PM-Professional Switzerland - Programs and Projects for Innovation

On the 3rd of September in Zurich, there has been the annual conference for Smartmaintenance. Preventive maintenance has the target to reduce the likelihood for a component or a part to break with the result of causing the operation stop. We know how this is important for our personal car but more important in business because every minute of stop mean losing money. Several business cases have been shown and I would like to report what I have found interesting. Win GD produces engines for Cargos and ships. Here is very important to have a system that: allow the crew to make easy troubleshooting, allow the notification to the engine supplier for a second support level, and allow the connection with the logistic in case a spare part is needed. Sulzer has a business line for pumps. They have developed a traditional IoT system based on sensors, network connection, and analytics to monitor their installation base and perform preventative maintenance. Altran has shown and...

source: pixabai  The USA has made one step forward against Huawei and China in general, therefore all technologies made in the USA cannot be provided to the Chinese company. Let's analyze what does it means. Huawei, like every company that operates in the technology market, needs some basic sources, for example: Hardware: e.g., CPU (ARM, INTEL,...), communication chips, power control units, ... OS: e.g., Android, Windows,... User applications and eco-system    By preventing access to these fundamental sources, the company cannot run the business.   However, the result of this move will be a disaster for the USA. The fact that America can deliberately decide to "shoot" against a private entity without going through a legal procedure, has raised the concerns to every private company in the world, including the European ones. This creates uncertainty and instability and will push the development of alternatives to unlink these companies form te...

Neural networks The science of machine learning is moving one step forward. I remember when I have been implementing some algorithms for pattern recognition, at that time computers were not so powerful to run complex "neural networks". Today this science is supporting many applications, for example, the implementation of the "digital assistant" and the software to manage the camera in your smartphone. Interesting field for machine learning is the study of the earth movement patterns in case of earthquakes.  Several universities in the USA are conducting these studies to mitigate the risks in case of such events.

The Industrial Internet Consortium and Openfog have joined their forces to build the larger organization that can steer and influence the development of the Industrial application of Internet of the Things (  II Consortium and Openfog  ). In my view, companies acting in the businesses like Industry 4.0, Smart Cities, Building Automation,... should join that consortium and try to influence or be updated on what’s is going on. This is a way to keep the development and the roadmap of the products aligned with global standards.

Quality should not be compromised, especially for premium devices. The IPAD Pro 2018 is affected by a bending problem, this is reported on several articles and video. Root causes are the design and materials to make the device light and thin. I personally find this quality issue not acceptable, I am an early user of Ipad family products and one of the main reason that has driven me to buy them has been the quality of such devices. I hope that the company will recover.     

Companies are investing millions of dollars in research for the next generation of autonomous cars. Mobileye has developed an interesting approach to guarantee the safety once we will use such cars in the future. This approach is interesting because they assume that in the real world you cannot prevent an accident to happen, but what you can do is to prevent that the autonomous car will cause one.

pixabay.com We are aware of the general definition of IoT and what does it mean for consumer products like fit trackers. In manufacturing, connected devices that collect data through sensors are part of an ecosystem called Industrial IoT. As usual, this ecosystem is made by endpoints, a communications infrastructure, and an IIoT platform. One of the problems for such an ecosystem is the assurance of the compatibility among the components that form the system. Another problem is the selection of the IIoT platform. Such a platform provides a set of software capabilities with the following functions: Device Management Data Management Analytics Security Integration with other systems and services Application management There are platforms that can be installed on the premises or that are available as a service: SAP Leonardo IoT Oracle IoT PTC ThingWorx IBM Watson Microsoft Azure Siemens Mindsphere The business and technical requirements should lead t...

Source Pixabay Digital transformation is the change in business management with the support of digital technologies. One of the consequences of this change is the removing of paper-based processes, another is the re-design of the value chain. Approaching the digital transformation means embracing a journey that is made by several steps, for example: Understanding and documenting the requirements; Processes mapping; Defining the To-Be status; Evaluating solutions and trends available in the market; Making the architectural choices, e.g., on premises, XaaS, or hybrid; Planning and executing the changes.  Main risks and issues are, for example: Support from sponsors and key stakeholders; Performance of the new system; Change management, therefore, the user's adoption.  To manage and reduce the risk linked to the last point, an important step in the digital journey is the design of the user experience  through a user-centric approach. Design think...

Microsoft Solution for chocolate Nestle Supply chain management and traceability are pain points in today global business. These problems affect almost all the industries, like electronic devices, med tech, pharma, and food. I have been attending the meeting organized by the Microsoft blockchain meet-up in Zurich. They have presented the use case that has been developed for Nestle in order to control the supply chain of their chocolate. An interesting point to see is how multiple technologies (e.g., the blockchain, IoT, cloud, communication) concurred in solving the problem. This solution delivers several benefits, for example, limited operating costs, good scalability, and high security. Cloud Security Alliance has released a white paper about the architecture of  IoT solutions with the blockchain technology. I believe that can be applied to such use cases.

Bitcoin has been the start of a revolution in the digital age. The coin was made because of the failures in the bank system (e.g., financial crisis in the past 10 years). The systems were designed to be free from intermediaries (e.g., the banks, the exchanges). Is it still the case? If you want to start playing in such market you need to utilize exchange platforms, in many cases ruled by individuals or companies that are located in fiscal heavens. As an alternative, if you have already your wallet, you might use one of the exchanging machines (e.g., SBB ticket machines). In both cases, you will be charged a fee, for example, SBB originally charged 6% . Hence, the answer to the question is not:  you need an intermediary . Most of the exchange platforms are not secure, meaning that you should check their reputation first, and you should not hold your wallet, nor your private key, online. In fact, there have been many cases of security accidents . At the end of 2017, we have se...