Happy New Year!
I know it’s a week late, but I hope everyone is getting off to a good start this year. I had a couple of people join me the morning of New Years Eve for my Mastering the Machine webinar, you …
Author: Frank
Electrical Engineer and business owner from the Nashville, Tennessee area. I also play music, Chess and Go.
PLCnext Webinar
Friday, November 19, 2021 was the one year anniversary of the Automation Academy, my system integration training website! I do these webinars every two weeks as live Zoom events, part of the Academy’s events. This webinar was on PLCnext, Phoenix …
The Future Of Smart Sensors In Manufacturing
This is a guest post from Keyence, a manufacturer of sensors, gauges and control devices. ********************************************************************************************** We live in an increasingly data-driven world, and the manufacturing and automation industries are no exception. As businesses in these fields strive to keep …
Webinars and YouTube
This is the latest Mastering the Machine video on YouTube, I have been doing these every two weeks for almost a year now. The topic was Pi-Plates and NodeRED and as usual I learned a lot from my guest, Jerry …
The Art of Prototyping
It has been a couple of months since I posted here, some may have wondered if I am still keeping up this blog… Actually I have been actively posting on Linked In, YouTube and my Facebook group, but its a …
Content Creation
Wow, it’s been a while since I posted… That’s because I’ve been creating lots of content for the Automation Academy, and I am writing a new book on industrial maintenance and troubleshooting. Both require a lot of writing, pictures, and …
Is OEE Enough?
OEE, or Overall Equipment Effectiveness, is the percentage of manufacturing time that is productive. It is composed of three parts: Availability – The percentage of time the process is running during planned production time Performance – The percentage of production …
Random Thoughts Video
I recorded this video while driving from my home in Lebanon, Tennessee to visit a customer in Knoxville. It is the day before the one-year anniversary of the tornado, and I just kind of discussed the stuff that I have …
A Tale of Three Students
As I approach the one year anniversary of the tornado and the onset of Covid-19, I can’t help but think of how my training approach has changed. Automation Training classes have been few and much smaller, and of course they …
Proposals and Quoting
Our guest at Friday’s Mastering the Machine event at the Automation Academy was Doug Alward, Senior Applications Engineer (retired) at Wright Industries. Doug has a wealth of experience in the applications field and shared all kinds of insights on what …