In 2025, manufacturers implemented AI across forecasting, logistics, and supplier risk scoring expecting breakthroughs, but a clear pattern emerged: AI improved awareness and decision support without eliminating uncertainty or delivering automatic resilience. Based on a panel at IIoT World Manufacturing & Supply Chain Day 2025 featuring Procter & Gamble’s Jamie McIntyre Horstman, Srinivasan Narayanan, and […]
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One of the most persistent barriers to supply chain resilience is not a lack of analytics tools, but reluctance to share data.During IIoT World Manufacturing & Supply Chain Day in December, speakers discussed how AI is being applied across demand forecasting, supplier risk, and logistics. While AI depends on data, several panelists emphasized that effective […]
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Manufacturing plants face a persistent challenge: bridging the gap between monitoring equipment and improving production outcomes. While sensors and dashboards flood facilities with data, most solutions stop at detection, leaving operators to figure out what happens next.Beyond Monitoring: The Prescriptive AdvantageThe evolution from reactive to proactive plant operations requires more than hardware installations. True transformation […]
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In April 2020, half of the world’s population was in lockdown — yet critical infrastructure still had to run. Chemical plants, glass facilities, refineries, and energy systems couldn’t pause. Equipment still failed. Processes, drifted, and operators needed expert support. But the experts were home.This single moment, according to Tony White — who leads the U.S. […]
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Industrial operations generate massive volumes of time-series data—sensor readings from production lines, equipment telemetry, environmental metrics, and operational logs. This data holds the potential to optimize throughput, reduce downtime, and extend asset life. But when that data arrives incomplete, inconsistent, or out of sequence, it becomes a liability instead of an asset.Poor data quality doesn’t […]
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While manufacturers invest in AI and digital twin programs, the Adlib ebook “AI-Powered PLM in Manufacturing” reveals that most of the data required for those initiatives is buried in documents that machines can’t read. Across the industry, 80% of operational data is unstructured, and 90% of it is never used because it sits inside PDFs, CAD […]
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For more than a century, our factories have been powered by automation—machines tirelessly repeating the same motions, churning out parts, and, occasionally, chewing up a wrench if something went wrong. Automation gave us the Industrial Revolution and, eventually, affordable toasters. But as powerful as automation has been, it has one fatal flaw: it can’t think.Today, […]
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In most industrial operations, digital reliability still means one thing: predicting failures before they happen. But as systems mature, that’s no longer enough. The next evolution is about using machine data to drive performance, not just prevention.Seeing What Limits the SystemThe future of reliability depends on two capabilities: understanding residual life and identifying bottlenecks.Residual life assessment estimates how long a […]
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In most plants, data visibility has improved dramatically. Modern time series databases connect seamlessly with SCADA systems, historians, and operational dashboards, giving teams real-time insight into production. This foundational layer—basic monitoring—has become table stakes in manufacturing.But visibility alone isn’t enough. According to a study by Aberdeen Research, unplanned downtime in manufacturing can cost up to […]
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