It is the year 2030. The explosion of internet of things devices has really taken hold impacting both the personal and commercial property markets.

At the end of 2019 there were an estimated seven to eight billion active IoT devices, a figure which now stands at 40bn. Indeed it is estimated that the average UK household now has well over 100 devices with the rise in the likes of smart meters, security devices and leak detection making household properties much better risks. Indeed escape of water, once a major issue for claims managers, has seen substantially reduced.

In the corporate and commercial space, sensors are now omnipresent across many sectors too, allowing risk managers and their insurers to foretell many issues before they become a potential loss.

The rise in sensors and intelligent risk management using digital technology/mapping/big data means that property claims numbers have fallen. But they still happen, and when they do insurers have almost instant notification of a loss and an idea of the likely exposure by using photographic recognition/AI tools to assess the damage.

This is particularly helpful as Europe continues to see more extreme fluctuations in its weather than it did in the latter half of the twentieth century.

When losses do happen, loss adjusters still continue to play a role with major events, although the use of remote desk top assessments and drones is now more common than having someone knock on a door. And if someone does knock on the door, they are just as likely to be a gig economy worker as a full time employee.

Although still not as widespread as some predicted parametric insurance for property events as flood, storm and [in other countries] earthquake damage are finding their feet with take up around 5% in both the personal lines and commercial markets.

The continued rise of Generation Rent which was exacerbated by the economic down turn post Covid-19 - has seen an explosion in these types of products; whilst the amount of hours spent homeworking has seen a rise in hybrid commercial/personal products as more people set up office at home.

Based on this hypothesis, Post content director Jonathan Swift sat down with Benjamin Blain, head of property claims; and Jes Westerman, head of strategic projectsat Verisk, to discuss how the insurance industry might make use of Io sensors and the automation of the acquisition of data to better manage risks and handle claims over the next decade.

The trio also discuss the greater use of peril models and granular information to manage weather events and underwrite commercial and domestic properties to arrive at future market as outlined above.

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Future Focus 2030: The future of property podcast - how IoT sensors, automation and granular data will shape the next decade - Post Online

Advances in vision systems offer packagers one of the biggest opportunities for improving productivity. Many packaging applications make use of 2D machine vision, where grayscale or color imaging creates a two-dimensional map that allows for easy detection of anomalies or variations in part contrast. As this type of vision increasingly becomes cheaper and faster, its use in packaging continues to grow, particularly in functions associated with inspection, barcode reading, surface marking detection, and basic positional verification.

Now, with innovations in 3D vision, broader applications are becoming possible. Whereas with 2D applications, where objects being scanned must be on a flat surface and of a consistent size and shape, 3D vision gives insight into product depth and height and can therefore be used for random situations, where items are located haphazardly or stacked in a bin with varying orientation.

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Pick-and-Place Robots, Flow Wrapper, Fuel High-Volume Bakery

One example that capitalizes on both 2D and 3D vision is Syntegons horizontal flow-wrapper, the Pack 102, with three Fanuc robots, designed for small- to medium-sized bakeries and other food companies. At PACK EXPO Las Vegas in fall 2019, the system was demonstrated loading meal kits. Explains Syntegon, each robotic platform detects and prioritizes six independent production flows simultaneously and in sequence, operating from one HMI on the flow wrapper.

Using 2D vision and dual conveyor tracking, the first robot, a Fanuc SR-6iA four-axis SCARA robot, detects and prioritizes products from two low-friction flat-belt conveyors. The second robot, a Fanuc M-1iA delta robot, precisely detects product location from two side-by-side indexing conveyors using 2D vision. The final robot, the LR Mate 200iD six-axis articulating robot, picks product from two different bulk bins using 3D vision and places the assortment into the product infeed of the Pack 102.

Theegarten-Pactecs Vision Picker robot system uses camera recognition to feed the companys wrapping machines with delicate chocolate figures.Another newly developed system allowing for productivity increases through vision is Theegarten-Pactecs Vision Picker, a robot system with camera recognition designed to feed its wrapping machines with delicate chocolate figures. According to the company, in the past, its machines had to work with chocolate molds holding a fixed number of products. These were placed by a robot in the feed chain of the packaging machine by means of a multiple tool.

The Vision Picker, it says, eliminates complex handling of the molds. Using an integrated image processing system, individual products are now detected within the disordered product flow. Each product is individually sucked in by the robot and placed in the correct position in the infeed chain of the packaging machine. Says Theegarten-Pactec, with the Vision Picker, different product formats can be packed even more flexibly and therefore more quickly and cost effectively.

Coupled with its CWM2 wrapper, the robot can feed product at 400/min; configured with its high-performance machines, the robot can operate at a rate of more than 1,000 products/min.

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Robotics Special Report: Vision for the Future - Automation World

As a firm believer of an enterprise's inner strength when confronted with external factors like supply chain disruptions and tariffs due to geopolitical tensions, I have been following Rockwell's (NYSE:ROK) cost savings plans right from the start of the pandemic.

In this connection, my investment theses on BASF (OTCQX:BASFY) and Corteva (NYSE:CTVA) were aimed at exploring the inner strength as a counterbalance to external uncertainty.

Rockwell, as a leading provider of industrial automation solutions used by companies in the automobile, Oil & Gas as well as healthcare sectors, has gone a step further by rapidly carrying out a reorganization of its organization structure to be more aligned with customer needs.

The stock price, on the other hand, has lagged significantly behind peer ABB (NYSE:ABB) since mid-April of this year by more than 25% while trending slightly higher than the Vanguard Industrials ETF (NYSEARCA:VIS).

Figure 1: Comparing Rockwell's stock price with peer ABB and Vanguard Industrials.

Data by YCharts

Financial efficiency, strength in key automation areas and reorganization synergies now position the company to deliver on earnings guidance for FY-2020.

Rockwell's Q3-2020 earnings have been impacted by COVID, but on the other hand, the company managed to beat consensus by $0.10.

Looking at the wider perspective, the automation company has maintained its earnings beat run during the last four quarters except for Q1-2020 when there was a draw.

Figure 2: EPS figures

Source: Seeking Alpha

Now, the adjusted EPS of $1.27 for Q3-2020 did beat consensus, but is down 47% compared to the third quarter of fiscal 2019. This is in sharp contrast with the EPS for Q2-2020 which not only beat expectations but was also up 19% compared to the second quarter of fiscal year 2019. Therefore, this must have played into the morale of investors as they dumped the stock, resulting in a 3% downside following earnings results on July 28.

Looking into the rear-view mirror, the executives had already warned that earnings for Q3-2020 would be a "little over $1" and that it would be the worst quarter with organic sales projected to decline by around 20%. The dire projections have been confirmed with the exception of sales which have fared better (minus 17.6% instead of minus 20% as projected). I will come back to this point later, but right now, I look into the finances.

First, the primary reason for upbeat earnings in Q2-2020 was due to cost savings as a result of lower incentive compensation expenses. Also, some COVID-19 windfall gains resulting in higher sales for the Architecture & Software segment and Control Products & Solutions in the second quarter are absent in Q3-2020.

For this quarter, the company has benefited from some percentages of growth from acquisitions.

Figure 3: Q3-2020 segment results

Source: Seeking Alpha

However, there have been lower sales in the company's Solutions and Services business with the book-to-bill deteriorating to 1.05 due to projects being delayed. Interestingly, from a longer-term perspective, there have been no cancellations, and this is a good sign for the fourth quarter. Even to a lesser degree, the company continues to suffer from supply chain inefficiencies which has led to higher freight expenses.

Rockwell is also exposed to the whims of the auto industry where the road to recovery is viewed as tough. Also, little improvement was seen in the process markets (optimization of control processes by industrials) which were down 25%. Oil & Gas sales were also weaker.

Figure 4: COVID windfall gains

Source: Image built from Q2-2020 transcripts data

The company ended the quarter with cash equivalents of $910 million, up from $640 million in the last quarter. Debt totaled $2.4 billion, $300 million up from the last quarter. As per the SEC filings, in April 2020, Rockwell entered into a $400 million senior unsecured 364-day term loan credit agreement. As a result, leverage was 1.8x at June 30, 2020, up from 1.3x at March 31, 2020.

Next maturity for long-term debt of $2 billion is in 2025. Additionally, there is a $1.25 billion credit facility. Free cash flow was $310 million, down from the $323 million in Q3-2019. Cash flow from operations was $346 million compared to $341 million in Q2-2020 was recorded. This is sufficient liquidity for a business with a 17.6% decrease in sales and suggests further flexibility to cut down on capital expenditures for aligning with lower revenue in the short term.

However, this is not enough for making a wise investment decision and more solid arguments are necessary in terms of strengths and challenges.

Products constitute two-thirds of Rockwell's business with the remaining third comprising software and services. Moreover, the company has an extensive supply chain covering China, which means that it had to maintain relatively higher inventory levels of China-sourced components to cater for contingencies.

Now the fact that the gross margins are on the higher side at 40% compared to peer ABB's 32% (figure 7) means superior production efficiency.

Figure 5: Quarterly income statement with revenues and expenses in millions of USD.

Source: Seeking Alpha

Exploring this further, the fact that Rockwell's employees could not have access to sites for commissioning of projects due to COVID stay-at-home orders has contributed to revenue shortfalls especially in the process markets where more hands-on interaction is required. Therefore, the company has not benefited fully from the work-from-home momentum as only the non-manufacturing workforce has been working from home.

However, Rockwell has used technology in innovative ways with one example being the increasing leverage on augmented reality for testing, training and customer support.

Looking forward, there should be further cost efficiencies especially those enabled by acceleration in rendering the supply chain more flexible and enhancing the level of factory automation.

Interestingly, one of the ways in which a higher degree of automation can be achieved is through the use of IT tools. In this context, Rockwell has accelerated the usage of Microsoft's (MSFT) Dataflex Pro to increase the degree of automation of mundane and time-consuming business processes. By using this tool, its engineers are engaged in streamlining workflows, thereby gaining on productivity.

According to Chris Wagner, analytics architect at Rockwell Automation:

As part of Rockwell's digital transformation, we are focused on transforming everyone across the organization into engineers who can leverage technology to automate and simplify their jobs. We look at the Power Platform as a highway to turn all 23,000 employees into engineers. Microsoft Dataflex Pro is the data backbone that enables people to store their data in a scalable and secure environment dynamically."

This transformation can now be viewed concretely through the three newly-setup operating segments with one of the corporate aims being to add software talent and accelerate profitability.

Figure 6: Rockwell's new structure

Source: Seeking Alpha

Still, in an economic scenario which is beyond the grasp of many, it is important to identify other challenges with the most important one being currency headwinds stemming from Rockwell's global footprint.

The company faced larger-than-expected headwinds due to a stronger U.S. dollar which impacted sales by 1.9% which is considerable.

Figure 6: US dollar Index

Source: Investing.com

Now, with the US dollar index currently in the mid-90s, far from its value of above 100 during most of the second and third quarters, there could be positives in the next quarter.

Since the guidance for FY2020 excludes the impact of currency, there is possibility for some positive surprises in terms of earnings for the last quarter. This is supported by some other positives.

First, there is the fact the company expects the full cost reduction measures for this year amounting to $150 million only starting to make a real difference in terms of earnings as from Q4-2020. Also, Rockwell is in the process of reducing its global real estate footprint which should reduce monthly rental charges.

Second, there have been exceptional costs related to supply chain inefficiencies related to the pandemic and acquisitions charges. Absence of exceptional costs and cutting down on expenses should result in sequential improvement in the fourth quarter.

In this respect, the full-year outlook of $7.40-7.60 (midpoint of $7.50) provided this month is higher than the initial value of $6.90-7.70 (midpoint of $7.30) provided back in April.

I now work out a valuation aware that cost savings alone are not going to generate earnings.

When compared to ABB, the trailing price-to-earnings (GAAP) and price-to-sales ratios provide a mixed picture of the valuations. However, the margins, return on total capital and employee productivity provide a clearer picture of Rockwell's much better operational efficiency.

Figure 7: Comparing Rockwell and ABB

Source: Seeking Alpha

Therefore, compared to ABB, Rockwell should be more richly valued, but this is not the case when considering the price evolution in the last three months (figure 1). Moreover, taking into consideration that the stock price has already known better growth than the industrial average and persistence of some confinement measures, my target price would be for a moderate $230 in the medium term. This is above analysts' target of $207.

I further support my target by providing some key points about Rockwell.

Figure 8: Rockwell's positions of strength which are likely to be transformed into sales opportunities

Source: Table built from transcripts data

Therefore, this is a company which can play a significant role in automation of industry processes, thereby reducing the labor component as a factor of production. There have been strategic wins spanning several industries including Life Sciences, Food & Beverage, and Oil & Gas. These wins are considered as strategic as the company was not the incumbent supplier.

One of the more notable wins was for Brazil's largest exporter of instant coffee. Furthermore, there have been strong sales in the European, Middle East and African (EMEA) regions derived from PPE (medical protection equipment) manufacturers. There has also been significant demand for Rockwell's Information Solutions and Connected Services business from the EMEA region.

Orders are also coming from machinery builders in Europe and life sciences companies in the U.S. Furthermore, Rockwell's IoT (Internet of Things) offering can be used to increase efficiency of pumping activities as well as help in the maintenance of pipes and wells in the Oil & Gas industry. This is important for bringing down the break-even oil price. Also, automation features reduce the need for touching surfaces and help in saving lives.

Finally, dollar weakness if sustained could be highly beneficial to the company's earnings taking into consideration that there was $0.15 to $0.10 negative currency impact in the second and third quarters respectively.

Rockwell can be considered as an essential business as it supports critical infrastructures required to produce goods at scale.

Its advanced automation capabilities is proving essential in supporting healthcare companies like Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) in expanding North American manufacturing footprints through flexible, collaborative and robotized chains of production. Shareholders should be comfortable owning Rockwell's shares. The leverage should revert back to the 1.3x level in Q4-2020.

It pays a healthy dividend yield of 1.8%. The current payout ratio is 54% with a cash payout ratio of 40%. For potential investors looking for an entry point, current volatility provides an opportunity to get on board with a nice margin of safety. There could be a drop to the $215 level in the aftermath of the third quarter earnings and some political tussle over the coronavirus stimulus package.

This is a stock to have on the watch-list as it is on a path to convert COVID constraints into opportunities. Rockwell is a buy with a possibility of the $215 level being reached.

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, but may initiate a long position in ROK over the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Additional disclosure: I am long BASF. This is an investment thesis and is intended for informational purposes. Investors are kindly requested to do additional research before investing.

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Rockwell Automation: Helping To Bring Efficient Manufacturing Back In The U.S. - Seeking Alpha

Enforcing Face Masks Without Confrontation Or Bias

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented an unprecedented challenge to businesses. From retail stores to office buildings to warehouses and construction sites, a big question looms: how can landlords, executives, and employers ensure their facilities dont contribute to the spread of the virus?A low-tech solution - the face mask - has become a leading preventative measure.But, a high-tech solution is necessary to ensure that everyone is wearing them. Cameras powered by artificial intelligence can now identify whether or not people entering a facility are wearing facemasks and help enforce adherence to mask mandates. This technology is proving to be a cost effective solution that reduces risks of confrontations over masks policies and gives managers the data they need to document regulatory compliance and reduce liability.Layers of securityThey can also be integrated into access control systems or woven into other preventative measures that create overlapping layers of security. These cameras are an ideal solution for low-traffic, remote sites, or areas that are only accessible to employees that need to monitor mask compliance but at which hiring a manned guard is just too expensive.Cameras with mask detection capabilities are especially useful when the technology piggybacks on existing autonomous devices, such as mobile security drones.The premise is simple. When a person without a mask is detected by the autonomous robotic security device, the system can generate, depending on customer preferences, audible and visible alerts to remind people to mask up. It also feeds alerts to a cloud-based data storage system so that security executives can analyze data for trends or quickly locate video of important incidents.Why masks?One study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A highlights the benefits of mask usage. If just 50 percent of people use masks, the rate of COVID-19 transmission will slowly decline. If 80 percent of people use them, the rate will plummet.Bu,t people dont love wearing them. Theyre hot. They make eyeglasses foggy. Its hard to make yourself heard when talking to others. Were all familiar with industries that wear masks of some type or other, on a regular basis - health care, construction, and heavy industry to name a few. But for the general public, wearing a mask for long periods of time is not a regular habit.For the general public, wearing a mask for long periods of time is not a regular habitWe also know that other measures site managers have used to limit the spread of coronavirus are ineffective. For example, at least three meatpacking plants rank among the top 50 locations for coronavirus clusters. One factor driving that spread: many employees, to avoid missing a days pay, masked their mild fevers with ibuprofen to fool the infrared temperature scanners that employers used to protect against the outbreak.The paradox of masks, however, isnt that they protect the wearer from infection. Its the other way around: when an infected person wearing a mask sneezes, coughs, or breathes, they dont spread the virus as far, and thus masks slow the spread of the virus from infected people, including those that are not showing symptoms.Prove itOne of the very reasons why county and state governments have instituted mask orders is simple: its an easily verifiable sign that an organization is taking steps to limit the spread of coronavirus.Mask detection cameras, coupled with autonomous security systems, can provide the documentation employers need to ensure mask compliance.Imagine, for example, a warehouse full of manual laborers. The county orders everyone to wear a mask any time they leave home. A disgruntled employee, recently terminated, files an anonymous complaint to local health officials stating that the warehouse isnt enforcing mask compliance - or worse, preventing employees from wearing masks to prevent theft. The county sends an inspector.Mask detection cameras provide site managers with the documentation they need to disprove these allegations. The autonomous systems developed by RAD will feed video footage into a cloud database, documenting not only the instances of non-compliance, but also the instances of compliance - with the mask clearly highlighted. Any inspector that arrives on a job site can see hours and hours of footage, without having to pour through hours of video.Reducing confrontationWeve all seen the videos in which angry shoppers confront retail clerks and security guards over mask usage. In some cases, these confrontations have turned violent, resulting in injury or death.For every one of these videos, there may well be hundreds of others.While most of the videos featuring mask confrontations focus on retail settings, manned guards also face challenges in enforcement. Confrontations over mask usage have the potential to drive up workmans compensation claims higher when guards are injured.Because autonomous security units generate alerts automatically, the chance of confrontation is minimised.Its easy to imagine a couple of scenarios in which autonomous units can be beneficial. In health care settings, where emotions run high, autonomous devices can serve as a force multiplier for patrolling guards in parking areas. For example, roving units can identify people that are not wearing masks, and remind them to do so before they enter the building. These can also be placed in entryways that generate alerts as visitors approach doors.In many buildings, mask detection systems can be integrated into access control systemsAutonomous security units can be deployed for a fraction of the cost of manned security. In healthcare, autonomous units can be used to re-allocate security spending, placing less emphasis on low intensity guards whose primary function is to observe and report - particularly those that patrol parking garages - and more emphasis on trained professionals capable of defusing confrontations inside the hospital. In other words, autonomous units outside allow facilities to hire better quality inside, where confrontations are most likely to take place.In many buildings, mask detection systems can be integrated into access control systems, which might be especially useful at entrances that are not manned by security, but accessible via key card.Changing behaviorsThere was a time when smoking in public was not seen as particularly anti-social. Almost everyone will stop at a stop sign, even when we can see for miles in every direction, and we know that the risk of an accident is zero.We do these things because we have been trained to. These behaviors make us safer, but we didnt adopt them overnight. Many of us forget, but the fight over banning smoking in bars and restaurants was filled with confrontation.So, too, will it be with mask compliance. But time is short, and we all need to do everything we can to encourage good behavior. Mask detection technology can do that, and these solutions are very cost effective. In some cases, the cost may be just 5 percent of using a manned guard.Theyre effective too. Autonomous systems enforce mask policies consistently and drive accountability. That can make us all safer.

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Red Lion's Advanced Networking And Automation In One Operating System | Security News - SecurityInformed

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. & PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--DISH (NASDAQ:DISH) today announced that it has chosen VMware (NYSE:VMW) for the cloud platform to deploy the nations first 5G, cloud-native Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN). The platform will help bring to life the first network in the U.S. to combine the efficiency of the distributed telco cloud, public cloud and private cloud environments while delivering consistent, low-latency edge computing. In addition to DISHs selection of the VMware Telco Cloud platform, the company also selected cloud infrastructure services to support the IT needs of the broader DISH enterprise.

The VMware Telco Cloud will enable DISH to utilize software from the nations industry-leading vendors to optimize and accelerate its 5G network deployment. Additionally, it will provide DISH with enhanced automation, resiliency, security and flexibility. The VMware Telco Cloud provides an abstraction layer across multiple network domains and enables DISH to leverage hyper-scale public cloud capacity where needed, while maintaining core control points. The software-defined nature of the VMware Telco Cloud is part of the platform to support the DISH ecosystem of partners to accelerate 5G leadership in the U.S.

VMware software will serve as a powerful foundation for our cloud-native, software-defined 5G network, said Marc Rouanne, executive vice president and chief network officer, DISH. By bringing together innovations such as the distributed cloud, edge computing and network slicing, this software will help us provide our customers with customizable, secure solutions that will be more cost-effective than legacy, vertically-integrated, hardware-reliant alternatives.

Were excited to work with DISH to architect and build a state-of-the-art, nationwide cloud-first 5G mobile network platform, said Shekar Ayyar, executive vice president and general manager, Telco and Edge Cloud Business Unit, VMware. This software-led approach will enable DISH to innovate and deliver new services to all types of customers enterprise, small business, and consumer across the U.S.

DISH and VMware have tested and onboarded dozens of cloud-native 5G network functions from multiple software vendors on top of the VMware Telco Cloud. Running Kubernetes and following cloud-native design principles, it will enable DISH to dynamically move and scale workloads within the cloud, based on consumer demand.

DISHs network deployment using the VMware Telco Cloud illustrates the use of U.S.-based foundational technology for realizing a next generation greenfield 5G network. This network will result in significant benefits for both consumers and enterprises by delivering a combination of secure, high-capacity and low-latency services.

About DISH

DISH Network Corporation is a connectivity company. Since 1980, it has served as a disruptive force, driving innovation and value on behalf of consumers. Through its subsidiaries, the company provides television entertainment and award-winning technology to millions of customers with its satellite DISH TV and streaming SLING TV services. In 2020, the company became a nationwide U.S. wireless carrier through the acquisition of Boost Mobile. DISH continues to innovate in wireless, building the nation's first virtualized, standalone 5G broadband network. DISH Network Corporation (NASDAQ: DISH) is a Fortune 250 company.

For company information, visit about.dish.com.

About VMware

VMware software powers the worlds complex digital infrastructure. The companys cloud, app modernization, networking, security, and digital workspace offerings help customers deliver any application on any cloud across any device. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, VMware is committed to being a force for good, from its breakthrough technology innovations to its global impact. For more information, please visit https://www.vmware.com/company.html.

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DISH Selects VMware to Help Build the Most Advanced, Automated, End-to-End 5G Network in the U.S. - Business Wire

This is a contributed op-ed written by Ryan Yost, VP and general manager for the printer solutions division at Avery Dennison Corporation. Opinions are the author's own.

The days of a primarily B2B supply chain may be ending. The shift to consumer-delivery models during the COVID-19 pandemic has upended supply chain operations, and in the grocery retail sector alone online sales increased 100% in March, according to Adobe Analytics.

Significant investment in technology and automation will be necessary to meet the delivery movement. With 40% of essential items now being bought online, supply chains need to evolve operations to accommodate much higher volumes in direct-to-consumer shipping, according to the Food Industry Associations annual U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends study.

In terms of fulfillment, 18% of online grocery shoppers (including 8% doing so for the first time during the pandemic) are opting for same- or next-day delivery, according to the study, compared to 16% (including 9% of first-timers) for curbside pickup and 14% (including 7% of first-timers) for in-store pickup. Seventeen percent choose home delivery with standard shipping, and 8% subscribe for ongoing deliveries.

There are several pain points that need to be addressed along the supply chain. In a study,FMI found that 4% of respondents reported problems with online grocery shopping, namely in terms of inventory and fulfillment. Out-of-stocks issues cited by customers include paper products (43%) and preferred foods (43%). Also, 40% encountered delays after ordering goods or saw no acceptable times for home delivery (20%) or pickup (19%).

How fulfillment executives manage ongoing disruption will be a matter of the "survival of the fittest." However, new fitness metrics will focus on how well supply chains incorporate agility into lean logistics. As workforces shrink to meet cost-cutting needs, smaller staffs will be stretched by increasing consumer-delivery demands. The only means to meet these ends is technology that automates processes.

"As workforces shrink to meet cost-cutting needs, smaller staffs will be stretched by increasing consumer-delivery demands. The only means to meet these ends is technology that automates processes."

Agility in supply chain operations will be the new standard to meet the evolving needs of manufacturers, retailers and distribution centers. The first objective is to enable end-to-end inventory visibility which will allow the entire supply chain to quickly respond to shifts in consumer demand without similar ebbs and flows in labor and resource allocation.

The total impact of consumer demand disruption has yet to be seen. Shopping habit changes during the pandemic may result in future upheavals that may compromise brand loyalty but could likely cause a streamlining of the supply chain.

According to a report from market-research firm Nielsen, cited by Food Dive, "the average number of product offerings in grocery stores declined 7.3% during the four weeks ended June 13 ... The drop came across a range of product categories, with frozen down 8.5%, deli slipping 7.7%, meat posting a decline of 7.1% and dairy falling 6.6%."

For example, some IGA grocery stores now offer only four choices of toilet paper. A few months ago, the chains 1,100 U.S. stores typically carried about 40 varieties.

According to the Wall Street Journal, executives at some of the most widely-known food giants have said they are trimming less-efficient and less-profitable products, while shelving some in development. PepsiCo,for example, stopped producing a fifth of its products during the COVID-19 crisis and will have 3-5% fewer products going forward than it had pre-pandemic in its Frito-Lay snacks business.

By discontinuing some less popular items that may be more complicated to produce, factories and distribution networks can become more efficient at their end of the supply chain.

Additionally, when consumers are also offered visibility into the inventory levels, they are less likely to hoard items that potentially disrupt the flow of goods. The pandemic disruption proved to supply chain executives that technology to provide end-to-end visibility throughout a global supply chain would be the best way forward.

Supply chain executives accustomed to B2B processes will swiftly learn a hard lesson,if they dont move to automate quickly and effectively. The present pandemic is a true test of the ability to flex with new demands, especially those that will now be primarily consumer-driven.

With logistical adjustments made on the fly to meet consumer fulfillment needs, now is the time to look back, understand what went right and wrong, and adjust.

"The pandemic disruption proved to supply chain executives that technology to provide end-to-end visibility throughout a global supply chain would be the best way forward."

By giving products a digital unique identifier at the origin of the supply chain, full inventory transparency at the product-level is possible. This is vital to meet a continued increase in delivery expectations. Digitization of the goods through technologies such as RFID and barcodes provide that full transparency of inventory, at the product-level throughout every step of the supply chain.

Historically, brand logic has focused on increasing sales by offering customers endless varieties of goods that would take up more and more retail and supermarket shelf space especially in big box-stores and warehouse clubs. However, digitization of goods will serve brands well as they continue to shrink product offerings. Flexibility to add and subtract items to meet production, distribution and sales goals may be an ongoing roller coaster.

"In looking towards the future, most consumers expect to return to their pre-pandemic levels of in-store grocery shopping and more than a fourth of consumers expect to be ordering more groceries online in the future," FMI President and CEO Leslie Sarasin said in a statement. "The food industry will continue to listen to consumers and let them guide us on how to best meet their changing household needs."

While B2B will always exist, the ebbs and flows of consumer delivery and product choices will make the fulfillment world look very different in the months and years to come. Agility needs to be the focus at every link of the supply chain.

This story was first published in our weekly newsletter, Supply Chain Dive: Operations. Sign up here.

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Grocery supply chains must invest in automation as delivery becomes the norm - Supply Chain Dive

North Texas Teen Who Almost Drowned As Child Raises $6,000 For Loan-A-Life Jacket Program At Grapevine LakeThe program which started in 2017, includes five life-jacket station trees at popular swimming locations around Grapevine Lake.

Warm Friday After Storms Roll ThroughThe high will be around 90 degrees.

Cowboys Super Fan Preparing For Different Game Day Experience This YearWell get to some games, Kersh said. Its just going to be weird it not being a full stadium.

Growing Need In Texas And Beyond For Those Who've Recovered From Coronavirus To Donate PlasmaThe federal government is adding to the push for those whove been sick with COVID-19 to donate plasma.

Texas Adjusts Total Coronavirus Deaths Slightly Lower After Discovering 'Automation Error'State health officials said an automation error in a switch in its counting method added about 225 fatalities to the total.

A Look At How Different Your Kids' Return To School Will BeAndrea Lucia reports.

What Will College Campuses In Texas Look Like In COVID Times?While public schools are still grappling with if and when to offer face- to-face instruction, colleges and universities in Texas are moving forward with plans to welcome students back.

Reaction To President Trump Suggesting Delaying Election Over Claims About Vote By MailPresident Trump on Thursday raised the possibility of delaying the November general election over unsubstantiated claims that mail-in-voting will invite voter fraud

Dallas County Coronavirus Case Numbers On Downward TrendDallas County Health and Human Services reported 537 additional COVID-19 cases and six more deaths on Thursday.

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Thursday Evening News BriefHere's what made news Thursday, July 30.

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Thursday Evening Weather UpdateSome clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 76F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph.

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Cowboys Season Tickets Not Applicable For 2020 Due To Limited SeatingThe Dallas Cowboys on Thursday announced that season tickets will not be used for the 2020 season due to limited seating being made available because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Katie Johnston reports.

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CBS 11 News Now: Thursday MorningCheck out what's making the headlines across North Texas this Thursday morning.

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Texas Adjusts Total Coronavirus Deaths Slightly Lower After Discovering 'Automation Error' - CBS Dallas / Fort Worth

Clinical Diagnostics Automation Market 2020

The latest report added by Contrive Datum InsightsonClinical Diagnostics Automationindustry comprehends the analysis of COVID-19 impact on the global market. The report studies market overview with regards to historic and current scenario. Prominent players in the global market are expected to strategize their marketing activities in a superior acceptable manner to enhance their market base. Further, the Clinical Diagnostics Automation-research study identifies constantly changing market dynamics that are expected to influence market growth to an extent. Additionally, market performance and key factors are evaluated in this report to help make informed business decisions.

COVID-19 has impacted global market economy with over 190 countries witnessing the impact. There has been a noticeable impact on the global market growth with an increase in global unemployment rate. It has estimated that the virus could affect the global economy growth by 2.0% if current conditions persist. Around 13-32% is expected to befall in global trade. The full impact will not be known until the effects of the pandemic peak. The pandemic crisis is challenging governments to implement monetary and fiscal policies that support credit markets and sustain economic activity.

Request for a custom sample @https://www.contrivedatuminsights.com/request-sample/20343

The prominent players covered in this report:, Abaxis, Abbott Diagnostics, Beckman Coulter, Becton, Dickinson and Company, BioMerieux SA, Bio-Rad Laboratories, Diagnostica Stago, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, PerkinElmer, Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics, Sysmex America, Tecan Group, The ELITechGroup, Thermo Fisher Scientific

Key players are expected to enhance their marketing capabilities over the forecast period owing to certain market conditions. The report presents certain elements that will reflect whats and hows of such changes in the market. Further, the report studies various aspects of the global market such as upstream raw materials, downstream demand, and production value of leading players subject to market growth.

Impact of COVID-19:

On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split into

Modular AutomationTotal Lab Automation

On the basis on the end users/applications

Clinical DiagnosticsDrug DiscoveryProteomics SolutionsOthers

The period considered to estimate the market size of the Clinical Diagnostics Automationis as follows:

History Year: 2015-2019 | Base Year: 2019 | Estimated Year: 2020 | Forecast Year 2020 to 2026

Market Segmentation:

The global Clinical Diagnostics Automationmarket is segmented based on the type of product, application, and region. The analysts authoring the report evaluates detailed geography for each segment mentioned. The segments are studied based on their market share, revenue, regional growth, cost and revenue analysis, and other vital factors. The segmentation study identifies high-growth portions of the global Clinical Diagnostics Automationmarket and understand how the market can grow over the forecast period.

Request For discountthe Report @https://www.contrivedatuminsights.com/request-discount/20343

Primary Objectives of Clinical Diagnostics Automationmarket Report:

Key questions answered in this report:-

To summarize the report presents dynamic market overview, the competitive landscape in line with demand and supply analysis, market growth rate along with a future prediction for the forecast years. The report studies BCG, SWOT and PESTLE to analyze market profitability and growth rate. The report also helps investors to analyze investment feasibility and return analysis.

Access full Report Description, TOC, Table of Figure, and[emailprotected] https://www.contrivedatuminsights.com/product-report/Clinical-Diagnostics-Automation-Market-20343

We are always happy to assist you on your queries:[emailprotected]Phone No:+19084598372Contrive Datum Insights:www.contrivedatuminsights.com

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Clinical Diagnostics Automation Market to Witness Steady Expansion During 2020-2026 - Owned

The Evolution of our Service Assurance platform simplifies Network Management

Fairfax, VA, USA, 29 July 2020TEOCO, the leading provider of analytics, assurance and optimization solutions to over 300 communication service providers (CSPs) worldwide, today announces the releases of Helix 11.1, the latest version of its Service Assurance platform.

The newest release of the Helix SA solution, extends TEOCOs ethos of continuous product evolution dedicated to reducing the complexity of network management and simplifying the everyday tasks for Network Operations Center (NOC) and Service Operations Center (SOC) teams.

In Helix 11.1, the functionality evolution continues with the following new and expanded capabilities:

TEOCO has a long history of providing Service Assurance solutions that surpass the demands of our global customer base, said Shachar Ebel, CTO, TEOCO. The new and updated features in Helix 11.1 reflect the many ways we look to simplify engineering and network monitoring processes. By focusing on making the Helix platform as automated and intuitive as possible, through our enhanced analytical and automation capabilities, TEOCO ensures we anticipate our customers fast-changing needs.

###About TEOCOTEOCO is a leading provider of analytics, assurance and optimization solutions to over 300 communication service providers (CSPs) and OEMs worldwide. Our solutions enable the digital transformation of CSPs while enhancing their network QoS, improving their customer experience and reducing their operational costs.

Through advanced analytics, TEOCO products provide actionable and measurable insights into network and customer behaviour. This includes the optimization, effective monetization, and delivery of new and existing services, such as 5G.

Our commitment to network flexibility and agility makes TEOCO the obvious choice for CSPs looking to maximize the revenue potential of 5G investments and capitalize on new opportunities tied to the emerging Internet of Things (IoT).

For more information, visit http://www.teoco.com

TEOCO media contact:Anais Merlin/Alan MillerCCgroupT: +44 (0) 203 617 0139E: teoco@ccgrouppr.com

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Automation and Analytics Powers TEOCO's Helix 11.1 - RealWire

SAN RAMON, Calif., July 29, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- eQuest, the worlds leading job delivery services company, today announced the planned release of more than thirty new automated job posting features to improve recruiter efficiency.

Highlighting the latest release is a brand new Version 2.0 of AutoPost - which allows companies to preset posting rules along with matching or corresponding job board selections. The AutoPost system performs all posting based on these preset rules without any need for future recruiter involvement.

Advanced features now include:

Over 50% of eQuests global customer base utilizes AutoPost.

Other automated tools will be announced over the next 12 month period.

About eQuest

With its global reach, eQuest posts jobs to any posting destination in the world, reaching over 180 countries and territories and thousands of job posting destinations worldwide. eQuest also provides comprehensive candidate source tracking analysis for evaluating job board performance, job board negotiating services, and OFCCP/Diversity/Inclusion support. eQuest is one of the most recognized and admired brands in the human resource industry. eQuest is located at http://www.equest.com and is celebrating its 26th year in business.

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eQuest Announces More Job Posting Automation On The Way for 2020-2021 - GlobeNewswire

HACKENSACK, N.J., July 29, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --Panaya, the leader in SaaS-based Change Intelligence for SAP, Oracle, and Salesforce, today announced a new partnership with Worksoft providing SAP IT organizationswith a best in class Change Intelligence solution that enables SAP ECC users to migrate or optimize their system risk-free.

The partnership creates the perfect solution for Change Intelligence with smart test automation for SAP customers, and is ideal for both technical and business users, ensuring control and visibility into ERP projects. With Panaya and Worksoft's joint solution, any development, business, and test automation stakeholder can proactively manage and accelerate SAP change projects.

Thanks to the new partnership, Panaya's powerful impact analysis, and automatic code corrections are now also powered by the Worksoft Test Execution suite, resulting in cutting edge automation scoping. The joint solution enables customers to effectively manage S/4HANA system conversion, S/4HANA greenfield implementation, and ECC Optimization projects, always one step ahead with foresight into what to fix, what to test and what to automate.

"For our customers, this partnership enables a new level of continuous, automated quality assurance for SAP S/4HANA Brownfield and Greenfield migrations as well as ECC optimization. customers can work seamlessly from Panaya's platform, as a single source of truth where they can plan, execute and monitor manual and automated tests with the quality standards they have come to expect using Panaya," said David Binny, Panaya CEO. "With so many unknowns in today's climate amid an increasing number of pivots and tightening IT budgets, ensuring zero defects during critical business process change while optimizing on cost and quality is a huge challenge for our SAP customers. With Worksoft, we're giving strained IT teams the power to do more with less, reducing the time, cost, and risk of any S/4HANA system conversion, new implementation, or ECC optimization project by up to 50 percent.

The solution is a continuation of both Panaya and Worksoft's commitment to helping SAP customers in their transition to S/4HANA. By combining Panaya's Impact Analysis solutions and test management capabilities with Worksoft's continuous test automation platform, the deeper partnership provides the safest and most cost-effective way for your organization to maximize ROI on its current SAP system, or prepare for the next step in its ERP evolution.

"Panaya's Change Intelligence is now fully integrated with Worksoft's Connective Automation platform, offering customers unparalleled process understanding, automation and industry-leading change impact analysis," said Tony Sumpster, CEO at Worksoft. "The integrated platform is already providing value to leading fortune 50 customers, driving 614% ROI in less than six months for complex S/4HANA projects. "This powerful integration is a game changer across the SAP ecosystem, combining Panaya's Change Intelligence and Certify test automation to enable customers to deploy faster and reduce risk in major S/4 transformations."

About PanayaPanaya enables organizations to accelerate application change and continuously deliver innovation with its Change Intelligence Platform. Panaya provides cloud-based application delivery and testing solutions that ensure collaboration between Business and IT. Enabling enterprise agility with faster release velocity and uncompromising quality, Panaya delivers an optimized user experience with end-to-end visibility of the application lifecycle. Since 2008, 3,000 companies in 62 countries, including a third of the Fortune 500, have been using Panaya to deliver quick quality change to enterprise applications.

Press ContactMeghana ShendrikarAllison+Partners for Panaya[emailprotected]

About Worksoft Inc.Worksoft provides Connective Automation for the world's largest organizations, automating the full lifecycle of a business process from discovery to testing to RPA. Our codeless automation empowers QA teams and global leaders to deliver flawless applications faster and more efficiently with the ability to repurpose automation for RPA in production for maximum scalability. This enables Fortune 1000 companies to accelerate delivery for their mission-critical business applications like SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, Workday, SuccessFactors, ServiceNow, and more. Chosen by SAP IT to test SAP applications and recognized by leading Global System Integrators, Worksoft automation is embedded into their ERP practices to support their Agile, DevOps, and SAFe methodologies and accelerate digital transformations.

Press ContactElizabeth BlackmanO | 972-993-0400[emailprotected]

SOURCE Panaya

panaya.com

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Panaya & Worksoft Partner to Deliver Change Intelligence with Smart Automation for SAP Customers - PRNewswire

AUSTIN, Texas, July 29, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --Pivot3, the leading provider of intelligent hyperconverged infrastructure solutions for mission-critical video, today announced significant automation and intelligence enhancements to its Acuity software platform to address the system administration, maintenance and availability challenges often faced in large-scale video surveillance deployments. The new intelligent system health and best practices analysis features provide significant reductions in total cost of ownership, ensure 24 x 7 system uptime in large multi-petabyte environments, and enable customers to automate end-to-end system life-cycle management processes, all while ensuring high-availability.

"Customers who have safety and security responsibilities are increasingly required to manage large deployments of servers and storage due to the number and resolution of cameras, the increasing use of video analytics and other leading edge security applications," said Ben Bolles, vice president of product management, Pivot3. "The sheer scale of these deployments presents new management challenges for security personnel to keep systems up-to-date and operating at peak performance and efficiency. Pivot3 is meeting this growing challenge with expanded automation and intelligence capabilities to provide customers with peace of mind, knowing their system is operating at its utmost level of resilience and performance."

At the core of Pivot3's Acuity software platform is the Pivot3 Intelligence Engine. The Intelligence Engine comprises many automated system management capabilities including performance optimization, data protection, auto-healing, system health monitoring and analytics that are shared to Pivot3's Support Cloud. This automates traditionally time-consuming systems administration and maintenance tasks to reduce operating expenses and allows organizations to expand and improve their physical security posture with fewer specialized IT skills.

Pivot3's Intelligence Engine now includes system-level upgrade orchestration and health and best practices analyzer features optimized for large-scale environments. The Upgrade Manager is designed to simplify performing end-to-end system updates by automating mundane system administration tasks, resulting in improved life-cycle management of large-scale systems and a reduction in the specialized skills required to run these sophisticated deployments. The Health and Best Practices Analyzer automatically verifies system health and detects anomalies, both system-wide and for individual appliances. To lower the risks and liabilities associated with video evidence recording and access, the system also ensures that best practices to deliver 24 X 7 system uptime and availability are observed.

Pivot3's new Intelligence Engine capabilities are in version 10.8 of the Acuity software platform available in Q3 2020. For more information, please visit http://www.pivot3.com/products.

About Pivot3Pivot3 is the leading provider of intelligent hyperconverged infrastructure solutions for video surveillance, video analytics, VDI and mixed workloads. Pivot3's solutions provide security, resilience and management simplicity at scale for customers' mission-critical environments. With thousands of customers in 64 countries, and deployments in education, hospitality, transportation, government, defense, healthcare, gaming, financial services and retail, Pivot3 allows IT to manage complexity at scale through intelligence and automation. Visit pivot3.com to learn more.

SOURCE Pivot3, Inc.

http://www.pivot3.com

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Pivot3 Expands Automation and Intelligence Capabilities for Lifecycle Management of Video Infrastructure - PRNewswire

A new Harris Poll finds that Americans looking to gain an edge are trying to bolster their CV credentials with the most in-demand skills.

Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto

There are 30 million unemployed Americans. A new Harris Poll commissioned by Zapier found that two out of five workers say they were let go by their employer due to COVID-19. At least 70% of current job seekersthose unemployed or employed and lookingbelieve the key to landing a new job is automation. The number is even higher (86%) among those with a college degree or higher.

According to the survey, "The Job Seekers Report," 30% have added automation to their resumes, while 31% said they planned to do so. With so many job-seekers adding to their skill set with the key word "automation," the Zapier survey queried, "is it possible employers will notice the omission?"

SEE: Managing AI and ML in the enterprise 2020: Tech leaders increase project development and implementation (TechRepublic Premium)

It makes sense that many Americans are looking to develop new skills or hone-in on existing onesthey're competing with the 41% who lost jobs due to the pandemic, and those also unemployed, as well as those who have jobs but need or want to make a change.

A majority (83%) either have learned automation skills or planned to do so in the near future. The need and desire for efficiency could be from the need to maximize crucial, available time. Work hours invariably come at the expense of those in the home who are remote-learning or those tasked with helping or even teaching those remote learners.

Many are still working remotely, with offices closed, and are burdened with the uncertainty of when and if they'll return to their offices. Many businesses have already declared a switch to all remote, a virtual office.

Those surveyed find the biggest benefits of automation are:

Automation skills are valued across a swath of industries and projects, including the obvious (and popular) robotics, mobile phones, healthcare, entertainment, manufacturing, education, product delivery, transportation, DevOps, IT Ops, software testing, home-help products, and more.

It's not only Zapier finding the rise of automation. As TechRepublic reported in May, automation could lead to another jobless recovery, according to Forrester. The firm's report, "The COVID-19 Crisis Will Accelerate Enterprise Automation Plans," indicated how critical automation will be to companies looking to "lower their exposure to future business disruption."

Leslie Joseph, author of the Forrester report, said: "[A]utomation is a very big motion within most of the large SI's and consulting firms, who are aggressively upskilling their manpower. In fact, many SI's with large automation practices began with aggressively applying automation to their own internal delivery and back-office function, at significant scale."

The article in TechRepublic noted, "Another caveat that may lead to fewer job losses is the expectation that large-scale automation of business processes and routine, repetitive tasks will not necessarily lead to large-scale job replacement."

Joseph told TechRepublic: "Automation is not just like any standard technology implementation. It requires significant participation and support from the existing workforce. Successful automation leaders will bring their people along on the journey. This will include elements of reskilling of people whose jobs are sidelined by bots, to bring them back into helping run and manage the automation program itself."

Methodology: Harris conducted the poll of 2,069 US adults, 18 or older, online between July 14 to July 16.

Learn the latest news and best practices about data science, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence. Delivered Mondays

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70% of job seekers think automation skills are the key to finding a new position - TechRepublic

One of the oldest and most persistent debates in any field goes back to the famous quote by ancient Greek poet Archilochus, "a fox knows many things, but a hedgehog one important thing"and to Isaiah Berlins equally famous philosophical-literary essay, The Hedgehog and The Fox. Technology is only one of numerous areas in which this paradigm is being used (or overused, depending on your viewpoint) to evolve industry standards and operating models.

Urban fox

A good example of this is the increasing tension in cloud-native technologies between those tools that strive to be a best of breed, and those that position themselves as a one-stop-shop. Vendors such as CircleCI for CICD, Datadog for monitoring, and of course Snyk for developer-first security all aim to be the absolute best at the (relatively) narrow task at hand. On the other side of the fence, vendors such as Gitlab look to add functionality to cover a wider surface area.

There will always be a tradeoff on this route to simplifying systems such as procurement or IT management: the Hedgehogs of this world will never achieve the same results on narrow sets of tasks as will Foxes, but they will offer simplicity or unity of interface as an advantage.

Bringing the foxes together

The leading public cloud providers such as AWS and Azure are good examples of companies that, on the one hand, have the product realism to build rich ecosystems of compatible partner solutions, but on the other hand offer economic incentives in place to help those customers that want to reduce the number of suppliers or solutions they work with.

In this context, a new category of solutions is looking to create automation engines to connect best-in-breed solutions, allowing at least a common technical interface to connect discrete but closely-related tasks. Examples of this approach are GitHub Actions and Bitbucket Pipelines, which aim to offer developers a way to automate their software workflowsbuild, test, and deployright from their software repositories.

Puppet Relay: automating DevOps and cloud operations

A new and more Operations-focused entrant into this space was announced late last month, Puppet Relay. If this is where configuration management veterans Puppet are going, it could indeed be big news. Relay is an Event-, Task-, or Anything-Driven automation engine that sits behind other technologies used by an enterprise. Relay automates processes across any cloud infrastructure, tools and APIs that developers, DevOps engineers, and SREs (site reliability engineers) typically manage manually. Interoperability and ease of integration seem to be major focus areas for Puppet.

According to former Cloud Foundry Foundation Executive Director (and longtime Pivot before that) Abby Kearns, who recently joined Puppet as CTO, there are tons of boxes in the datacenter that traditional Puppet customers want to automate with configuration management, but with the move to the cloud, the potential surface area for automation is much bigger. Puppets ambition is to capture the automation and orchestration of the cloud movement, with multiple use cases such as continuous deployment, automatic fault remediation, cloud operations and more.

Relay already integrates with some of the most important enterprise infrastructure vendors like Hashicorp, ServiceNow, Atlassian, Splunk and others. Stephen OGrady, Principal Analyst with RedMonk, was quoted in Puppets press release as saying that the rise of DevOps has created a hugely fragmented portfolio of tools, and that organizations are looking for ways to automate and integrate the different touch points. This is the opportunity that Relay is built for, concluded OGrady.

Automation market trends point to a specialized future

Market analysis and data supports this trend. In its Market Guide for Infrastructure Automation Tools, Gartner estimated that by 2023, 60% of organizations will use infrastructure automation tools as part of their DevOps toolchains, improving application deployment efficiency by 25%. Similarly, in its 2019-2021 I&O Automation Benchmark Report, Gartner forecasted that 47% of infrastructure and operations executives are actively investing and plan to continue investing in infrastructure automation tools in 2020.

Ultimately, taste in architecture means using the right tool for the right job, under the financial or organizational constraints that each of us might have. By providing a backbone to automate the cross-vendor workflow, the new breed of automation engines such as Puppet Relay could potentially tilt the scale towards specialized solutions, and change day-to-day development and operations.

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Why Automation Engines Matter To Best-In-Breed DevOps Vendors - Forbes

Gary Kitchin, managing director at HMK Automation

An automation company has played its part in the production of almost 14,000 ventilators for the NHS as part of Ventilator Challenge UK.

HMK Automation, based in Cheshire, specialises in delivering automation solutions across a range of industries, and was called upon to supply crucial components and engineering advice for the challenge.

Ventilator Challenge UK was launched in March amid the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in anticipation of a surge in cases and a shortage of ventilators within the health service.

A consortium of UK aerospace, motorsport, automotive and medical businesses joined forces to deliver critical Penlon ESO 2 and Smiths paraPAC plus ventilators to the NHS throughout the crisis.

Among the key partners involved was Siemens, and HMK is their approved distribution partner, supplying its products alongside the engineering expertise of the HMK workforce.

Gary Kitchin, managing director at HMK Automation Group, explained: We have a long history with Siemens having worked with them for the past 30 years. They have played a key role in the Ventilator Challenge and when they were looking for UK manufacturers to supply certain parts and components, naturally they came to us.

The Siemens engineers had put together a prototype to solve a problem with a calibration issue and they required a precision gearbox. The initial request was can we get one and can we get it quickly?

At HMK, its not part of our ethos to just supply the products and then vanish, were here to provide complete end-to-end solutions and ultimately deliver success for our customers.

When our application engineers looked at the task, we soon realised that the gearbox initially requested was not the best product for the job, so we were able to supply an alternative gearbox, which was much better suited to the challenge.

We pride ourselves on being more than just a product supplier, our expertise lies in our breadth of application and mechanical knowledge, so we were able to select the right parts and use our engineering expertise to deliver a performance and cost optimised solution.

HMK provided two units free of charge within a tight timescale in order to support the nationwide challenge, which at its peak was producing 400 ventilators per day.

Mr Kitchin added: Obviously, time was of the essence, so we took the call at 3.30pm on the Wednesday, and the gearboxes were ready for collection the following day.

The Covid-19 crisis has hit everyone hard, but businesses have a crucial role to play in the battle against the pandemic so we supplied two units at no charge.

We were just really pleased to be able to do our bit and were incredibly proud that our workforce has been able to use their engineering expertise to support such a worthy cause, which has ultimately saved lives.

The Ventilator Challenge UK has now drawn to a close, having created almost 14,000 ventilators and doubled the stock available to the NHS.

HMK Automationwww.hmkdirect.com

Michael Tyrrell

Digital Coordinator

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Automation firm helped the ventilator challenge step up a gear - PES Media

While many companies have responded well to the COVID-19 pandemic, the crisis has revealed or amplified weaknesses across the business world. Supply chain and manufacturing issues have affected a range of industries. IT departments across industries have been badly strained by the sudden surge in new remote workers needing virtual private network (VPN) access, video chat and other new capabilities. As the pandemic plays out, these technologies and others will have increasing value in the finance function across industriesincluding healthcare, insurance and financial services, and manufacturing. Here, while were taking a closer look at changes in these technologies as they relate to the healthcare ecosystem, we believe this discussion has broader relevance to many other businesses.

Now, at a time in healthcare when claims management teams struggle with productivity issues exacerbated by the remote environment, health insurers not only face the ongoing issues that cause inefficient and inaccurate claims payments, such as illegible forms and out-of-date physician rosters, but they also have to deal with the plethora of new irregularities and billing errors that result in an environment of new and frequently changing rules.

For health insurersand, we would argue, for many other businesses that suddenly find themselves with a remote workforce that still has to deal with a centralized administrative systemit does not have to be this way. A pair of cost-effective, easy-to-implement technologies, optical character recognition (OCR) and robotic process automation (RPA), can make tremendous improvements in claims processing accuracy and other data management tasks. On their own or together, OCR and RPA help to save costs, reduce errors, increase productivity, and free up people to do more high-value work.

While it is a relatively old and seemingly humdrum technology, OCR tends to be underutilized in the payer claims environment, where providers continue to use their own home-grown, non-searchable means to communicate with payers, and payers continue to maintain information in inconsistent, non-searchable formats. OCR is about more than simply scanning documents. Used to its full potential, OCR makes text searchable so pertinent information can be extracted from handwritten and word-processed faxes, forms, notes, images, and photocopies, including those files in portable document format (PDF). Just think of how, in order to process mobile deposits, banks are able to read checks from a photo taken by your phone. The text is translated to a consistent, searchable format that can be placed into workflows.

OCR is useful in claims processing, as certain providers continue to use faxes and the U.S. postal service to submit a significant percentage of claims, especially when electronic data interchange (EDI) is not a regulatory or contractual requirement. The resulting manual entry of claim information tends to be time-consuming and prone to mistakes; OCR systems reduce both turnaround times and error rates.

In addition to adjudication, there are a variety of use cases impacting the claims process. OCR systems can be trained to identify and pull out specific portions of provider contracts, such as contracted rates and carved-out payment terms, necessary to configure a payers adjudication system. Similarly, OCR can be used to improve the turnaround times for prior authorization requests as well as appeals by categorizing them for routing to the correct workflow. In healthcare, physician rosters and associated add/change/terminate forms are another area prone to slow turn-around times and significant error rates (and resulting payment inaccuracies) for which OCR yields significant improvement. Additionally, OCR can be successfully applied in the areas of provider credentialing and invoicing.

Be it a result of illegible handwriting, darkened photocopies, or fax transmission deficiencies, some indecipherable text will still need to be examined by the claims team. However, OCR enables parsing out documents into those that have been successfully translated and those at greatest risk of translation error, thus requiring manual review. This brings significant improvement to the efficiency and accuracy of many payer processes. We estimate on average a task replaced with OCR reduces the need for over 90 percent of current manual review processes.

RPA, which is also known as intelligent automation, digital automation, or even simply by the colloquial term bots, centers on the use of software to do repetitive tasks of the sort that few workers truly enjoy performing. Any corporate employee at the level of middle management or below will be able to relate to the need for relief from an overabundance of busy work, especially now. For health insurers, this work tends to revolve around areas like provider data management, physician roster validation and standardization, and fee schedule management, all of which are susceptible to develop sizable backlogs. A properly programmed bot can quickly work through backlogs while avoiding the types of errors people are prone to make when doing relatively monotonous work, especially as the hours stack up.

RPA systems are much more sophisticated than commonplace tools like desktop scripts and macros. They essentially mirror human activity, driving applications through user interfaces to operate applications while following business rules and validating provider data at near 100 percent accuracy and at speeds up to five times faster than employees. As much as people are trained through decision trees, RPAs are programmed to follow predetermined pathways between their assigned tasks and data repositories, move or populate data, make calculations, perform actions, and even trigger downstream activities. They can also run around the clock, and never need a coffee break.

So, how can you decide whether RPA can help your organization? In our experience, the best-fit criteria for this type of solution are processes that:

Any of this sound like you? Using bots to automate processes brings many benefits. They improve the quality of provider data, lower administrative costs and help to gain operational efficiencies around the processes they are programmed to perform. They are scalable and flexible and improve data security because fewer people touch the data. Perhaps the biggest benefit is the time that RPA frees employees to work on higher value tasks and projects to drive improved business results by ensuring claims are paid accurately and on-time.

In many industries, technology has been advancing more slowly than the COVID-19 pandemic is demanding. For example, while the delivery of healthcare itself continually advances, both providers and payers back offices tend to be rather low tech. Their systems are antiquated, and their processes tend to be cumbersome. The pandemic has amplified this reality, as newly remote workers in the health insurance industry have struggled to keep up for want of ready access to the fax machines, multiple-display setups and other outdated tools they typically use in the traditional office setting. Better usage of OCR and deeper, more widespread adoption of RPA will help insurers and a broad swath of other industries enjoy the many benefits of present-day technology and prepare them for the new normal post-COVID-19, which will include much more remote work than required in pre-pandemic times.

Katie OConnell is a Senior Managing Director at global consultancy AArete. Maria Turner is a managing director at AArete. Erica Nelson is an AArete director and Matt Semetulskis is a manager at AArete.

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Putting Automation Technology to Work to Improve Operational Efficiency - FEI Daily

UiPath unveiled the results of a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of UiPath:The Future of Work: A Pandemic Spotlight. The study revealed that companies are increasingly using RPA and other intelligent automation technologies to address new business and market pressures stemming from the pandemic, but still believe a people-centric approach is critical to success in the future of work.

Throughout May 2020 (at the height of the crisis), Forrester conducted an online survey of 160 process automation decision-makers from operations groups, shared services, finance, and other lines of business in organizations spanning France, Germany, Japan, the U.K., and the U.S. The results of the survey showed that the pandemic has:

The pandemic has turned the world upside down, and the shock has greatly accelerated businesses march toward the future of work. Automation has emerged as an invaluable asset for organizations to embrace this changing way of work. The time to automate is now, said Tom Clancy, SVP UiPath Learning. Now more than ever, digital skillsets are necessary. To enhance retention and produce productivity, its employers responsibilities to offer digital training specifically automation training as part of career development initiatives.

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Nearly 50% of Businesses Around the World Will Increase Robotic Process Automation Adoption Due to COVID-19 - Supply and Demand Chain Executive

Logistics automation can be a comprehensive concept that covers all functions that are performed at the technological level, like a Transportation Management System (TMS) for managing the transportation and freight departments in each company.

FREMONT, CA: Logistics is a massive field with a large number of specialists involved in various processes. The processes carried out at each stage are extremely important as they contribute to the smooth movement of goods along the supply chain. With the help of automation, these processes become more efficient. Automation in logistics can have various benefits like saving on labor, inventory, energy, and more. Also, the logistics processes are carried out faster, more precisely and qualitatively, more economically and more efficiently. On the whole, it reduces errors and improves customer service.

Logistics automation can be a comprehensive concept that covers all functions that are performed at the technological level, like a Transportation Management System (TMS) for managing the transportation and freight departments in each company. It helps with work in all possible units, including stock monitoring, planning, administrative, accounting, and management departments. Here are a few advantages of logistics automation.

Reducing Costly Errors

Automation can help businesses to integrate inventory management through the ERP system fully. It includes all fixed and current assets and goods available. Automation will be able to give direct access to address book, fuel charges and other types of automatic storage, which can help eliminate significant errors. The possibility of making errors can be very high while making multiple data entries by hand from available documents. This can have a considerable impact on the bottom line of the company. Investing in freight management software will help optimize the logistics business. Several features can be integrated into this system, relieving managers from a great deal of stress. The number of mistakes will also decline, and there will be no need to solve problems continuously.

Improved Customer Service

Customer satisfaction is the ultimate goal of every business. Every organization is looking for new and innovative ways to attract new customers and at the same time, retain loyal ones. However, there is always a chance to lose those customers that have been with the company for a very long time. When a new company offers them shipping conditions that are cheaper and better, the customer tends to choose them. This is the first indication that something is wrong with the quality of service, speed or price. Logistics automation can help avoid these situations by providing better control of the shipment while managing the supply chain.

See Also: Top Transport Management Companies

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The Role Of Automation In The Future Of Logistics - CIO Applications

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Technavio has been monitoring the industrial automation and instrumentation market in India and it is poised to grow by USD 2.58 billion during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of over 10% during the forecast period. The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic continues to transform the growth of various industries, the immediate impact of the outbreak is varied. While a few industries will register a drop in demand, numerous others will continue to remain unscathed and show promising growth opportunities. Technavios in-depth research has all your needs covered as our research reports include all foreseeable market scenarios, including pre- & post-COVID-19 analysis. Download a Free Sample Report on COVID-19 Impacts

Frequently Asked Questions-

The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. ABB Ltd., Eaton Corp. Plc, Emerson Electric Co., General Electric, Honeywell International Inc., Robert Bosch GmbH, Rockwell Automation Inc., Schlumberger Ltd., Schneider Electric SE, and Siemens AG are some of the major market participants. To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments.

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The shift toward lean manufacturing has been instrumental in driving the growth of the market.

Technavio's custom research reports offer detailed insights on the impact of COVID-19 at an industry level, a regional level, and subsequent supply chain operations. This customized report will also help clients keep up with new product launches in direct & indirect COVID-19 related markets, upcoming vaccines and pipeline analysis, and significant developments in vendor operations and government regulations.

Industrial Automation and Instrumentation Market in India 2020-2024: Segmentation

Industrial Automation and Instrumentation Market in India is segmented as below:

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Industrial Automation and Instrumentation Market in India 2020-2024: Scope

Technavio presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources. The industrial automation and instrumentation market in India report covers the following areas:

This study identifies the simplification of manufacturing through automation as one of the prime reasons driving the industrial automation and instrumentation market growth in India during the next few years.

Technavio suggests three forecast scenarios (optimistic, probable, and pessimistic) considering the impact of COVID-19. Technavios in-depth research has direct and indirect COVID-19 impacted market research reports.Register for a free trial today and gain instant access to 17,000+ market research reports. Technavio's SUBSCRIPTION platform

Industrial Automation and Instrumentation Market in India 2020-2024: Key Highlights

Table of Contents:

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market Sizing

Five Forces Analysis

Market Segmentation by Product

Market Segmentation by End-user

Customer Landscape

Drivers, Challenges, and Trends

Vendor Landscape

Vendor Analysis

Appendix

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Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavios report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavios comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

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COVID-19 Impact & Recovery Analysis | Industrial Automation and Instrumentation Market In India (2020-2024) | Shift Toward Lean Manufacturing to...

MPN editor Laura Hughes reached out to Scott Marsic, senior product manager at Epson Robots, to find out why manufacturers within the sector are increasingly turning towards automation.Please can you tell us about the two types of robots Epson has, and how the two differ?

SCARA and 6-Axis robots together make up the bulk of industrial robot placements in the Americas - upwards of 80% (Fuji Keizai 2020), and for the past eight years, Epson has been the worldwide market share leader for SCARA unit placements, a position that the company still retains today.

SCARA robots became well known in industrial automation for their fast, high precision and high repeatability assembly, pick and place and packaging capabilities. In the medical sector, SCARA robots are frequently used when speed and precision are vital to the manufacturing process e.g. pacemakers, hearing aids, etc.

6-Axis robots are designed for applications that require increased dexterity of motion usually related to orientation of the wrist axes.These robots are great for a wide range of activities such as extracting plastic parts for a medical device from an injection molding machine or manipulating blood testing equipment for inspection and packaging.

A robot is a tool that is going to do what you tell it to do and respond to whatever inputs you give it access to. If you program a robot to pick up a hearing aid part, you need to tell the robot where the part is located, how to grab the tool, and what to do with it. An integrated vision system often acts as the "eyes" of the automation system. With vision a robot can now "look" for the part, interpret its position, and move to the correct location for manipulation.

Parts inspection is also a key component to the manufacturing process. An extruded plastic part for a medical device might contain residual burrs or flash that need to be removed. A vision system can help efficiently identify these features for removal, and then provide a quality check afterwards to assure the product meets the final production requirements.

As robots advance to make more intelligent and dynamic decisions, they increasingly require the use of more sensors and computing power to process input data. For example, advances in sensor integration with artificial intelligence will drive performance advancements, allowing robots to be more efficient and better handle manufacturing exceptions.

Another trend is helping factories to understand the health of automation equipment, including robots. If factory managers can better understand potential robot issues such as remaining motor live in advance of an actual failure, this can represent big gains in terms of reducing downtime and lost productivity.

Even before Covid-19, manufacturers were increasingly turning towards automation in response to a decreased availability of skilled workers and increases in product complexity. Companies like Epson are well poised to help customers looking to venture into automation by offering reliable, affordable, and easy-to-use robotic solutions.

Covid-19 has accelerated this movement by making companies acutely aware of their need for an automated manufacturing base that is always available and always running. A recent survey from Pod Group in the UK went so far as to show that almost three-quarters of business leaders across multiple sectors (including healthcare) expect automation to speed up in the wake of the pandemic.

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Why manufacturers are turning towards automation - Medical Plastics News