This blog series is posted once a month and focuses on the following: Manufacturing Technology/Innovation, IoT, Cluster development.

IIoT and The Cloud: What Manufacturers Need to Watch For.

It’s highly likely that most Canadian manufacturers have yet to adopt the cloud let alone begin researching what it is, why they’ll need it (or have to use it) and how much it will cost.

This is a good article, by Alan Earls, that introduces the top three cloud providers: Google, Microsoft and Amazon whose cloud offerings are: Google Cloud, Azure (pronounced “aszure”) and AWS (Amazon Web Services).

When will the cloud come into the picture for most manufacturers? It’s possible they already are using the cloud for email, collaboration and document storage/sharing.

But with IIoT it’s different and complex and potentially costly.

This is a good article to help Canadian manufacturers learn more about the top three cloud providers and some lesser known ones.

Read the full article here: AWS vs. Azure and Google: An IoT cloud platform comparison

The Future of Manufacturing

In the “Future of Manufacturing” podcast episode, Simon London speaks with McKinsey & Company’s Katy George and Enno de Boer, Partner and Global Lead Manufacturing about the future of manufacturing—think digital and advanced analytics, not robots.

Some factories are adopting emerging technologies aimed at automation, leveraging operations data using industrial IoT and Artificial Intelligence. But, the rate of adoption continues to be low, especially in small to mid-size manufacturers in Canada. While McKinsey’s clients tend to be large global manufacturers, the insights and advice from this podcast episode is valuable to anyone in or supporting manufacturing in Canada.

MTechHub is bringing key leaders together to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing manufacturers and how they can establish a roadmap to Industry 4.0 … and implement them collectively as a community.

Our monthly events are aimed at making that happen. Learn about upcoming event experiences here: MtechHub Events

Link to McKinsey’s “Future of Manufacturing” podcast

Interview with Ciprian Morcan

Interview with CIPRIAN MORCAN cluster manager of the Transylvanian Furniture Cluster in Romania. Learn firsthand how the furniture industry came together, led by private industry leaders, in 2012.

Led by key leaders such as Ciprian Morcan, who at that time, because of the absence of a coherent national cluster policy, but with a strong private awareness of the fact that enterprises needed to collaborate in order to increase their competitiveness, he got involved early in “coagulating” the first core of 22 entities that laid the foundation of the Transylvanian Furniture Cluster and at the end of the process was elected cluster manager the same year.

The full interview is featured on the European Cluster Collaboration Platform site.