Not only are the stars aligned, but public opinion, politicians, and the National Association of Manufacturers are in agreement, that nuclear needs to considered again. Manufacturing Business Technology (MBT) writes that the logic is inescapable: it is a reliable source of power that will create thousands of high paying jobs. We’ve shied away from nuclear because of the poor examples of Russian plants without cooling towers. Top scientists have been befuddled by public disdain for nuclear because it IS safe.
Speak up and support nuclear energy. Make it your personal project and seek to understand how supporting it relates to the …read more

Manufacturing Business Technology wrote about “real world” BI acceptance as not matching predictions of think tanks and vendors. My previous post challenged them to consider how market acceptance works before doing surveys and reports of “reality”, i.e., what should be analyzed is the “early adopter” acceptance because they tend to drive acceptance by others. Here is an example of some of the skewed thinking in the report:
“We regularly find that the received wisdom in this industry doesn’t match what the majority of real-world users are finding. For instance, almost all demos now focus on the web version of the product. …read more

Collaboration reaps many benefits but there are still many frustrations with the process and with the technology. Manufacturing Business Technology magazine reports on a survey of just over 400 (about 1/2 design engineers and 1/2 production/project managers) about collaboration as it relates to design and manufacturing improvements.
Only 20% were “satisfied” with current collaboration efforts citing two key areas of frustration:
1. Slow responses from those to whom communications are sent.
2. Clarity of communication.
90% regularly collaborate with internal to company people with only 30% going outside to customers and suppliers on a regular basis. This surprised the reviewers but seems to make …read more