3AG Systems

MARCH 14, 2023

Industry 4.0 is transforming the manufacturing industry, with some companies emerging as leaders in implementing digital transformations across their networks. These companies have seen significant benefits from data and analytics, AI, and machine learning. However, the majority of companies are still struggling to achieve a satisfactory return on investment and are stuck in pilot programs.

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3AG Systems

DECEMBER 8, 2022

Is Data Scientist still the sexiest job of the 21 st century ? In 2022, Harvard Business Review posted an article by Thomas H. Davenport and DJ Patil addressing this question, which they first posed in 2012. When the Data Scientist role “was relatively new” in 2012, the authors observed that “as more companies attempted to make sense of big data, they realized they needed people who could combine programming, analytics, and experimentation skills.

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Data Predictive Analytics Supply and Demand Big Data 40

3AG Systems

NOVEMBER 30, 2021

How do you identify an expert? Let’s look at what defines an expert. Training and experience, right? But how do you tell an expert apart from a non-expert? What does an expert look like? That’s easy to answer, right? A doctor wears a white coat. A mechanic wears overalls. And a plumber wears, well. let's say low-cut jeans, shall we? So if it looks like an expert, and talks like an expert, it’s probably an expert, right?

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3AG Systems

NOVEMBER 23, 2021

Why does manufacturing analytics not live up to expectations? We think there are two driving forces here. The first is lowered expectations. The granddaddy of manufacturing analytics was SCADA, and SCADA is ancient. The second factor is that getting insights from complex systems is hard. Really hard, like self-driving car hard. Your job as a plant supervisor is not an easy one, and completely automating that process with all your know-how is not something easily done.

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3AG Systems

NOVEMBER 3, 2021

Companies are flying blind when it comes to their data. When we talk with leaders, they give us a list of reasons why they feel that they can’t proceed with some sort of data project. These reasons range from issues like: Not being able to access that data, The data just takes too long to access, They're not experts with data, There's a large project that they have to finish, or They haven't completed their data strategy.

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3AG Systems

JUNE 1, 2021

As a small business owner or just someone who occasionally looks at financial statements, it can be daunting to connect the dots between the balance sheet and income statement. But these two tools have much more in common than you might expect. But what exactly are the differences and similarities, and how do these two reports interact with one another?

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3AG Systems

APRIL 19, 2021

Inventory management is important for the success of any manufacturer. For many young, scaling manufacturing businesses, it’s also a challenge — one that automation can help overcome. Before getting into how businesses can start digitizing their inventory processes, let’s clarify what we mean by inventory management. What is manufacturing inventory management?

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3AG Systems

APRIL 13, 2021

This is a repost from our friends at TimeXtender. For decades machine learning (ML) was slow to evolve because of the complexity of emulating human thought and the difficulty in processing sufficiently large data sets. Today, though, thanks to major advances in software development, computing resources, and the availability of huge, rich data sets, an increasing number of organizations are investing heavily in machine learning.

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3AG Systems

APRIL 6, 2021

As a growing manufacturer of consumer packaged goods (CPG), improving efficiency and productivity is key to accelerating your growth trajectory. How do you go about improving efficiency and productivity? Across the manufacturing sector, automation is a common approach to efficiently scaling up production. Automation is also an important component of what’s often referred to as “smart manufacturing”.

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Manufacturing Procurement Optimal Sourcing Sourcing Strategies Manufacturing 52

3AG Systems

MARCH 23, 2021

Image credit: Tom Fishburne Key performance indicators (KPIs) are specific measures of the success and health of a business, and if you don't have these crucial gauges or ignore them, you’re essentially flying blind. And that story never ends well. KPIs are always tied to particular objectives or desired outcomes. For example, to gauge your ability to cover all your financial obligations, track your current ratio of assets to liabilities.

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3AG Systems

MARCH 15, 2021

To say that the subscription-based business model is picking up steam is a massive understatement. While not too long ago it seemed to be mainly the purview of telecommunications, software and media companies, today businesses of all sizes are selling groceries, organic produce, meal kits, cosmetics, personal grooming products, health supplements and much more as weekly, monthly or annual subscriptions.

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3AG Systems

FEBRUARY 24, 2021

If you are a food and beverage manufacturer in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) space, food safety is clearly one of your top concerns. You have every reason to be kept up at night thinking about threats such as unlabelled allergens, foodborne diseases and chemical contaminants. The industry is heavily regulated to protect consumers as well as businesses all along the supply chain.

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3AG Systems

FEBRUARY 9, 2021

A recent McKinsey report about the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry shows that larger brands are faltering while smaller brands are becoming the new growth engines. Large CPG brands, which represented 50 percent of total industry revenues in 2016, accounted for only 25 percent of value growth between 2016 and 2020. Meanwhile, smaller brands, which contributed just over 30 percent of 2016 revenues, provided 45 percent of value growth in the same period.

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Manufacturing Procurement Supply and Demand Procurement Analytics Supply Chain Software 40

3AG Systems

FEBRUARY 1, 2021

Digital transformation (DX) is in the air. Discussions abound about how businesses are modernizing by replacing analog processes and siloed, legacy, on-premises technology with integrated, digital, cloud-based solutions. These discussions have intensified over the last year as businesses have been forced to adapt to an ever-evolving “new normal”. If you’re a small- to midsize-enterprise in the consumer packaged good (CPG) space, you may think that the arguments to modernize your IT systems is

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3AG Systems

JANUARY 7, 2021

Moderna’s launch of a COVID-19 vaccine and its approval for use in the United States, Canada and the European Union capped off what can only be described as a wild year. Behind the scenes, what unfolded was nothing short of a digital revolution in the biopharmaceutical industry. For other industries and the manufacturing sector in general, this success story is also a case study demonstrating the benefits of digital transformation.

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3AG Systems

DECEMBER 14, 2020

In recent posts, we’ve talked much about supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA ) systems, which are used to control and measure the performance of equipment in many kinds of industrial operations. We have also considered some of the limitations of traditional SCADA systems, and how they differ from modern internet of things (IoT) installations.

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3AG Systems

DECEMBER 1, 2020

Much about industrial data collection has changed in the past few decades. However, nothing holds more promise (or hype) than the Internet of Things (IoT), also known as the Industrial IoT (IIoT). For supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) engineers who cut their teeth on programmable logic controller (PLC) stacks and pre-internet SCADA, IoT might look like the latest trend.

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3AG Systems

NOVEMBER 17, 2020

In our discussions with general managers, industrial engineers and continuous improvement managers, we encounter a common refrain: supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA ) systems are not easy to use. Why is this the case, and what can be done to improve the central nervous system for the factory floor? Here are some of the key issues with many of today’s SCADA systems: SCADA is 20 th century technology in the 21 st century SCADA systems typically mimic the physical plant layout SCADA

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System Just-in-Time Continuous Improvement Data 52

3AG Systems

OCTOBER 13, 2020

When a manufacturer, a utility or an operator of industrial assets needs to manage its machines and processes, what is the technology it turns to? The answer is supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), a 50+ year-old technology that is nearly universal in industrial operations around the world. But with the exception of process engineers, relatively few people know this technology exists.

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3AG Systems

OCTOBER 2, 2020

Common refrains for businesses operating in a data-driven world include: “Where’s the data?”, “Could we just see the data?”, and “Can you back it up with data?” Very few organizations do not rely on data, to some degree, for their success these days. Yet, some still debate improving data collection and reporting, or, worry about defending the cost if they do.

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3AG Systems

SEPTEMBER 9, 2020

It’s easy to criticize traditional ERPs in the same way that it’s easy (at least proverbially) to shoot fish in a barrel; we can all do it but there are probably better ways to spend our time. ERPs could be cooler, more useful, worth the money; they don’t need to be abandoned altogether. But how could they become measurably, tangibly, practically more useful to the companies that adopt them?

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Analytics Software Modeling Software Demand Planning Software Vendor Strategies 52

3AG Systems

AUGUST 27, 2020

Traditional ERP vendors may bleed client organizations dry in the long run but they never do so in the early stages of adoption and implementation—because they don’t have to. They will more than make it up in backend maintenance and service. Most people are now familiar with the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business model. SaaS allows subscribers to aquire services on a monthly basis instead of as single, one-time license purchases.

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3AG Systems

AUGUST 19, 2020

Imagine it’s 2025: You look back on the past half-decade with a complicated mix of relief, surprise and flat-out exhaustion. Is exhaustion the right word? Maybe not? Maybe exhilaration better describes what it was life when life totally changed, beginning in early 2020. But at first, you and everyone else were just heads-down focused on surviving 2020; what happened post-survival couldn’t have been predicted.

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Predictive Analytics Software Strategy Price Mitigation Strategies Company 52

3AG Systems

AUGUST 14, 2020

Most people have heard of the law of diminishing returns, but many don’t know what it means. Wikipedia defines diminishing returns as: the decrease in the marginal (incremental) output of a production process as the amount of a single factor of production is incrementally increased, while the amounts of all other factors of production stay constant.

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Data Analysis Analytics Report 52

3AG Systems

AUGUST 4, 2020

Large-scale Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation projects are notoriously, almost legendarily, awful for all involved—except maybe for the vendors selling them. What is it about ERPs that cause so much consternation? We’ll address this shortly; the real question is: Is the massive data do-over of a traditional ERP implementation really necessary for your company?

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3AG Systems

JULY 23, 2020

Perhaps you’re feeling a little overwhelmed trying to run a manufacturing operation in an increasingly competitive, digital business landscape: perhaps you can’t get any, enough, or the right data from your factory floor; maybe none of your data systems talk to each other. Meanwhile, that ERP/manufacturing execution system (MES)/big-software vendor has painted a beautiful picture of how all your data could work together—if you just scrap all those disparate systems and start over.

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Data System Just-in-Time Warehousing 52

3AG Systems

JULY 8, 2020

Not everyone has the luxury of redesigning the whole plant. If tomorrow, your CEO gave you an unlimited budget and carte blanche to change anything in your plant, how would you react? Would you be overwhelmed by all the possibilities? Would you suggest only minor improvements, confident you already run the smartest, most precise plant going? Or would you pull out blueprints you’ve been poring over since your first day on the job?

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Data How To Course Manufacturing 52

3AG Systems

JULY 2, 2020

Manufacturers tend to be the kind of people who roll up their sleeves and get stuff done. This practical approach—both to day-to-day operations and emergency problem-solving—often delivers immediate results. But it can also be misapplied and come with significant costs, especially to data operations. In a world in which data is quickly becoming a primary currency, such mishandling can be fatal to manufacturers’ success.

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Manufacturing Inventory Management Software Currency Inventory Management 52

3AG Systems

JUNE 25, 2020

At 3AG, we’ve spent over a decade helping companies clean up their data and make the most of their reporting activities. We've seen almost every kind of data dysfunction: from people copying written notes into spreadsheets then having others copy these to pdf to share with management, to operations being held up by “gatekeepers” unwilling to share their data with others because of a siloed mindset or concern about their jobs becoming obsolete.

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Data Manufacturing Company Report 64

3AG Systems

APRIL 21, 2020

For the better part of 2020, or what now seems like an eternity, we have been in the midst of an unprecedented economic transformation. Office workers have been sent home, restaurants and retailers that depend on foot traffic have been crippled, and supply chain gaps have been painfully uncovered. Despite this shock, we have also seen incredible resilience from governments, companies and individuals.

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Manufacturing North America United States Canada 40

3AG Systems

FEBRUARY 10, 2020

Insider joke for all those hardworking ML engineers.

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3AG Systems

FEBRUARY 7, 2020

Ah, pie charts. The Ned Flanders of business intelligence. We generally loathe pie charts at 3AG. Except for these ones.

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3AG Systems

JANUARY 28, 2020

Image source: BuckandLibby Wait—data science and data engineering aren’t the same? We get this question a lot, both from data-heavy organizations and in casual conversation. And it makes some sense, until you start replacing “data” with other words. No one would confuse a chemist (someone with chemistry degrees) for a chemical engineer, or, say, an electrical engineer for either a physicist or an electrician!

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Data Chemicals Supply and Demand Government 52

3AG Systems

JANUARY 27, 2020

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3AG Systems

DECEMBER 10, 2019

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3AG Systems

DECEMBER 5, 2019

Placeholder for the upcoming Power BI OEE dashboard Read More

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3AG Systems

SEPTEMBER 12, 2019

OEE. It’s a term almost everyone in mining and manufacturing is familiar with, but one that very few would profess to truly understand. Its application seems almost too simple, yet its calculation can stump even the brightest leaders. An OEE definition and some broad applications OEE, or overall equipment effectiveness is like the headlamp on a miner’s helmet: It shines a bright light where you need to focus your work and highlights how best to do that work—so you can be as efficient (with your

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