Trains in China have been transformed in recent years as the country has embraced high-speed rail and expanded its network to more than 40,000 km of tracks. The country has more high-speed rail than the rest of the world combined, but the breakthroughs don’t stop there. A study published in the launch issue of the journal High-Speed Railway shows how satellite-based train state perception – for example, using China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) could revolutionize railway signaling.

How does train signaling work?

To understand the benefits of using satellite navigation methods to keep track of trains, it’s useful to consider how railway signaling works today. The governing principle of railway signaling is that no two trains should occupy the same portion of the track. And there are two approaches to managing train movements – fixed block and moving block signaling.

In both cases, the block length (the portion of track reserved for each train) is defined by the stopping distance of the fastest service using that line. And keep in mind that trains in China can take kilometers to come to a standstill when traveling at high speeds.

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Fixed block signaling systems only allow trains to proceed when the next block has become vacant, whereas moving block approaches make sure, dynamically, that there’s sufficient space ahead and behind to accommodate the braking of all units on the line.

Today, the amount of trackside equipment has grown to provide not just signaling data, but also includes systems to monitor train integrity – in other words, whether the front and the back are still attached. There’s other kit too, such as railway infrared hot box detectors that can determine whether wheel bearings are overheating and stop trains before mechanical failures occur.

A #Fuxing #bullettrain, with a designed speed of 350 km/h, departed on Tuesday morning from the Southwest Chinese city of #Guiyang, marking the operation of the Guiyang-Libo section of the Guiyang-Nanning High-speed #Railway. @VisitGuiyang https://t.co/XUSMHTOEiH

— Enterprising China (@sinoprise) August 9, 2023

Key to the implementation of today’s railway management systems is the placement of so-called balises (pronounced /ba-leases/ and named after the French word for ‘marker’), which stand proud a couple of inches above the sleeper below. If you’ve traveled on trains in China and elsewhere in the world, you’ll likely have seen the yellow- or orange-colored units in between the rails.

In their simplest state, balises are kind of like contactless payment points for trains. But rather than record transactions, these track-located transponders – which are powered by looms underneath the locomotive – provide information to the train on its whereabouts and details on the upcoming section of track.

Train transponders: Balises standing proud on a section of track in Europe.

For example, while the train keeps track of its location by counting wheel rotations, this calculation can be checked against the ground truth telegraphed by each balise. This is necessary as wheels slip and wear causes a reduction in diameter that would – if left unchecked – underestimate the distance traveled on long journeys.

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In addition, the beacons tell the train its permitted speed limit for that block of track, as well as information on the geometry and gradient of the upcoming section. Also, balises placed in sequence inform the train of its direction of travel.

However, there are cost implications of having to install and maintain infrastructure over thousands of kilometers of tracks. And to reduce the quantity and complexity of the track-side equipment that’s involved in supporting a modern railway, such as trains running in China and on high-speed networks in other countries, operators are considering approaches that are increasingly train-centric.

In their study, the researchers based at Beijing Jiaotong and Wuhan Universities – with expertise in computer and information technology, and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) approaches – consider the idea of so-called virtual balises.

Trains in China

Leveraging satellite positioning data gathered from BDS, which was constructed to provide independence from GPS, trains in China receive balise information based on their location. The advantage, as the Beijing and Wuhan teams point out, is that existing train control system frameworks could remain the same, as the information formats, etc, would be unchanged. But you could reduce the amount of physical trackside infrastructure that’s required.

Satellite positioning data could also be used for train integrity monitoring, to ensure that the front and back of the formation are where you’d expect them to be. And, based on field tests, the teams conclude that satellite systems could be key technologies in raising the capabilities of train-borne navigation.

Also, trains in China are by no means the only modes of transport to jump on this trend. Buses, trams, and trains elsewhere can be seen fitted with rooftop antennas that have active GPS/GNSS capabilities. But what’s striking about the development of intelligent high-speed rail in China is how it’s competing with short-haul flights, and – by all accounts – winning that competition.

And more trains and fewer flights is important to curb carbon dioxide emissions associated with transportation. On TechHQ we’ve written about the steps that aircraft manufacturers and operators will need to take to make aviation more sustainable. And those plans are based on continued growth in demand for flights, but China is showing that high-speed trains can reduce the environmental impact of aviation – at least when routes are competitive with short-haul flights.

High-speed trains in China can carry hundreds of passengers at a time, sometimes even more. The extra-long version of the Fuxing Hao Series Bullet Train can reportedly accommodate 1,283 passengers in 17 cars. And, if the concept of virtual balises takes off, satellite positioning could reduce the cost of operations and add to the appeal of high-speed rail.

The post What does BeiDou satellite study tell us about trains in China? appeared first on TechHQ.

Operating systems have a huge bearing on our relationship with technology and appeal to personal preferences – for example, try getting Linux, Mac, and MS Windows users to swap machines! And one of the most significant operating systems in our daily lives is a platform type that many of us never consider – the terminal operating system, which is critical to transporting goods efficiently around the world.

Experience goes a long way when it comes to implementing a terminal operating system that’s going to achieve its full potential. And, as customers soon discover, one size doesn’t fit all. The selection process begins with the nature of the shipping terminal as break bulk – goods such as steel, lumber, and agricultural products, which are not shipped in containers – processes deviate from general cargo operations.

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David Trueman, MD of TBA Group, points out that container processing involves standard dimensions – so much so that operations can run efficiently with little knowledge of what’s inside. Container terminals also benefit from a standardized format of electronic data interchange (EDI) and suit optical character recognition – with agreement on the type and position of container numbers.

However, break bulk cargo comes in various shapes and sizes. Plus, it’s vital to know the nature of the goods to manage unloading, warehousing, and transport. And cargo identification markings are more varied, both in design and location.

“It’s really important to understand where the data sources are going to be,” Trueman responds, when asked about the single most important thing to consider in the design of a bulk handling terminal operating system. “Where are you going to get your real-time information? The location of weighbridges in the operational workflow is vital.”

What is a terminal operating system?

One way of picturing terminal operating systems is to think of them as an enterprise resource planning solution (ERP) for port operators. The systems are essential for optimizing labor allocation and equipment usage and managing the way that port areas are utilized. And Thetius, a maritime technology analyst firm, estimates that the terminal operating system market is currently worth over half a billion dollars.

Day 20 of the #30DayMapChallenge – My Favourite. I think it is the prettiest visualisation I have and indeed, will ever make!
Made with #Python using #matplotlib and #Numpy. #DataScience #DataVisualization #Map #shipping #Geography #dataviz #data #DataScientist pic.twitter.com/8iZiCfib62

— Python Maps (@PythonMaps) November 20, 2022

Features offered by vendors include fleet management, autogate systems, and video analytics. Terminal operating systems can build off industrial IoT frameworks to gather even more data on real-time operations – which expands the possibilities for machine learning and AI. And modules can service billing and other related activities to streamline business operations.

Also, given that vessel plans involve multiple parties, including the next port of call, collaboration is key. And terminal operating systems can help to manage that complex process, carry out better planning, and compile all of the necessary information into the right format, noting EDI requirements.

List of TOS vendors

• Contpark
• CyberLogitec (OPUS Terminal)
• DP World (CARGOES)
• Envision
• GullsEye
• Hogia
• Inform
• iPortman
• IT Partner
• Kaleris (Navis)
• MarineBerth
• Orbita TMEIC
• TBA Group
• TGI
• Tideworks (Mainsail)

Clearly, the world is becoming more automated. And port terminals are no exception from discharging and loading machinery handling vessels at the berth area to yard operations and gate management.

It’s commonplace – for example, in giant terminals such as the Port of Long Beach in the US (the country’s first fully automated port) or the Port of Rotterdam (Europe’s largest seaport) – to see self-driving container trucks (terminal tractors) shuttling back and forth. And reports suggest that smart ports brimming with IoT sensors could accommodate autonomous ships by 2030.

China too has been busy automating its port facilities, including Qingdao – a major seaport in the east of the country and one of the top 10 in the world based on traffic. Qingdao harbor has four zones, which handle cargo and container goods, including oil and petrol tankers, as well as vessels carrying iron ore.

Logical upgrade to supply chain planning

The scale of traffic, diversity of goods, and multiple modes of transport, including road and rail freight, highlight the demands that terminal operating systems have to meet. And getting to grips with this complexity helps to explain why ports are becoming a magnet for the latest technology.

On TechHQ we’ve written about how quantum computers are being used to plan the loading of trucks to reduce the distance traveled by RTG cranes and dramatically reduce maintenance and operating costs.

Private 5G networks are also helping to boost the efficiency of shipping terminals where mobile coverage may otherwise be patchy and feature dead spots. And there are gains beyond connectivity, as operators benefit from being fully in control of communications.

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Having a terminal operating system to measure and record port activity gives management a dashboard view on whether operations are achieving their key performance indicators (KPIs). And, particularly if KPIs are not being met, analysts can dive in – aided by data insights – and identify where the bottlenecks are.

Systems also provide a suite of reporting tools – for example, showing terminal inventory, gate movements, vessel movements, crane productivity, truck turnaround time, and much more.

The scale of modern freight shipping is mind-blowing. If you put all of the containers from a large category vessel onto a freight train – that freight train would be over 70 miles long.

And, typically, all of that cargo will be unloaded and replaced with waiting goods in less than 48 hours, which is a tribute to numerous advances, including developments in terminal operating systems.

The post Supply chain planning – the importance of terminal operating systems appeared first on TechHQ.

• IoT devices are extremely prone to cybersecurity threats.
• The FCC has announced a Cyber Trust mark to set standards for IoT cyber-resilience.
• Many leading players in the industry have already signed up.

Safety, efficiency, and process certification marks are nothing new – from the Energy Star on your washing machine or refrigerator to the USDA Organic mark on your family’s carrots, to the R rating on the movies you don’t show your kids, they’re an understood reality: marks that prove that X product has met Y standards before being sold to the public. But there is, now, a new kid on this old block, and it’s one that aims to tackle the cybersecurity threats that attack consumers in their homes and lives.

The Biden administration, through the auspices of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), announced the launch of the “Cyber Trust” mark in July, 2023, and it’s expected to come into force in 2024. Companies will be able to voluntarily sign up for the Cyber Trust mark, and, assuming their products pass the tests – being resilient against cybersecurity threats – will be able to display the mark on those products to show that not only are their products resilient, but that the company “cares” about the cyber-resilience of the products they sell to their customers.

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Certification marks have a habit of evolving into de facto “rules,” with the entire buying chain abandoning individual assessment of risks and ratings – if a product has the “mark” on it, it’s usually judged to be good enough, at the bare minimum, for use without worry.

In the case of the Cyber Trust mark, there’s an interesting add-on, compared to most previous certification marks, though. Because cybersecurity threats, and cybersecurity resilience, can change over time, evolving to attack devices that were previously safe, or overwhelming previous patches, the Cyber Trust mark will come in two parts.

Tackling cybersecurity threats on purchase and afterward.

Firstly, as with the Energy Star or the USDA Organic certification, there will be a mark stamped on products that a certificate-issuing authority (in this case the FCC) is satisfied that when it was sold, the product met the necessary standards and achieves the required cyber-resilience to qualify for certification.

But because the IoT and IIoT market – and the nature of cybersecurity threats – is distinctly different from, for instance, the market for makers of Energy Star products, there will be a second part to the Cyber Trust mark. The second part will be a scannable QR code, which will allow users to check whether their product is still cyber-resilient at a later date, potentially prompting users to download the latest available security patches.

While the Cyber trust mark itself will most likely come with a range of cybersecurity threat-resilience information for the particular product to which it’s attached, the QR code will allow buyers to access significantly more information, like what kind of data is collected by the device, where and how it’s stored, and even the manufacturer’s policy on sharing any collected data. That could allow for a relative data practice meritocracy to emerge in the IoT and IIoT markets over time.

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IOT

Mitigating the rising hack threat to IoT devices

Keeping your connected devices safe from cybersecurity threats.

In the first place, almost everything these days can be a connected device – from your toothbrush to your washing machine, your refrigerator to your meat thermometer, your smartphone to your medication monitor to your “share control” butt plug.

A home network can have a lot of vulnerability points.

Anything that’s a connected device on your domestic network can be a point of entry for would-be hackers, who can use that weak point in the system to move laterally and take control of other parts of the system, such as your data-rich laptop.

Such cybersecurity threats in a home network might take some time to die out as the Cyber Trust mark becomes a more significant part of day-to-day reality, but ultimately, having an industry standard on cybersecurity threats and resilience in smart devices can only be a positive development.

But if nothing else, having devices stamped with the Cyber Trust mark might well work to educate the wider public about the volume and nature of cybersecurity threats to which they have been, and could be vulnerable through the omnipresent world of connected devices in which they live.

The machines won’t rise up and kill us – but they may well be vulnerable to hacking by people who’d drain us dry.

The potential for expansion.

While in its current form, the Cyber Trust mark is intended to cover only domestic connected devices (with an already existing option to expand to cover fitness trackers, which commonly connect to multiple networks, rather than only the domestic one), the idea could at least theoretically be expanded over time to IIoT devices in commercial supply chains.

Every warehouse, every office building, every place of work in the developed world is guaranteed to be filled with IIoT devices, and just like the unsecured toothbrush in a domestic setting, any one of them could be a weak point in the security of a whole network.

The idea of whole supply chains, and whole industries suddenly having the capacity to choose only Cyber Trust marked IIoT devices is likely to create a similar circle of virtue as companies strive to not only protect their own systems, but gain the ability to show other players in their supply chain that they take cybersecurity threats seriously.

Assuming the Cyber Trust mark proves effective in reducing the number and/or effectiveness of cybersecurity threats in the domestic world of connected devices, there’s no reason beyond the sheer logistical challenge of the move why a commercial version shouldn’t be rolled out eventually.

Some of the connected device industry’s biggest players have already voluntarily signed up to the Cyber Trust mark initiative, including Google, Samsung, Logitech, Amazon, Best Buy, and the Connectivity Standards Alliance.

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It’s new, and it will probably work – but will it narrow the market?

In fact, that’s the single issue that makes the Cyber Trust mark potentially controversial. While it’s arguable that the imposition of a standard to combat cybersecurity threats in IoT devices can only make the industry and those who use its products safer and better, there’s also an argument to be made that such a mark will tend to concentrate the market into a relative monopoly, with only the more prolific players able to afford the testing, hardware and software upgrades to meet potential annual recertification requirements.

The sheer force of numbers of IoT and IIoT devices in the world (approximately 15.4 billion in 2023, just over twice the number of human beings) means the likelihood is that significant change due to the development of the Cyber Trust mark will be slow.

But as a move in a more conscious direction towards protecting individuals and households – and eventually, potentially whole supply chains and industries from cybersecurity threats, it probably has to be applauded, monopoly concerns or not.

The post Cyber Trust mark to tackle IoT/IIoT cybersecurity threats appeared first on TechHQ.

The self-organizing behavior of swarm robots is beneficial in many ways, from building smarter tunnels and conducting remote surveys to paving the way for advanced rescue missions. But what happens when one of those robots goes rogue or breaks down? How can the collective intelligence of the swarm fight back against bad actors in the pack? The answer, according to an increasing number of experts, is smart contracts – using the principles of a blockchain token economy to secure robot swarms.

Publishing their results in the latest issue of Science Robotics, researchers based at IRIDIA – the Artificial Intelligence research laboratory of the Université Libre de Bruxelles – have shown how rationing ‘crypto tokens’ can neutralize discrepancies between the intended and actual behavior of swarm robots. “This discrepancy can be a result of programming errors, failed components, or malicious attacks,” writes the team.

Swarm robot security

In a demonstration using 24 Pi-puck robots, which feature Raspberry Pi Zero W hardware, the AI group implemented a ‘proof-of-authority consensus algorithm’ to govern the behavior of the swarm. Robots communicated with each other according to a smart contract – a computer program stored on a blockchain framework. “Each robot owned crypto tokens that it could spend to participate in security-critical swarm activities by sending transactions to the smart contract,” explain the developers.

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Tokens were allocated at exponentially increasing time intervals to all of the swarm robots, much like a universal basic income, which allowed the group to communicate. But the smart contract was set up to only reward members for sending ‘good’ transactions, with no top-up available for undesirable actions. And the reward structure meant that malicious or malfunctioning robots soon ran out of tokens, leaving them without funds to send transactions and unable to influence swarm behavior.

The use of a blockchain token economy to secure robot swarms has been gaining ground for a number of years, with simulations yielding promising results. And the latest results show how such a framework can be applied in the real world.

Demo time: Pi-puck robots use their swarm intelligence to measure white pixels. Bad data is mitigated by using smart contracts to reward transactions that are beneficial to the task. Image credit: V. Strobel, A. Pacheco, & M. Dorigo.

Top 3 benefits of swarm robots –

1. Operating as a large group, swarm robots are capable of complex behavior. Inspiration includes ants, bees, and other creatures that can team up and organize themselves to achieve great feats.
2. Many simple robots are easier and cheaper to design and build compared with coming up with a solution based on a single device.
3. Redundancy and resilience: operations can continue even if some members of the robot swarm suffer mechanical failure or have an electrical fault. And, as we’ve seen, blockchain technology can mitigate against security issues.

The small size of swarm robots allows them to move through dense and otherwise hard-to-navigate areas such as forests, where they can gather ecological information. Engineers in China have shown how 10 flying micro-drones, each weighing less than a full can of Pepsi, can collaboratively survey an outdoor area – even in the presence of moving obstacles and with human interference.

Each individual robot may appear relatively simplistic, but the power of the group acts as a multiplier – an effect often seen in nature. Tim Landgraf – a German researcher who’s been studying bees for coming up to 20 years – notes that while an individual bee has a brain the size of a pinhead, the insects can navigate a radius of up to 6km around their hives. “They act collectively as a network of tiny brains linked together through various forms of communication,” he comments. “They are sharing information, but also energy.”

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The power of swarm intelligence inspired Landgraf to co-found the Dahlem Center for Machine Learning and Robotics in Berlin, where he and his colleagues apply bee-smarts to solve technology roadblocks in self-driving cars and other industrial sectors. And nature has much to teach device-makers about how to improve their products.

Ants can build dynamic bridges out of themselves to allow other ants to cross gaps. What’s more, the assemblies can compensate for movements in the foundations if the structure happens to be built on unstable materials such as leaves. And this hints at some of the applications for swarm robots – complex and harsh terrains.

Tomorrow at 4pm BST check out our careers panel, "How do I start a career in robotics?". Ask questions to our panel of roboticists from academia and industry.

Watch live on YouTube or Twitch:https://t.co/Kz3O4x8aCQhttps://t.co/hJDj4IXl2d#UKFR #RobotFest #Careers #Robotics pic.twitter.com/NEMpWppYS7

— UKRobotics (@UKRobotics) June 19, 2023

Swarm robots have huge potential in rescue operations. On TechHQ we’ve written about how chemical-sensing smart dust could travel large distances to register signs of life. But robot swarms can assist in other ways too. Radhika Nagpal, head of the Self-Organizing Systems Research Group at Harvard University, US, points out that swarm robots could potentially help to shore up a collapsing structure by building a supporting framework out of their bodies.

In construction, swarm robots provide the opportunity to build tunnels from the outside in. And again, looking at nature, termites have long proven to be expert tunnel builders, using their own saliva to bind soil and wood to reinforce their structures. UK-based swarm robotics operator hyperTunnel – which lists NetworkRail as a strategic partner – has its own take on this concept by injecting ground-improving chemistry to 3D print tunnel supports in-situ.

Data forensics

Returning to the application of blockchain technology to swarm robotics, it’s worth mentioning that having a digital ledger confers other rewards too. “During the autonomous operation of the robot swarm, a conflict-free logbook of the messages exchanged is automatically stored in the blockchain,” reports the IRIDIA team. “This logbook could be used for establishing accountability and for performing postliminary investigation and data forensics because the blockchain offers non-repudiation.”

Demonstrating how security frameworks keep robots accountable for their actions will help to build trust in the use of self-organizing swarms of devices. There’s also risk versus reward to consider. Having robot swarms carry out search and rescue missions, holding up damaged buildings to prevent further loss of life in environments that are too dangerous for humans to enter, is unlikely to meet with many objections.

The post Blockchain token economy secures swarm robots appeared first on TechHQ.

The prospects for grow-your-own computing are wild based on experiments using slime mold to solve logistics puzzles and building logic circuits out of mushrooms. But fungal processors are in their infancy, and computers are likely to remain works of plastic, metal, glass, copper, gold, and other common electronic materials for some time to come. And this brings us to the challenge of how to make eco-friendly laptops for business and other users.

Tough economic conditions may be cooling the PC market as enterprises lengthen their hardware refresh cycles. But sales of notebooks (a sub-category of ultra-portable laptops) alone still top 200 million annually, based on numbers from Statistica’s Federica Laricchia. And whenever new IT devices are purchased, more environmental costs get baked into the use of computing hardware.

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In fact, it’s often said that the best eco-friendly laptops for business are the ones that an organization already has. If there are opportunities to upgrade or refurbish hardware – rather than purchase new equipment – then IT teams should take them. And if companies don’t have the skills in-house there are vendors that can help firms to benefit from electronics that are too valuable to waste.

Laptop remanufacturer Circular Computing gives firms the opportunity to boost their sustainability credentials by purchasing used HP, Dell, and Lenovo laptops that have been made new. The 360-step remanufacturing process includes disassembly, component inspection, remediation, replacement, upgrades, reassembly, and functional testing – to list just a few highlights.

The greenest path to eco-friendly laptops

And if you were thinking that buying a used laptop meant risking disrupting business operations then Circular Computing’s low rate of remanufactured product returns provides evidence to the contrary. Organizations looking into options for eco-friendly laptops will soon see all signs pointing to re-use as the greenest path.

According to the list of case studies on Circular Computing’s website, clients include the WWF, EasyJet, and numerous UK councils. There are cost savings too. Construction firm Balfour Beatty saved over £1 million by purchasing 5,700 remanufactured HP laptops rather than buying new machines. Also, legacy laptops were collected, data erased, and resold to maximize savings.

A refurbished laptop from @fixedlocallyuk and refurbished #Cisco phone for new starter Nick, being installed and delivered to him ready for Monday! Welcome to the team Nick and thanks for sorting out a great eco-friendly laptop solution for him Steve @fixedlocallyuk! pic.twitter.com/xgj0tUkXRk

— O'Brien Media Ltd (@OBrienMediaUK) February 11, 2021

To understand why the numbers are so compelling for equipment re-use, it’s worth looking into the resources required to produce a laptop in the first place. And you might want to sit down for this. The data is staggering. Gathering the resources for just a single laptop requires displacing over a tonne of materials, highlighting the rare earth and precious metals needed for key electronics.

Water use is another issue. Taiwan’s TSMC – the world’s largest independent chip foundry – has a water consumption comparable to the population of a city. But there are caveats. Looking at TSMC’s corporate social sustainability reports highlights how water is reused throughout the process, and the chip giant has introduced additional water reclamation plants to get the most out of each drop.

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But those process efficiencies don’t get away from the fact that mining for the metals that go into those chips requires large amounts of water – for example, during extraction and processing. And there are other laptop elements to consider too. Computers can have many plastic components, such as the keyboard and casing. And plastic requires many times its own volume in water for production.

Also, we haven’t mentioned energy yet. Where does the power come from to manufacture the device? There’s also the use of chemicals, although improvements have been made. Back in 2011, Greenpeace highlighted significant reductions in the use of hazardous chemicals [PDF] compared with previous data collected in 2008 and 2009.

Another trend has been improvements in device efficiency. But this doesn’t get away from the fact that 85% of the environmental impact of computing hardware is tied to manufacturing and shipping. Improved energy efficiency doesn’t justify buying another laptop. And older, existing machines could be far more capable than you imagine.

Resist shiny new things, if you can

Running Windows 10 on a 15-year-old laptop is taking things to the extreme. And while Core 2 Duo-based machines are undoubtedly showing their age, even in the hands of expert refurbishers, early models featuring Intel’s i-series of processors still have potential as eco-friendly laptops for business.

For tasks that don’t require high-end graphics processing, companies could save a fortune (and save the planet from the energy and resources required to make a brand-new computer) by repurposing an older laptop. And if Windows is sluggish, there’s the option to run a lighter operating system such as Linux.

This author has been delighted by the performance of a 2016 ASUS ZenBook UX305 that zips along thanks to MX Linux. And if you do need a machine with high-performance graphics capabilities, upgradable second-hand desktop computers will be worth examining before pulling the trigger on a much more expensive laptop.

Extending the lifecycle

Repairability and upgradability are hugely important buying criteria for eco-friendly laptops given that the majority of the machine’s carbon footprint is associated with raw materials and manufacturing rather than use. Right-to-repair advocate iFixit publishes laptop repairability scores for all the devices it tears down for its component replacement guides.

One of the concerns Greenpeace had in its 2011 analysis was that there was very little use of recycled materials in devices. And over the past decade, things have improved with device sustainability becoming a selling point in sales literature. Irish tech firm iameco has shown how sustainable materials such as wood can be incorporated into computing designs to reduce the use of plastics.

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Computing giant Dell has a whole section of its website dedicated to being guided by circular principles. And if the vendor can make good on its ambitions to ‘harvest individual components for a second, third or even fourth life’ then it will go a long way to making laptops for business more eco-friendly.

And Dell is by no means alone in the push to reduce the environmental impact of laptops and other computing devices. Lenovo’s path to building a more sustainable future includes using post-consumer recycled materials in 100% of its PC products. There’s also product packaging to consider, and Lenovo writes that it has eliminated more than 3,100 tons of packaging by weight, since 2008.

The Global Electronics Council’s EPEAT ecolabel gives buyers of technology products and services the opportunity to examine sustainable electronics criteria such as materials selection and substance management. TCO certification is another indicator that manufacturers have had their sustainability credentials assessed. And registered users get access to those independently verified results, including % of recycled plastic and many other product details.

Progress too is happening on materials recovery when nothing more can be done with laptops and other electronic devices. On TechHQ we’ve shown how waste electronics is increasingly being viewed as a valuable resource rather than a burden. And it’s easy to see why when gold miners work hard to extract 20 g of the prized buttery yellow metal per tonne of milled ore, while an equivalent amount of electronic waste could yield more than 30 times more treasure for recyclers.

“Only 17.4 per cent of 2019’s e-waste was collected and recycled,” reports the United Nations in its triennial Global E-waste Monitor report, last published in 2020. “This means that gold, silver, copper, platinum and other high-value, recoverable materials conservatively valued at US $57 billion – a sum greater than the Gross Domestic Product of most countries – were mostly dumped or burned rather than being collected for treatment and reuse.”

Working or not, electronic devices are too valuable to waste. We know what has to be done; we’ve just got to do it. And then we’d have plenty of eco-friendly laptops plus the money to buy any spares to make them good as new.

The post Eco-friendly laptops – the environmental rewards of refurbished PCs appeared first on TechHQ.

When it comes to examining the benefits of technology on food production, strawberries turn out to provide an enlightening case study on how AI, machine vision, and advanced robotics are helping growers. Improving strawberry shelf-life by just one day is said to be worth millions of pounds, according to major food retailers. And tech firms are developing AI solutions to guide farmers in picking fruit at exactly the right time to boost profits and reduce food waste.

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“The fresh produce industry is struggling to accurately predict shelf life,” writes OneThird – a Dutch tech firm using spectral data and AI to quantify the ripeness of produce – on its website. “As a result, retailers are forced to throw fruits and vegetables worth hundreds of millions of dollars into landfills, causing them to lose 10-40% of their profits.” There are environmental costs too. The fresh water consumption and CO2 emissions involved in growing and transporting fruit and veg are an extravagant burden for the planet to bear when food is thrown away rather than eaten.

Supply chain optimization

OneThird, which offers scanning hardware and a companion smartphone app, has most recently teamed up with Dutch fruit and vegetable supplier Bakker Barendrecht and Albert Heijn – the largest supermarket operator in The Netherlands – to improve produce management. Optical scanners are being deployed along the supply chain – at grower, distributor, and retailer sites – to track the shelf-life of strawberries and other high-value produce.

A list of tech firms using AI to grow better strawberries –

• OneThird, The Netherlands
• Organifarms, Germany
• Octinion, Belgium
• Agrobot, Spain
• Dogtooth, UK
• V7, UK
• GoMicro, Australia
• Bowery, US
• Plainsight, US

Growers can use the app to examine fruit quality and quantify defects, and distributors can make quick-to-perform optical scans to determine which batches to send where, taking shelf-life into consideration. And at supermarkets, food shoppers can use scanners to determine when goods will be at peak ripeness.

Avocado buyers will be used to squeezing the green fruit (which is classified biologically as a single-seeded berry) to check its ripeness. But store-provided scanners can now be used instead by customers to give more accurate shelf-life readings and save the flesh under the avocado skin from being bruised and damaged. Shoppers simply place their avocado in an optical port for analysis and then view the ripeness score (critical, ready-to-eat, or firm) displayed on-screen.

No need to squeeze: AI ripeness checkers are helping shoppers to select the best produce without damaging goods. Image credit: OneThird.

Earlier this year, OneThird exhibited its technology at the CES show in Las Vegas, US, where the team revealed that it has units that work for a variety of exotic fruit such as mangos and bananas. And while OneThird is using optical readings and AI to quantify the shelf-life of strawberries and other produce, imaging can be used in other ways to optimize supply chain performance.

AI image recognition

Strawberries turn out to be a popular target for crop-picking robots. Farmers are increasingly short of fruit pickers, for a combination of reasons. And tech firms have stepped up to address a growing market for automated services.

“BERRY can be part of that solution by harvesting safely, reliably, and all day long,” said Mario Schäfer, co-founder of agritech firm Organifarms, which has developed a strawberry harvesting robot dubbed BERRY. “With its image recognition software, it’s able to determine which fruit is currently suited to fit the grower’s individual needs, depending on the season, the time of year, and customers.”

One of the most highly-prized varieties of strawberries is the so-called pineberry (or hula berry) – a type of white strawberry that apparently (this author has sadly yet to try one) has an enjoyable pineapple flavor. Often grown in Japan, white strawberries are described as being finicky to cultivate and require considerable experience to generate high yields, which brings us to a third pairing of strawberries and AI.

Using AI to grow white strawberries

Researchers in Taiwan have used AI to optimize the growing conditions for producing a successful crop of white strawberries. Algorithms determine how much water and light plants receive and set the temperature. In addition to managing growth, temperature settings – which influence humidity levels – prevent spores from sprouting and stop insect larvae from hatching, keeping strawberry-damaging fungi and pests under control.

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Growers of white strawberries can have loss rates of up to 70% of the crop. But the biological scientists and technology experts, using AI, have reduced that proportion down to just 20%, which shows how algorithms can benefit strawberry producers and agriculture more widely.

Agritech workers in China are so confident in the ability of AI to improve the growth of strawberries and other produce that competitions have been held where startups go head-to-head with experienced farmers. The smart agriculture events, held in Yunnan and sponsored by Chinese e-commerce giant Pinduoduo, have been valuable in highlighting the tasks that are best served by robots and AI.

Smart agriculture insights

The competitions also show that humans still have a role to play in food production, for now at least. Taking strawberries as an example, the startups observed that human workers were superior in defoliating plants and keeping crops healthy in the contests. Farmers were able to spot signs of disease much more quickly than AI systems, which helped strawberries to flourish.

But given the capacity for AI to learn, when fed with sufficient data, it’s not impossible to imagine that future algorithms will add to their produce management feature set and eventually come out on top. And when this happens, humans will be able to kick back and eat deliciously ripe strawberries (including ones that taste of pineapple), avocados, and other fruit thanks to AI, which doesn’t sound too bad an outcome.

The post Strawberries and AI: deep learning ripe to grow food industry profits appeared first on TechHQ.

Cloud computing has become so popular – enabling users to deploy IT resources affordably at the click of a button – that the idea of building out those services locally may feel like an odd choice. But there are still good reasons for bringing hardware closer to home, such as eliminating latency effects, reducing bandwidth constraints, and having full control over your data. And IT security teams will need to modify their defense strategies depending on whether information is held locally or hosted in the cloud, and that includes keeping on top of edge computing security issues.

The fog between the edge and the cloud

One of the biggest contributors to the rise of edge computing, where a significant portion of data processing is carried out locally rather than in the cloud, is the now mature internet-of-things (IoT) sector. It’s estimated that there are billions of IoT devices in use globally, and while – by definition – these nodes are networked over the web, they still carry onboard electronics to gather information locally and make decisions based on that data.

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Also, processing outcomes can be the result of local inputs and analytics performed in the cloud. And this fusion – sometimes dubbed fog computing – couples the speed of having devices locally on the edge of the network with the advantages of being able to lean on large amounts of processing power and data insights available centrally.

From an edge computing security perspective, decentralized fog architectures can have benefits that go beyond pure data processing and decision-making performance. Unlike a pure-play cloud application where everything is processed centrally with large amounts of web traffic, fog computing designs can be constructed to minimize exposure over the internet. More sensitive information can be retained on the local network, raising defenses against remote attackers.

Also, fog nodes can carry out pre-processing and buffering to make cloud execution of tasks more efficient. Rather than send everything out to the web, increasingly – for a variety of reasons, including speed and privacy – edge computing devices tap into the internet only when necessary.

Addressing physical security issues of edge computing

So far, so good, in terms of reducing the target size of valuable information that could be exposed over the web. But that data privacy gain has shifted security issues to the edge computing setup. Thankfully, it’s not straightforward for an attacker to walk into a cloud services provider’s facility and start tampering with devices. But edge computing architecture could be located on the roadside – in the case of smart cities and connected and autonomous vehicle applications – where physical security issues could be more pressing.

In many cases, putting edge computing equipment up high on the roof of a nearby building will address many of those physical security issues. And the equipment can benefit from the access controls provided by the facility’s front desk, camera surveillance, and security guard patrols. But what if there aren’t buildings nearby? Or if facilities owners are unwilling to share their space?

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To avoid security issues, operators of edge computing equipment need to think much more carefully about device basics such as operating systems and boot sequences. Bad actors – with the advantage of physical access – will look to exploit known hardware vulnerabilities and have more metaphorical levers to pull compared with targeting cloud infrastructure.

Edge computing operators can use device attestation mechanisms to warn of equipment tampering or to check that a device requesting to join the network is legitimate. Device attestation can check not just hardware integrity, but also perform software validation and confirm that everything has been configured as expected. And it’s become a popular security tool for edge computing operators.

In terms of blueprints that developers can follow to raise defenses around their edge computing infrastructure, the evolution of mobile phone security provides a useful playbook for IT teams. And, in fact, by using those chipsets and associated security solutions, edge hardware developers can readily leverage that experience to bolster the defenses of their designs.

Threat scenarios to consider include thieves walking off with the equipment. And for that reason, it’s important that all data is encrypted not just in transit, but also at rest – at a bare minimum. Considering other protective steps, many IoT-focused operating systems now give developers fine-grained control over what processes are allowed to run, locking systems down to a much higher degree compared with fully-featured installations.

Benefits of a growing edge computing ecosystem

Also, as edge computing infrastructure proliferates through the continued adoption of IoT, which includes a wide range of applications in agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare, smart cities, and many other use cases, so does the understanding on how to keep systems safe.

Looking ahead, computing infrastructure is becoming more mobile. The complexity and capability of smartphones increases with every model update, augmented by companion devices. There’s also robotics to consider. Cobots – collaborative robots – are anticipated to become much more popular outside of their typical industrial settings. And activity is ramping up on the use of automated drones capable of flying unaided – with air corridors being proposed to support supply chain innovation and overcome bottlenecks on the ground.

“It’s important that we acknowledge that the edge computing world is growing,” said Rob High – VP & CTO of Edge Computing at IBM. “It will have as much impact in the world of enterprise computing as mobile phones did in the world of consumer computing.”

The post Edge computing security issues: mitigating local IT threats appeared first on TechHQ.

If you had to pick a list of facilities management topics regularly discussed by staff, office temperature would rank high – possibly in the top spot. And one way of settling any arguments is to attach a thermometer to the wall. But thanks to industrial IoT sensors available as a smart building kit in a box, you don’t have to stop there.

Today, building operators – or anyone wanting to improve the management of their surroundings – can install a variety of industrial IoT sensors to detect not just temperature, but also humidity, signs of water, the proximity of objects or room occupants, and gather much more data besides. And don’t think that you have to arrange for complex cabling.

Smart building kit

Industrial IoT developer – Disruptive Technologies, headquartered in Lysaker, Norway – has shown that sensors can be the size of a small postage stamp, connected wirelessly, and simply stuck to the wall using a peel-off sticker on the back. And if this writer sounds confident of those facts, it’s because TechHQ has been putting the technology through its paces for the past six months as part of a long-term review of the firm’s ‘smart building kit in a box’ sensor starter pack.

Steaming hot: there are many applications for water monitoring IoT sensors. Image credit: JT, TechHQ.

In our unboxing article – which looked at the different types of industrial IoT sensors that were supplied in the pack and what was required to get the smart building kit up and running – we were impressed with how quickly users can begin logging data. All it takes to configure the setup, once the wireless hub has been plugged into a regular mains socket and powered up, is a few QR code scans to assign the sensors to a user account accessed over the internet through a web browser.

And the company-supplied kit has been happily gathering smart building data ever since. The number of possible applications is, in some respects, only limited by a user’s imagination. Even with just the five sensors supplied in the starter pack there are still a wide variety of applications that can be served. And you can get creative – for example, by using the water detector to sense when fresh coffee (based on steam coming out of the drinks machine) has been brewed.

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As mentioned in our interview with Øystein Moldsvor, Co-founder and VP of Engineering at Disruptive Technologies, the moisture-sensing capabilities of the firm’s industrial IoT sensors are being used to help protect historic buildings (such as the Royal Opera House in London, UK) by providing early leak detection.

The data dashboard, which users can log into via the web, allows operators to monitor the various information feeds remotely. And alerts can be configured to send maintenance personnel email notifications based on sensor triggers. The starter kit includes a touch sensor, which we programmed through the DT Studio online app – as part of our testing – to send an email when someone pushed it. And the system worked first time.

TechHQ test results: email alerts can be configured based on smart IoT sensor triggers.

Other users have been impressed too. Norwegian software developer Datec has partnered with Disruptive Technologies to integrate the industrial IoT sensors into a facilities application dubbed CleanPilot. “We use the sensors to automatically adjust the active cleaning schedule – presented to the cleaner through the iOS CleanPilot GO app – by adding, postponing, or cancelling cleaning tasks according to the actual use of the premises,” Geir Arne Hansen, Chief Administrative Officer at Datec, told TechHQ.

Technical partnership

Datec believes that need-based cleaning – enabled through easy-to-install smart building kit and companion planning, operation, and optimization software – can increase cleaning efficiency by 30%. Operatives can view the paperless system using iPads. And a web portal gives managers real-time data on cleaning activities throughout the facility.

In the Datec solution, wireless proximity sensors provided by Disruptive Technologies are used to measure the number of people passing through different parts of the building. And this information is used to generate cleaning plans based on actual needs. For example, teams can focus on areas that have been used that day rather than working to a sub-optimal strategy of spreading cleaning time equally across the whole facility.

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Customers include hospitals and government agencies, and it’s another example of how industrial IoT sensors are helping to streamline facilities management and buildings operations. As well as the motion sensors featured in the Datec CleanPilot integration, other available wirelessly connected peripherals include desk occupancy sensors.

These unobtrusive electronic devices make it easy to understand office utilization in real-time – for example, to help with space planning for hybrid working patterns. And, like all of the sensors, these small-sized units have an incredibly long battery life (8 years in the case of the desk occupancy design) thanks to clever, energy-efficient wireless transmission protocols.

Also part of the product line-up are wireless carbon dioxide (CO2) sensors – with a battery life of 10 years – that can, together with temperature, humidity, and other measurement feeds, keep track of environmental factors that impact workers’ health and productivity.

Having a plug-and-play eco-system that lets anyone – not just developers – explore the benefits of smart buildings is a game-changer. And as more users share their IoT sensing stories, others will undoubtedly be tempted to give the technology a go. We’ve had great fun putting the sensor starter kit to the test, and it’s an ideal launch pad for smart building ideas.

The post Industrial IoT sensors: smart building kit in a box appeared first on TechHQ.

Powering up portable consumer gadgets is relatively straightforward. Hardware is designed around standard battery sizes that are readily available to customers. Alternatively, some devices may require lithium-ion batteries, which are built into products and recharged as needed through a power port and plug-in transformer. But things get more complicated when it comes to developing batteries for medical devices.

Market size for medical device batteries

Strategic consultancy firm Lucintel estimates that the global medical battery market is expected to reach an estimated US $2.6 billion by 2028. And its analysts break down the market by application into patient monitoring devices, general medical devices, cardiovascular devices, orthopedic devices, home healthcare, and other uses.

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High on the list of challenging applications are monitoring and therapeutic uses where powered medical devices need to go inside the human body. And it’s reassuring to know that implantable batteries go through rigorous safety testing, as Canadian medical device design service provider Starfish Medical points out.

But the dream, particularly for one-off investigative uses or to enhance medical delivery, would be to have non-toxic energy sources that could be harmlessly processed by the body.

Edible electronics and making batteries out of food

“Edible electronic devices will have major implications for gastrointestinal tract monitoring, therapeutics, as well as rapid food quality monitoring,” write researchers in Italy, who recently presented a design for an edible rechargeable battery in the May 2023 issue of Advanced Materials (open access article).

The field of edible electronics has seen numerous proposals for sensors and circuits, but one of the sticking points –up until now – has been how to power those designs. Taking inspiration from nature and how biochemical machines operate, the group of physicists, engineers, and materials experts has come up with a battery design that reads like a menu.

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The power source uses riboflavin (vitamin B2 – present in almonds, avocados, mushrooms, and many other foods) as the anode and quercetin (a compound present in capers, among other vegetables) as the cathode. And the design includes a water-based electrolyte as well as activated charcoal to boost electrical conductivity. Separating the two sides of the battery is a piece of nori seaweed – which will be familiar to fans of sushi – and prevents the electrical energy source from short-circuiting.

Sustainable battery technology

Finally, the whole package is encapsulated in beeswax. And the cell operates at 0.65 V – a value that the developers believe shouldn’t cause any problems inside the body when the edible battery is ingested. Depending on the current draw, the team’s device can operate anywhere from a few minutes to over an hour. And the group tested its rechargeable concept by powering up a commercial Broadcom LED.

Discussing what they believe will be some of the key medical device applications for their edible battery, the researchers highlight the essential role that the gastrointestinal tract plays in human wellbeing. Currently, patients have to endure either gastroscopy or colonoscopy procedures – both of which can be uncomfortable – to identify problems inside the gut.

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Progress is being made in swallowable pills containing electronics that pass through the body. But the use of those types of medical devices, which are based on conventional batteries and sensor components, needs to be supervised in case products get stuck and need to be retrieved by doctors.

Fully edible electronics (featuring batteries made out of foodstuffs and other digestible materials), on the other hand, could – in principle – be administered by the patient themselves. And the procedure wouldn’t necessarily have to take place in a hospital setting, which could dramatically lower the cost, reducing medical bills for people needing gastro health monitoring.

Long-term potential of edible batteries beyond medical devices

There’s another angle to edible batteries too. Made out of a majority of foodstuffs and biodegradable materials, the power sources score highly in terms of their sustainability. Readers might recall using science kits that demonstrated how sticking electrodes into citrus fruit could power LCD clocks and other low-energy circuits.

Edible battery technology, with ingredients in the background. Image credit: IIT-Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia

And although it’s still early days for edible electronics, power sources could open up avenues for sustainable battery technology. “This edible battery is also very interesting for the energy storage community,” said Ivan Ilic, a coauthor of the study and member of the Printed and Molecular Electronics Group at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genova. “We believe they will inspire other scientists to build safer batteries for a truly sustainable future.”

Having non-toxic devices presents other commercial opportunities as well. Toys for young children could be made safer by incorporating edible batteries in case any of the products were accidentally swallowed or chewed on. And there are prospects for using edible batteries not just for medical devices, but also for food monitoring applications.

The materials safety advantages of edible batteries could be beneficial across a wide range of use cases. And the field of edible electronics is one to keep an eye on with intriguing developments such as organic transistors that feature gates enabled using honey. A sweet idea, indeed.

The post Engineers put edible batteries on the tech menu appeared first on TechHQ.

In challenging economic times, the pressure to lower costs quickly can lead to some poor decisions on the part of operational planners within their respective industries. It’s easy to get lost in the details of a particular business function when you’re trying to wring the absolute best out of an area of operations.

While those kinds of in-depth exercises can yield good results, they can fall short in producing the types of savings that are — in the current climate — the difference between the business being on the verge of calamity and one that’s on solid footing for 2023 and beyond. However, the workload and limited resources placed on decision-makers in engineering and manufacturing companies means that a strategic, objective view of operations is borderline impossible to achieve. Yet, it’s that view that’s necessary to make meaningful changes across a company.

A Short Lesson

When a company starts out, its organic growth is dictated by a lot of decisions based on the needs of the moment. From suppliers to OEM agreements made, down to the production practices established, these choices may have been made as and when capabilities and capacity grew. Over time, needs change as a company grows, but the hinderances of decisions made at a different time can persist.

Of course, there’s also personnel to consider. Each company has its stalwarts, the ones who have been with the business since the early days: people with expertise and experience ingrained into their work and contributions. They can think and plan more strategically, combining their knowledge and skills to the benefit of the business. An organisation looking to maximise these individuals’ potential needs to ask themselves how it can refocus these top performers into where they will bring even greater value to the enterprise.

The R-Word

A reactive MRO (maintenance, repair, and operations) approach ensures that your best people assets are submerged in operational detail. But in a technologically advanced age, remediation of all types, from shutdown maintenance to non-routine repairs, can be transformed from reactive to proactive, predictive sets of processes. By leveraging expertise and technologically driven support from choice partners, industrial outfits can get off the back foot at any stage in their growth cycles.

Source: Rubix

Of course, there’s no single silver bullet that a company can use to cure its problems and suddenly transform repair and overhaul systems so it quickly becomes predictable and preemptive. It takes a partner with access to a raft of skills, platforms, expertise and with significant consultative weight to make the big differences in how a business might run in the future.

The Three P’s

MRO, or overhaul, depending on your viewpoint, need to exhibit the three P’s of being planned, predictive and preventative. That makes operations and your company’s in-house experts proactive and able to transition to their more naturally suited strategic roles.

The Rubix Group is Europe’s biggest company entirely focused on businesses like yours. Instead of being an add-on to one of the household name outsourcing or accountancy firms, Rubix has always been dedicated to industry. Its people are as well-versed in the daily operations of manufacturing and engineering as your own. Rubix’s Insite programme, for example, places people on your premises full-time, advising on processes, designing, and building new automations, systems and facilities that will improve your overall operations out of all recognition.

Understandably, not every company will want to jump feet first into any new partnership. Consequently, Rubix’s capabilities can be leveraged as and how required individually on a case-by-case basis. For instance, Rubix helps organisations find viable and cost-effective alternatives to expensive, legacy OEM supply chains, helping the entire facility consolidate its spare parts and necessary equipment. With its multi-billion Euro turnover, Rubix helps its clients access better pricing and terms from a variety of options thanks to its worldwide range.

Reactive procurement policies can be turned around into proactive e-procurement that’s instigated anywhere, from the shop floor on a tablet to a back-office workstation. Then, stores management procedures and technologies can be overhauled by deep data analysis that helps identify stocked spares gathering dust and those parts that need to be constantly at hand. It’s all in the data, it just needs objectivity and the means to surface insights.

Integration is Key

The best deployments of people and systems are always devised with existing processes and preferences in mind. In technology terms, the Rubix solutions will sit alongside your existing ERP or industrial control systems, communicating via safe integrations to leverage better value from an existing technology stack.

Likewise, Rubix’s experts integrate with your best people, designing new automations and systems to free up your key decision-makers from fighting fires. Now, your best people can be put to their best uses.

The Rubix Group’s capabilities are there for your use, according to your needs, whether it’s a predictive maintenance schedule or a new production line or plant.

To learn more about how this European specialist is helping companies like yours weather the storm of economic turmoil, check back here in a few weeks for a look at some relevant case studies. Or, if what you’ve read so far is of interest, get in touch in the first instance with specialists who can speak your language.

The post On Your Side in Tough Times: Rubix Group’s Solutions appeared first on TechHQ.