ARC has been blogging about how the oil & gas industry was ‘big data’ before the term “Big Data” ever became popular. Major oil & gas companies seem to be coming out with their own claims to a supercomputer that is faster, bigger and more powerful than the next. The supercomputers are getting so big, in fact, that Eni SpA’s new supercomputer is the size of a soccer field.

A key theme highlighted throughout the OTC conference was the rising adoption of digital technologies, i.e. digital transformation. one of the challenges that comes along with the digital transformation and that is change management. This is coming out to be such a huge challenge that it was a part of nearly all discussions and presentations around digital transformation at the OTC.

Looking to the future all industries will need next-generation materials to meet the demands for new products that are stronger, lighter, more durable, able to deal with more extreme physical conditions, and quite simply to emulate the structure of the natural world around us.

ARC has blogged several times in the past on the increasing importance for oil & gas companies to seek out strong technology partners in order to fully maximize the benefits provided for by digital transformation and with the ultimate objective being realizing operational excellence.  ARC is

To improve fuel economy, all automotive OEMs have converted many of the car’s parts to lighter materials which often involves aluminum or magnesium.  To make these parts in the high volumes needed for car manufacturing, automated casting machines are deployed.  A key manufacturer of these machine

While many companies are focused on the new technologies that are fueling the trends few understand the importance of addressing change leadership before technology.  There is a lot written regarding digital transformation, Industry 4.0 or the digitization of manufacturing.

Last week ARC published a report I wrote about standard software runtime environments in industrial automation. Since the 1990s many higher-level industrial applications jumped onto Windows software platforms, and this level of standardization enabled a great deal of innovation in the industrial software space. But Windows operating systems were never able to penetrate to the lower levels of automation where process control or machine control takes place. Windows was not designed to do this.

The increasing convergence of operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT), otherwise known as OT-IT Convergence, across industry and infrastructure was a recurring theme at the recent 

Machine learning is now poised to find meaningful patterns in the messy, variable, and heretofore immeasurable activities of human beings.

When I listen to presentations about new products, technologies, strategies, and best practices my reactions occur in four distinct phases.