By Chris McNamara, Smart Industry editor in chief
Just as the pandemic filled every other facet of our lives, Smart Industry has explored disparate elements of COVID’s ramifications on the manufacturing world over the past… yikes…eight months. If you can stomach more coverage about the coronavirus—and, note, ours is solely focused on the manufacturing space—do visit us at SmartIndustry.com
Is this period challenging? Sure. Maddening? You bet. But—increasingly in recent weeks—I’ve been witnessing some positives amid the problems. In a nutshell, this crisis has quickened adoption of the automation initiatives we’ve all talked / dreamed / planned about for the past few years.
Pressure creates diamonds, right?
You’ll see some of those bright spots in the latest issue of our magazine, in which we also dream about a unified industrial network standard that should boost enterprise-wide visibility and hasten the benefits of Industry 4.0. Elsewhere in this issue we share the story of the digital transformation of an individual, Jeff Heath, whose laborer-to-engineer evolution personifies all of these heady concepts we’re always talking about. And then we peer into the world of augmented reality to discover real-world applications of this futuristic tool.
Have we, collectively, been stunned / derailed / gut-punched by COVID? For sure. Some of us more than others. But the industrial community is recovering / rebounding / punching back at this unprecedented foe and (do we dare say it) beginning to emerge with toughened skin and lessons learned.
Pressure creates diamonds.
Until we automate this column…
Chris
