Sometimes when you talk about topics that maybe don't relate
to the things that are closest to you,
you have to make that connection.
Marcia, you are the manufacturing guru here at SAS.
And one of your passions is to talk a little bit
about how technologies, specifically things like IOT,
are impacting the future of the smart factory, the future
of manufacturing.
Quality-- quality has always been
a challenge for manufacturers.
And with IOT data, they're able to really improve their quality
in new ways.
So they can look at the process, so
how the product is being produced on the plant floor,
and also the equipment, so maximizing the equipment
performance and reducing unplanned downtime.
In one case, we were able to look at a process manufacturer
who had thousands of different data points
and identify the seven that were most predictive of a quality
failure.
And by being able to intervene early and fix that batch
before it was finished being produced,
we dramatically improved their productivity and their revenue.
So I'm very excited about how all of the IOT data that's
coming in from the plant and from factors outside
of the plant, such as weather data or supply chain data,
can improve product quality.
Service-- this is a very interesting area to me
in manufacturing, because in the past,
people used to sell a product, it
would go through distribution.
When the person received it, if they
had a problem with the product, they
would go back to the distributor.
Maybe the manufacturer heard about it
months later through a warranty claim or so forth.
Now people not only can hear about it
through social media, which everybody knows about,
but they also want to have connectivity back
to the original manufacturer--
which brings in issues like global data privacy
regulations.
It brings in huge quantities of data
that many manufacturers have not traditionally
been set up to deal with.
And it enables them to make money in ways
they haven't made money before, so not
just through tangible goods, but also through services.
Thank you so much for spending a little time with me.