A new enterprise manufacturing intelligence software package from Northwest Analytics is designed to leverage data in existing databases rather than through creation of a new database.

By David Greenfield, Director of Content/Editor-in-Chief

Manufacturing intelligence applications have been in wide distribution for nearly two decades. Like most advanced technologies, the early years for enterprise manufacturing intelligence (EMI) were difficult. Common user complaints about EMI software typically centered on its lack of intuitiveness, integration difficulties and high cost. The difficulties with EMI often weren’t so much an issue with the software itself, but that the supporting technologies needed for EMI to function at its peak simply weren’t well developed enough.

This is no longer the case. With advances in every area relevant to EMI—from field device/machine connection advances to ever-increasing bandwidth capabilities and from database management/connection to cloud computing—the key barriers to effective EMI have largely been removed.

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