Contextualization is an enduring goal for people who work with manufacturing data. As with anything, a manufacturing object or measurement makes sense only when we can know its origin and can compare it to other values. Given its importance to all human experience, however, the way that manufacturers and vendors typically think of context is […]

This blog provides a quick introduction to the tradeoffs between industrial historians and time-series databases from a practical, manufacturing-centered perspective. Why are we writing this? If you search the internet, you’ll find no shortage of blog posts about this topic. But, as it turns out, these posts are usually written by vendors of historians and […]

Single points, graphs, rows, and columns.

How do you remove legacy systems without ripping and replacing or waiting until the hardware fails? Through integration, decoupling, and incremental change.

This article reframes the debate around ISA-95 and explores how the right architecture enables a viable application of the standard.

The Manufacturing Data Hub (MDH) presents a sea-change in how manufacturers use their data. This article compares the MDH to a data lake many manufacturers use for data management and analysis.

What Is ISA-95? Manufacturing Data & the Importance of a Single Ontology
Meta Description: ISA-95 offers manufacturers a way to standardize data under a single ontology. Here’s why it makes sense and what it means for governance.

What Is a Manufacturing Knowledge Graph? Data Hubs, MES & ISA-95
Meta Description: Knowledge graphs are transforming how manufacturers approach data infrastructure. We break down how they work and explore their advantages.

This article, by Spruik Co-Founder Geoff Nunan, was posted in the Pulse on LinkedIn in August, 2018. It is even more relevant today than it was a year ago. We continue to see manufacturers struggle to implement COTS MES platforms and the myth of “out of the box” functionality is being pushed harder than ever.