Running a digital factory is a tricky task, however you define “digital factory.” At Woodward Inc., a manufacturing company that tackles energy control in both aerospace (think fuel management) and power generation, smooth operation of the digital factory means gathering real-time data from machines, making decisions from that data, and sending instructions back down to the shop floor. Not every machine the company has innately supports this concept, or at least not to the extent Woodward requires. The company long developed custom connectivity APIs to construct the information pipelines it requires, but this could mean over a year of effort for new machines and new controls. But over the past two years, this situation has changed with the implementation of Caron Engineering’s MiConnect.
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