Fun with #Wordle: #Wonderware Historian.
http://global.wonderware.com/EN/Pages/WonderwareHistorian.aspx

Need a real-time database to manage the thousands of points of data that your process generates?  With the rigor and capacity to manage large, distributed enterprises, Wonderware Historian meets the needs of a single plant, through multi-site, global data acquisition, storage and reporting.  An #InTouch user?  Consider Wonderware Historian to add a level of detail and relevancy to your visualization.

Repost, with comments: Big Data Strategy: s+b’s Strategy of the Year

http://www.strategy-business.com/blog/Big-Data-Strategy-sbs-Strategy-of-the-Year

Big data has become part of the "triliogy" of new initiatives for businesses--along with the cloud and mobile, really transforming the way companies are doing business and interacting with systems, people and equipment.

This post from Strategy & Business discusses the value & initiatives that a company should consider for using and leveraging a big data strategy.

At Wonderware, we've supported manufacturing "big data" for many years, whether it's for real-time series process analysis (Historian, Historian Client), or for manufacturing intelligence (Wonderware Intelligence) where multiple databases can be accessed, the data related in context to one another, and then presented in a graphically rich dashboard.

The point is that depending upon a user's needs, these different "industrial big data" products can help them make more sense of the data that's within their plant or enterprise--providing relationships to events, allowing for better drill down and analysis.  If you have a data historian, and aren't using one of these analytical products, you may be missing important aspects of your process that you could easily improve, or gain better insight into.

Repost, with comments: What’s New in Green Packaging?

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2013/05/16/whats-new-in-green-packaging/

Whether it is apparent or not, we suppliers of industrial automation solutions must pay attention to the "macro" trends that affect our customers and their markets.  Certainly, sustainability, either through reduced consumption of resources (like energy, or materials, or labor) or through a deliberate change in the way customers are doing business, will influence their use and willingness to accept our solutions.  Can we make them better at energy management?  Can we provide them with more uptime, so that they can enjoy longer runs with less stoppages and changeovers?  Can we enable better process visibility, including analytics and reporting, to be better informed on their operations?  All of these elements are in play.

This article gives a good overview from a participant standpoint.  We should use this opportunity to understand, from their perspective, how we can better serve them.

Tablet users are big spenders compared to smartphone users: report

http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/tablet-users-are-big-spenders-compared-to-smartphone-users-report

Work Tasks application from ArchestrA Workflow Software

This is an interesting report, not only because of the purchasing shift to tablets from smart phones, but the opportunity for the automation community to leverage this new format for reporting & analysis applications.