Social media is a powerful and dynamic medium used for communicating. "In today’s high-tech business world, marketing is ever-changing. This is especially true of social media, where new platforms and content trends emerge on a seemingly daily basis “(15 Hot Social Media, 2019). The social media platforms are changing. The traditional social media powerhouse – Facebook – is experiencing market pressure from competing platforms (such as B2B platform LinkedIn). The content will also move to more of a “hyper-targeted content” model. Traditional business such as those in the manufacturing industry need to pay attention to social media trends.

The simple addition of a robotic component to their CNC machine helped support a nearly 70 percent increase in revenue for this northern Macomb County-based business.

Machine learning depends on vast amounts of data to make inferences. However, sometimes the amount of data needed by machine-learning algorithms is simply not available. SRI International has developed a system called Deep Adaptive Semantic Logic (DASL) that uses adaptive semantic reasoning to fill in the data gaps. DASL integrates bottom-up data-driven modeling with top-down theoretical reasoning in a symbiotic union of innovative machine learning and knowledge guided inference. The system brings experts and data together to make better, more informed decisions.

Everyone is certainly familiar with the definition of “robot”, a machine which substitutes humans in certain dangerous or repetitive tasks. They have been our companions for decades now, driving up productivity and safety in a wide variety of applications. Robots can lift heavy weights without getting tired or incurring injuries, and repeat tasks with greater accuracy than a human operator. Robots can even work in hostile environments without putting people’s safety at risk, as is often the case in automotive welding or painting.

Manufacturers often are intimidated by technological implementations due to the high costs, time and labor they assume they will have to invest. But, if effectively applied, technology can help team members achieve a new level of efficiency through the delivery of real-time information. This week on the blog, Chuck Werner of the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center walks us through the stages of business maturity to help us better understand how organizations can reach the upper level of flexibility and autonomy.

We are witnessing a monumental shift unfolding in the automotive industry in front of our eyes. For some time now, the California-based electric car company Tesla has been worth more than the combined values of Michigan-based GM and Ford, and the newly formed Stellantis, formed by the merger of French automaker Groupe PSA and Italian-American automaker Fiat Chrysler. There is no shortage of arguments on either end of the spectrum on whether this shift is justified and rational or a stock market gone wild. Regardless, the fact that GM announced intentions to be completely electric within a couple of decades is a clear indication that while the 20th century belonged to gasoline, the 21st century will be dominated by the battery. This singular fact will have deep reaching effects on the global economy. Here are four global economic impacts to watch for in the near future:

As the automotive industry moves forward with this seismic shift toward greener vehicles and EVs, as well as autonomous vehicles in tandem, it presents an excellent opportunity for Industry 4.0 to shine and play a major role in this transformation. The opportunity is simply too big to ignore, especially since the technology of Industry 4.0 is one of the main reasons this transformation is able to happen in the first place. By adapting to the new reality of the automotive industry in the years to come, businesses in fields including data management, robotics, smart factories, the Internet of Things, and 3-D printing/additive manufacturing can assert themselves as key players in this new EV-focused world.

Innovation is often more about chasing after the shiny and new rather than improving on existing technologies. Nevertheless, the looming challenge of evolving from fossil fuels to renewable energy faces the immutable laws of physics and chemistry – and, ironically enough, environmental hurdles – that may be overlooked by today’s energy experts and policy-makers.

The Firebolt Group was recently selected to be a part of Project DIAMOnD’s PPE Resilience Grant Program. Automation Alley, funded by Oakland and Macomb counties, created Project DIAMOnD—which stands for Distributed, Independent, Agile, Manufacturing On-Demand—to address the urgent need to move companies into the digital manufacturing age of Industry 4.0 as fast as possible to help improve manufacturing agility and response to future disruptions.

In our mission to work smarter, analytics tools provide a level of optics into data that helps manufacturing leaders predict and understand critical business trends. While “analytics” has become one of the digital buzzwords of the past few years, it’s more than just a trend. Using the right analytics software can bring many benefits to businesses.