The Journey Continues: Building the Next Generation of Manufacturing Talent

IndustryWeek columnist Larry Fast continues his quest to build manufacturing muscle in his hometown. Student-run Cardinal Manufacturing provides inspiration. In March of 2019 I wrote about my initiative to help transform my hometown (Winchester, Ind.) high school’s “metals lab” into a world class advanced manufacturing center (AMC).  The model for it is based on my many years…

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Intelligent Robotic Process Automation Is Not Your Average Top 2020 Trend

Hidden behind the tsunami of expert predictions on the rise of intelligent robotic process automation (RPA) are sweeping changes for the customer and employee experience in every industry. Gartner analysts included RPA as a key component of “hyperautomation,” a major theme they wove into the firm’s top strategic technology trends for 2020. In a recent Gartner survey, respondents said the top…

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Verizon boosts customer service with NLP

Keeping customers happy is key to running a successful business, but with more than 100,000 inbound customer request comments per month, Verizon’s Business Service Assurance group was struggling to keep up. Each request had to be read and individually acted on until Global Technology Solutions (GTS), Verizon’s IT group, leveraged natural language processing (NLP) and…

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If You Want Your Digital Transformation to Succeed, Align Your Operating Model to Your Strategy

Leaders, revising their five-year plans every quarter, are constantly seeking ways to reinvent their companies and stay ahead of the pack, given competitors of varying capabilities and scale and customers who expect more for less. For many companies, the answer is large-scale global transformation. Eighty percent of CEOs in one study claim to have transformations…

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Why finance is ahead when it comes to business transformation

The era of tech-driven CFO is here, redefining finance management with technologies. Boards today believe CFOs don’t need to be accountants, instead, they look out for strategic, operations-minded finance chiefs as emerging technologies are invading office spaces. Traditional task like technical accounting is becoming a smaller role as emerging technologies such as RPA (Robotic Process Automation) is taking over. …

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IBM blockchain automates contract labor processes

Processing payments for thousands of contractors is an onerous task large enterprises grapple with as they hire outsiders for technical and business services. IBM licked this challenge using blockchain software to curb the costs and time it takes to process invoices generated by contingent labor workers. IBM’s Contingent Labor on IBM Blockchain automatically tracks time…

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