agencies.

Prior to Google, Michael worked for Dell as a Federal Account Manager responsible for a major US DoD Agency for three years. Earlier in his career he held several roles during 17 years with Sun Microsystems including Senior System Engineer / Product Specialist, and before joining Sun, he worked as a software development Team Leader on the Launch Control System for the Space Shuttle at the Kennedy Space Center during the early years of it’s operation.

Michael earned a Bachelor’s degree and Master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Central Florida and worked at the university as an Instructor of Computer Science during his Master’s and post-degree studies.

Mike’s other interests and activities include computer and information technology, golf, SCUBA diving, photography, automobile restoration and collecting, and almost anything “technical”.  He has two sons, both former US Marines, and two grandsons.

Kepware Technologies Announces New MTConnect Driver for KEPServerEX

Kepware Technologies Announces New MTConnect Driver for KEPServerEX

Kepware Technologies Continues to Focus on Interoperability with its Upcoming Release of the MTConnect Driver

Portland, ME July 14, 2011 — Kepware Technologies, the leader in Communications for Automation, announced today that the upcoming release of the KEPServerEX communication platform will include the new MTConnect Driver. MTConnect is a royalty-free Open standard for connecting shop-floor technologies that furthers the Automation industry’s goal of seamless manufacturing operation. Kepware’s MTConnect Driver allows connectivity to any MTConnect Agent.

Much like the OPC standards for which Kepware is renowned, the MTConnect standard intends to reduce the number of proprietary manufacturing equipment protocols and make communications open to all machine tool owners. With over 150 communication drivers that support several hundred protocols, KEPServerEX will now be available for the benefit of the machine tool manufacturers who have implemented or plan to implement the MTConnect standard.

"The MTConnect Institute is excited to have an industry leader, such as Kepware, become an MTConnect Technical Advisory Group Member, as well as announce an MTConnect driver for their KEPServerEX release,"  said Dave Edstrom, President and Chairman of the Board for the MTConnect Institute. "It is companies like Kepware who see the importance of moving toward common interface standards for manufacturing, such as MTConnect, that will help bring about the interoperability capabilities needed to reduce the overbearing costs of connectivity on the shop floor."

“The KEPServerEX Communications Platform allows users to achieve interoperability between client/server layer protocols, device protocols and many other types of interfaces in a single environment,” said Tony Paine, President of Kepware Technologies. “We view the MTConnect standard as an evolution for machine tool connectivity and are excited to add the capabilities it provides to our product offering.”

The MTConnect Driver for KEPServerEX is scheduled for release at the end of July, 2011. For more information on this or any other driver, contact sales@kepware.com.

ABOUT Kepware Technologies: Kepware Technologies, established in 1995, develops a wide range of communication and interoperability software solutions for the Automation industry. Our flexible and scalable solutions are for connecting, managing, monitoring, and controlling diverse automation devices and software applications. Our industry endorsed software solutions improve operations and decision-making throughout all levels of an organization. Kepware Technologies' mission is to be “Your Standard for Connectivity”.

ABOUT MTConnect Organization: The MTConnect Institute is a not-for-profit 501(c)(6) independent organization established to further the development of MTConnect standards and materials.  The organization includes a Technical Advisory Group (MTCTAG) and a Technical Steering Committee, as well as working groups to further the standards in specific technology areas.

3D Printing or Additive Printing - it's real...

We had this company, Z Corporation, at IMTS 2010.   Check out this video of 3D printing.

SCADAware's StatusWatch Increases OEE By 20% or MORE

Rick Caldwell, president of SCADAware, personally told me:

"We have a heavy equipment manufacturing customer that is using MTConnect as the communications protocol to allow for simple and reliable connectivity to the machine tools. Through MTConnect, StatusWatch production monitoring software gathers pertinent data for real-time displays, and also deposits this data in a database to be used for historical reporting.

In every installation, when this data is studied by the plant personnel and actions taken as a result of what the data disclosed, OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) percentages are improved by 20% or more."

This is REALLY impressive and a great example of how MTConnect is helping manufacturing!  Thanks Rick!

VA and MD Car Show Photos and Video

Here are some photos and a video I took at some care shows I attended a week ago on June 4th in MD at the Silver Spring Corvette Club of America's car show and a typical Saturday night car show in Leesburg, VA that has a Lincoln that the refurb cost over $200,000

  These truly are the good ole days for muscle cars.

Above is a the ultimate gamers Corvette...

Julie and I were walking around with Betsy Ferry, when Betsy pointed out this Lincoln is owned by one of the men she works with who is a very interesting veteran of both the Korean and Vietnam wars.  This Lincoln was amazing.

Not All The Smart People Work For You

 

This is the article that I wrote for the June IMTS Insider.

 

Not All The Smart People Work For You

June 9, 2011

I first heard Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, utter the sentence, "because not all the smart people work for you" back in the mid 1990s. He was asked why Sun was open sourcing a particular software program. A new Sun manager asked: "Why would Sun work so hard to create a new piece of software and then make the source code available to anyone who wanted it?"

Bill was not being flip in his answer, but his short and concise answer could have easily been misinterpreted as being arrogant if you did not understand Sun's business strategy. Sun was not interested in short-term dollars, but instead interested in building a software platform that others would use as a foundation to build their products with.

What exactly did Bill mean by the sentence "because not all the smart people work for you"? By opening up the software, other smart people at other companies can work with it and make it even more valuable. There are countless examples of this type of collaboration in the computer industry. From a business standpoint, it has to do with: What is your primary objective and where do you want to make your money? This also has a counterintuitive premise that many in manufacturing find impossible to embrace: that by working with your competitors, it can make your own company stronger.

Let's be clear. I am talking about collaborating on an open standard or platform. I am not talking about collusion, but working together to define a standard interface and then compete for the implementation. MTConnect is a great example of collaboration. The MTConnect Institute set up its Working Groups in a similar fashion that Sun set up the Java Community Process (JCP) with the Java Specification Request (JSR) process. The basic idea is that you bring in industry experts to work together on an industry specification where all the involved companies have both business and technical interests. These companies cooperate to create a standard and then compete on the best implementation. The driving reason for doing this is true to the old adage: "the great thing about standards is that there are so many of them." In other words, they can stifle innovation.

Collaboration does not mean that a company should not exercise common sense when sending individuals to these industry standard meetings. My father-in-law was General Counsel for the Electronics Industry Association (EIA) and told me a few stories of members sending engineers to meetings where everyone else sent a lawyer. His analogy was it was like bringing a knife to a gun fight – never a good idea. Usually, these industry meetings are the technical and business experts who are working together. It is also industry standard that there are legal agreements regarding intellectual property (IP) to protect both the standard and the individual companies.

Manufacturing in general is slow to adopt this thing that "not all the smart people work for you" collaboration mentality because that is not how their dad did it and that is not how their grandfather did it. While it is hard to argue with decades of success, one also needs to remember Darwin's advice, "In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment." I would suggest that manufacturing is changing to be less proprietary, to be less closed and to be a less "go at it alone" type of mentality. Manufacturing will model the computer industry where open wins and proprietary loses.

There are also secondary benefits to open collaboration in that the morale of employees who are part of these groups typically show much higher job satisfaction. You don't have to be an HR expert to appreciate that employees who have an opportunity to work on something that is bigger than their day-to-day work is a plus. I know this is true because I experienced this myself and know many individuals who have stayed with a company because of this type of industry collaboration work. This can provide your more senior employees interesting career growth opportunities as well.

The next time you are considering how to attack a problem or whether or not your company should participate in an industry standard such as MTConnect, think back to Bill Joy's advice and remember, "not all the smart people work for you". You might be pleasantly surprised with the results.

2012 ZR1 kicks BUTT at the Nurburgring!

Jim Mero just did this on June 9th, 2011.  This is the  7th fast time EVER.

Easy MTConnect and Microsoft Excel

Below are the very easy steps to get MTConnect data into Excel are as follows:

• Go into the Data selection on the upper tab
• Select From Web
• New Web Query will come up
• In the browser bar that pops up, put in your MTConnect http url  (for example):
• http://agent.mtconnect.org/sample?count=1000
• Hit Import
• You will then hit Import again after the data is loaded into the window.
  
• Select Yes to add to the question, Do You Want To Continue To Add This Schema To Your Notebook
• When the pop up window comes up for Import Data, select Existing Worksheet which is the bottom selection when you are prompoted on where to put your data
• At this point Excel will put in the proper headers and values in the correct locations
• Of course, you will likely want to use a more specific Sample Request in step #4, but I kept it simple to just to make the point how EASY it is for applications to get data from an MTConnect enabled device.
• Below is a four minute screencast on exactly how to do this.  Notice that I did absolutely nothing in terms of laying out the titles of the columns, where the columns and rows should go, where the data should appear.  The reason why is that since this is XML, Excel (just like a lot of software that reads XML data) knows how to deal with the data and display it properly.  Note that the video starts off with a gray screen for the first few seconds and then straightens out.

110 Miles With Steve Wozniak

On a normal Saturday, I ride my bike for 55 miles on the W & OD bike path and I bring my iTouch along to listen to audio books, podcasts or 1970s music. It took two Saturdays to listen to: 

iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon: 

How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It

 I really enjoyed iWoz.  It is a real geek's book.  Any book that discusses in detail the challenges of writing a device driver, how registers are built and how to write a boot strap program is GREAT book in my mind :-)   I was listening to TWIT (This Week In Tech) when I heard the co-author of iWoz, Gina Smith, discuss the book and it sounded very interesting.   If you are a geek, you will love it.  If you are a Steve Jobs fanboy, you will come away with a different view of Steve Jobs.

Below is Stevew Wozniak's business card that Athulan showed me at Mori-Seiki Innovation Days.

 

The Danger of Personlization

My father sent me this very interesting TED video on the danger of filter bubbles.
Eli Pariser does a very interesting presentation.

MTInsight Announced TODAY!

We just announced MTInsight!

Manufacturing Business Intelligence

This is a very exciting day at AMT – The Association For Manufacturing as we release MTInsight to the world.  What is MTInsight?  MTInsight is a state of the art manufacturing business intelligence platform that hosts applications for AMT’s members as well as non-members.   Before we get into a more detailed description of MTInsight, it is important to make sure we are all on the same page with some definitions. 

The overall purpose of  business intelligence is to synthesize business information from a variety of sources into a format enables better decision making.   Business intelligence (BI) software is typically made up of three major parts:

1. Lots of adapters to a variety of information resources. 
1. Examples of these are adapters to databases such as MySQL, accounting systems, inventory systems, sales systems, Customer Resource Management (CRM) systems, Enterprising Resource Management Planning systems (ERP),  spreadsheets, web services, old IBM mainframes, CSV files, text files, XML files, and basically anything else that you can think of.  The more adapters you have, the better.    Many times, all of this data ends up in a large data warehouse.  Today, these data warehouses are usually housed in the cloud.  MTInsight’s large data warehouse is in the cloud.
2. Software tools to slice and dice the data in any fashion that is needed for the analytics.    Usually, BI software has the ability to call other languages as well to augment the tools the BI vendor also provides.  It is not unusual to see JavaScript and Java as programming languages that can also be used with the BI software.  Structured Query Language (SQL) is also very important for accessing data from databases.
3. Graphics visual tools to a wide variety of output devices is key to any BI software program.   This is the logical last step after a BI developer has connected to a large number of data sources and has done lots of calculations.   This what the business person who wants to see the data in reports, charts, graphs or other types formats wants to receive.   Business people want to receive this information whether or not they are at their desk or on the road or at home and they want to view it on any device that they have in front of them.   Supporting lots of output devices as well as output formats are important.

MTInsight is built upon Actuate’s BIRT onDemand BI in the cloud software.   Actuate created BIRT (Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools) which is an open source project.    BIRT is known as one of the premier BI platforms.   BIRT onDemand is the  Software as a Service (SaaS) platform MTInsight uses to access information from the very large MTInsight data warehouse in the cloud, analyze the data and then display it to a wide variety of devices.   We spent a tremendous amount of time analyzing BI vendors before we made the decision that Actuate was far and away the best choice for MTInsight.


What is manufacturing business intelligence?   This phrase for MTInsight is really a double entendre.   First, it is manufacturing business intelligence or creating business intelligence.  Second, it is manufacturing business intelligence or business intelligence about manufacturing.   How I like to think about MTInsight is that it is your virtual business intelligence department for manufacturing.  If you have a browser, you have a virtual business intelligence department for manufacturing.


We discussed the three parts of BI.  There are also three parts of MTInsight.  Those three parts are:

1.     Pat McGibbon, AMT’s Vice President of Strategic Information and Research (SIR) and his extremely talented SIR department.  These are the manufacturing industry experts who are statisticians, economists, researchers, mathematicians, programmers,  database experts, BI experts and a number of other areas of expertise.   This is what I like to call “MTInsight’s secret sauce.”     These are the folks who manage all the data sources,  write the analytic software programs that create the MTInsight charts and graphs that you see. 

2.     MTInsight data warehouse.  This is the combination of all those data sources that I mentioned previously.   I like to call this database equivalent to Metcalfe’s Law.  Metcalfe’s Law is stated as the value of any network is the number of nodes or devices squared.   In other words, with just one website you don’t really have a lot.  With a million websites, now you have something of real value.  With databases, the more data that you can get into the data warehouse, the more interesting questions you can start asking because you have the data to do the interpolations, extrapolations and generally ask the interesting “what if” questions that all of us are familiar with when you sit down in front of a spreadsheet.  The difference is with MTInsight, you now have access to tons of data that you likely could not afford on your own or simply would not have access to at all.  AMT invests a lot per year in keeping its many data sources all up to date.   These are internal data sources where ATM literally is the keeper of the data as well external data sources that AMT pays for.  

3.     BI software.  This is Actuate’s BIRT onDemand SaaS that I referenced earlier.  BIRT onDemand is what AMT uses to both build these many manufacturing business intelligence applications as well as where they are hosted in the cloud.

There is a lot more that I could write about MTInsight and look for many more articles in the IMTS insider in the future.   Just like MTConnect, MTInsight will be a game changer for manufacturing!  Check it out now at MTInsight.org

MTInsight Rolls Out Tomorrow

Tomorrow at 2pm eastern, MTInsight will be rolled out...

An Exciting Way To See Switzerland

John sent us these photos when he was "over" and when he "landed" in Switzerland :-)

Two Days Until MTInsight

Just two days until MTInsight will be rolled out.

Thanks Chris Edstrom and my Father - Two Tours of Duty - Memorial Day

My cousin Chris Edstrom has done two tours of duty in Iraq AND two tours of duty in Afghanistan.   My father did two tours of duty in Vietnam and is the world record holder for number of years with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL). 

Chris and my father are just two of the many heroes we should thank today for their service to our country.

Corvette The Cat (Kitten Right Now)

I open my 16x12 shed that my father and I built a decade ago and I see the cutest little black kitten right in front of me.  I found some baby squirrels in my shed a month ago.  I found a 6' black snake last year.  I am used to finding things in my shed :-)  I immediately closed the shed door and went next door to Peter and Alice's house.  I knocked on the door and said, "this is your area of expertise, come with me".   We got the little kitten out and Alice came over.  Tim, Mike and Julie came out to check out the kitten as well.  I told Alice, "you can have it under one condition, you name him/her "Corvette".  Peter and Alice are experts in taking care of cats and kittens.  They also prefer black kittens/cats.    Corvette joined the other two kittens they have and the three cats.  The other two kittens are called Simba and Carmela.  They have six cats/kittens right now.  They are not sure if Simba and Carmela will stay, but Corvette will.  Initially, Peter and Alice said if Corvette was female, then the name could not remain Corvette.  I explained that the name Corvette came from a British ship and ships are female.  Also, cars are females - aka "she's my little deuce coupe".  Peter agreed :-)   Below is me feeding Corvette just at Peter and Alice's house.

Video - MTConnect Connecting Manufacturing Conference - [MC]2 2011

This is a video that was created to discuss the first ever Video - MTConnect Connecting Manufacturing Conference - [MC]2 2011

Different Devices, Common Connection

The MTConnect^® Institute is pleased to announce the first ever [MC]2 MTConnect: Connecting Manufacturing Conference to be held on November 8-10, 2011, at the Hyatt Regency Cincinnati, Ohio. This conference is aimed at promoting the benefits and implementation of MTConnect^®, as well as showcasing commercially available products utilizing the standard.

MTConnect is an open and royalty free protocol that is standardizing manufacturing connectivity and and allowing for much greater productivity.  More information on MTConnect can be found here. 

Who Should Attend:

MTConnect^® Institute Participants

Users

Equipment Suppliers

Software Developers

Distributors

ISVs

Integrators

Consultants

[MC]² will have both technical and business tracks. Technical tracks will have a heavy emphasis on the “hands-on” side of MTConnect, while the business tracks will emphasize quantifying increased productivity ROI.

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

Hotel Information:
Hyatt Regency Cincinnati

151 W Fifth St.

Cincinnati, OH 45202

Phone: 513-579-1234

Fax: 513-354-4079

Check in: 4:00pm

Check-out: 12:00pm

Guest Room Rate:

Single/Double $ 149 plus Tax

Triple $174 plus Tax

Reservations:

Hotel Reservations may be made, modified or canceled by individuals on-line at https://resweb.passkey.com/go/kafm. Individuals can also make reservations by calling Central Reservations at phone: 1-888-421-1442 and referring to MTConnect Connecting Manufacturing Conference.
The Hotel "cut-off-date" is 10/17/2011.

Mazak: HUGE Supporters of MTConnect

Mazak states the following on their MTConnect page:

"Mazak supports the MTConnect standard by providing all machines MTConnect prepped from the factory."

It is very impressive that ALL Mazaks are MTConnect prepped from the factory!

The MTConnect page by Mazak is the perfect example of how to layout all the information that a customer needs to know in order to enable MTConnect on a Mazak.


Brian Papke, President of Mazak USA, and Neil Desrosiers, Senior Programming Manager of Mazak USA, have both been a HUGE supporters of MTConnect and we THANK THEM BOTH!

John Edstrom Traveling Through Europe Summer of 2011

Joel Neidig Head of Technology at ITAMCO OSI/R Interview

The second guest on the OSI/Roundtable is Joel Neidig, Systems Engineer and Head of Technology for ITAMCO.


Joel is a real thought leader in manufacturing and the first person to write and MTConnect app for the iPhone and Android.  Joel also open sourced his work.  Joel Neidig is the type of person that gives me great hope for manufacturing because he is a young guy with deep expertise, vision and passion which means he has decades to keep innovating - which will be fun to watch.  This half hour interview covers:

• Why ITAMCO became involved with MTConnect
• How ITAMCO takes advantage of MTConnect to improve productivity by being able to monitor ITAMCO's machine tools anywhere, anytime on either an iPhone or an Android
• Why Joel wrote the iPhone and Android apps for MTConnect
• The steps involved in writing an MTConnect app for the iPhone and Android 
• The difference between DOM and SAX in writing an app
• What Joel will be teaching at the MTConnect: Connecting Manufacturing Conference November 8-10, 2011 in Cincinnati, Ohio
• The importance of open source and how others can help build upon Joel's great work!
• What the future holds for ITAMCO and MTConnect
• GO GET THE MTCONNECT APP TODAY! 

  

August 1955 at MIT - Numerical Control of Machine Tools

This is historic ashtray is in a glass case just outside the Executive Board Room at AMT - The Association For Manufacturing Technology.  This was created by Charles F. Carter, Jr., who was at MIT at the time and was also AMT's VP of Technology from 1990 to 2003.

Very cool! 

MTConnect in 2011 (on IMTSTV)

This video was recorded at the Manufacturing For Growth (MFG) Conference held in Phoenix of this year.   Penny DiCarlo of AMT does a GREAT job as an interviewer with IMTSTV and Diyana Hrzic does a GREAT job running the camera and doing all the editing.

This video has me discussing what is happening with MTConnect in 2011 as well as Brian Papke, President of Mazak, discussing the importance of MTConnect to Mazak.  Brian and Mazak have been HUGE supporters of MTConnect and are viewed as true thought leaders in manufacturing.

Jon Stewart Obliterates Bill O'Reilly

Jon Stewart went on Fox's Bill O'Reilly Show last night and completely obliterated the lack-O-logic of Fixed Noise's Bill O'Reilly who was complaining about the rapper Common going to the White House.  Fun to watch :-)  

A good friend of mine, Jim C. likes to say, "don't bring a knife to a gun fight."   When Bill O'Reilly tries to go after Jon Stewart in a debate, he needs to remember that phrase....

MTConnect at Mori-Seiki Innovation Days With Task Force Tips

Stewart McMillan, president of Task Force Tips, and I presented at Mori-Seiki Innovation Days in Hoffman Estates on May 4th.  It was  BIG success thanks to the great job Stewart did (I did ok too :-)  as well as Stewart's real life experiences in manufacturing and with MTConnect.  Below is a picture of Stewart and I in front of the MTConnect area.  Stewart recommended that EVERYONE should be investigating MTConnect and he is telling vendors he wants to have MTConnect on the manufacturing equipment he is purchasing going forward.  Stewart and I share many things in common include one of the first users of Xenix back in the very early 1980s.

One of Task Force Tips claim to fame is that it was their nozzle that was THE benchmark for AutoCAD back in the day.  I remember running AutoCAD benchmarks on Sun's 386i comparing SunOS versus Windoze.  Below is from Stewart's presentation.

Below is a snippet from an article in Today's Machining World:

DMG / Mori Seiki USA Announces Innovation Days 2011 at Chicago Headquarters & Technical Center on May 3‐5

By Vincent on March 21, 2011

Chicago, Illinois, March 17, 2011 – DMG / Mori Seiki USA has announced the annual Innovation Days event will takeplace at the company’s Headquarters and Chicago Technical Center on May 3 – 5, 2011 where progressive machine technology will collide with the latest tooling, automation, software, training and application strategies. Manufacturers will have the opportunity to experience everything needed to stay at the forefront of manufacturing ‐ all in one place. This once‐yearly event gives machine tool users access to over thirty live cutting demonstrations and dozens of engineers specializing in advanced machining solutions.  Technical seminars at the three‐day event will be presented byindustry experts and span several productivity‐boosting topics including: Expanding Production, Shop Floor Networking & Communication, Machine Tools for the Future, Practical Strategies for Reducing Set Up Times and Laser and Ultrasonic Use In New Markets.

Above and below is inside Mori-Seiki's incredible demonstration hall.

Above is the MTConnect roll out poster that Paul Warndorf said, "Dave, if you lose this, do not come back from Chicago!" :-)

Above is a great example of the size of some of the items being created at the show.  The water bottle gives it perspective.  Below is a gear that you do not want to screw up when making it :-)

Below is Athulan from System Insights discussing their MTConnect product, Vimana, with a prospect. Athulan said it was a great show for their company.

Above is a short video of a machine tool making a part.  This shows the size of this particular DMG machine tool.

The piece you see being made here is about five in diameter.

Bryce Harper at Hagerstown Suns Game

At 5 minutes before 5 last Thursday, I told Julie and Tim to jump in the van because we were going up to see the Nat's hitting sensation Bryce Harper, who is all of 18 years old, play that night for the Hagerstown Suns.  I ordered the 2nd row VIP seats behind third base for $11 EACH.  It was "Thirsty Thursday Night" so beers were $1 each.  I bought some beers for the other folks in our row when I went out and was fairly popular guy after that :-)   It was perfect weather and seeing Bryce Harper up and close will be something that Tim will likely be telling his kids about some day.   Three tickets in the 2nd row, brats, sodas, beer, and popcorn all for below $60 is awfully hard to beat....

The True ROI of the [MC]2 Conference

The True ROI of the [MC]2 Conference

MTConnect®: Connecting Manufacturing Conference

May 11, 2011

I Wrote This Article For The May 2011 IMTS Insider

Last month, I announced the [MC]2 MTConnect®: Connecting Manufacturing Conference with a call for papers. These papers are what we will use to determine the technical and business sessions. [MC]2 will be held on Nov. 8-10 in Cincinnati, Ohio, at the Hyatt Regency.

[MC]2 will have technical and business tracks, as well as general sessions to discuss all things MTConnect. The technical tracks will have subject matter experts leading hands-on labs for software developers to learn about MTConnect at both the machine side, as well as the application level. The business tracks will feature discussions from manufacturing business leaders that will benefit everyone from plant floor employees to C-level executives in better understanding how MTConnect improves productivity throughout the plant. The general sessions will feature discussions about what the future will hold for increasing manufacturing in an open world where data is king.

I have attended countless IT conferences and a few manufacturing conferences over the last three decades. A question that everyone asks before they decide to invest both their time and money in either speaking at or attending a conference is to determine the ROI for them from two perspectives:

From a company perspective, does this make sense for my company to invest their money and my time to attend this conference? In other words: What new skills will I learn to help me in my job?  From a personal perspective: How will this help my resume? That includes getting to the next level at the prospective attendee's current company, or perhaps getting a new job at a different company.

I would argue that these two perspectives are missing the true ROI for both the company as well as the individual attending a conference such as [MC]2. The true ROI is not just what happens during the business, technical or general sessions, but what happens before, between and after those sessions in the hallways, the breaks, the restaurants and the bars. It is those impromptu conversations and meetings where you meet folks who are doing the same thing you are trying to do but have a different approach. It is these discussions that cause you to think differently and ask questions that you would have never thought of prior to the conference. Those individuals who you meet and then continue to have ongoing conversations with beyond the event are absolutely priceless. It is meeting customers in a setting where you are both searching for creative solutions that can be the petri dish for future collaborations. It is grabbing the speaker of a session and going out for lunch together to discuss some of the finer points of the session. It is the suggestion from another attendee to check out some open source software that your company could use to save tens of thousands of dollars. It is adding lots of new contacts that will save you time and your company money when you run into future challenges.

The next time you are considering attending a conference such as [MC]2, remember that the true ROI is not just the sessions, it is who you meet, what you learn, the relationships you create during impromptu conversations and meetings.

Whether you are technical or on the business side of manufacturing, [MC]2 is a MUST-ATTEND event in 2011! Check out http://MTConnect.org/MC2 for more information!

Dave Edstrom
Director, The Office of Strategic Innovation
AMT - The Association For Manufacturing Technology