Acquiring the right technologies to advance the business has clearly become a critical competency for manufacturers. In just about every field of corporate endeavor — from innovation to customer service — the right technology can make the difference in speed of execution, quality, responsiveness, and a host of other metrics.
This issue, Managing Automation's third annual Technology Planner, is designed to help you understand some of the key trends shaping the IT and automation landscapes, and to assist you in identifying and evaluating technology products that can enable you to excel at that critical competency.
In this year's lineup of trend stories, we cover the debate on whether to invest in application suites or best-of-breed software products, what the rampant discounting in the enterprise software market means for you, how to pick hardware and storage platforms, and the new software-as-a-service and on-demand software licensing options.
In addition, we have expanded our product listings to include RFID software, automation process control systems, and business process management software. These join perennials ERP, business intelligence, manufacturing intelligence, MES, PLM, supply chain management, wireless, and industrial computers. Using the magazine as a starting point, you can compare products in these categories by features and functions, and then delve deeper by going to MA's extensive online products directory.