As manufacturers work to rebound from pandemic-related disruptions, one of the obstacles they face is a growing shortage of maintenance technicians. These workers were already in short supply before the pandemic, and now the problem is even worse. While the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that job openings for machinery maintenance workers and similar
Wireless sensor networks can help bakeries work more efficiently, maintain product and employee safety, reduce unplanned downtime and meet rising demand even when workers are hard to find. The demand for comfort food during 2020 drove up sales of sweet goods, and now that bakery cafes and restaurants are reopening in many areas, the overall
I had a friend who has since retired who speculated on what one could do with the data from sensors installed all over a large petroleum or petro-chemical production facility. Just think of what you could know in order to be able to manage the entire facility, he’d exclaim. Recently I interviewed a team at
The industrial IoT market is growing as companies boost efficiency. Pushed to transform by the pandemic, organizations in many sectors have adopted or are planning to adopt remote sensors, connected medical devices, wireless video cameras, smart building systems and other Internet of Things tools. The industrial IoT (IIoT) market is now growing by 16.7% a
Wireless Cloud-based sensors can be deployed in places they’ve never been used so organizations can gain valuable insights into their operations with actionable data. For decades, alarm dealers have attached simple sensors to send an alert if a basement is flooding or the temperature dropped in a boiler room, for example. Today, wireless Cloud-based sensors
Since the start of the COVID pandemic, the protein processing industry has been hit hard and often by outbreaks of the virus among workers. So far, more than 50,000 U.S.-based meat and poultry production employees have been infected and more than 200 lives have been lost. To address the problem, public health officials and meat
Public health experts have warned that stopping COVID-19 – or at least mitigating its severity and rapid spread – will not mean the world is safe; rather, it’s just a matter of time before the next pandemic emerges as wild animals lose their habitats, fostering more contact with humans and increasing the likelihood diseases will
Covid safety is still a concern for all of us, especially protein processors whose workers only recently got vaccine access. Over the past year, many food processing plants saw outbreaks of Covid, prompting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to urge processors to take protective steps. In February, the labor department released updated worker
We’re finally starting to see the light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel, as health officials, clinics and pharmacies work to get people vaccinated as quickly as possible. With individual and public health at new risk from potentially more contagious virus variants, the quality of every dose of vaccine matters. As powerful as the
