2017

Industry 4.0 -- Automated processes that are real-time integrated through continual data exchange between machines, applications and businesses. “Smart” factories are born from this, together with a transition from manufacturing just products to creating valuable services tied to those products.

Employees commonly circumvent an ERP system by using Excel or other tools. Manufacturers should understand the main reasons this happens in order to mitigate what amounts to risky workarounds.

Technical debt is a common term within IT circles but largely unheard of outside IT. This shouldn’t be the case. Accumulating too much technical debt has become a significant corporate risk that warrants senior management attention.

This October, a “Not Secure” warning will be displayed in Google’s Chrome browser on any HTTP page a visitor types information into or accesses in Incognito Mode This will negatively impact millions of HTTP web pages until the pages are converted to HTTPS.

No doubt, information overload has become a big problem. No company is immune to it. And no company can avoid a future of exponential increases in the amount of data created and collected. Therefore, it’s no longer a matter of if, but when, a serious plan to manage it all should be developed.

Many executives fear the thought of being dead wrong when making a big decision. It's human nature. So paralyzing is the concern for some people that the decision never gets made.

It is frustrating to see manufacturers still getting caught in traps that certain ERP vendors set. These are a few of the common traps and how to avoid them.