Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1528798
8 SMT007 MAGAZINE I NOVEMBER 2024 Nolan's Notes by Nolan Johnson, I-CONNECT007 The Rise (and Risk) of Data Last month, I read about a United Airlines flight that declared an emergency over the middle of Hudson Bay in northern Canada. All the cockpit screens had gone blank and both flight management computers had entered into a "degraded mode with limited capabili- ties." e pilots had lost most of their autopilot functionality, but still had enough control sys- tems to manually fly the plane to a safe landing at O'Hare. is story brought back memories of the cockpits in both SpaceX's Dragon capsule and the Boeing Starliner where nearly all the controls are on touchscreens with no backup instruments. Both the airliners I mention were Boeing 787s. ese examples drive home the point that there are risks with depending too heavily on automation as well as the importance of a properly functioning dashboard. Sure, these types of failures are rare—most thankfully in life-and-death situations—but they do happen. Do you have similar concerns when you're considering a more digitally dependent man- ufacturing environment? Have you, perhaps, even had control hardware failures cause downtime for your facility? In this issue, we focus on the rise of data in our factories, a topic I approached with a fair amount of both skepticism and optimism when considering smart factories. ere is a lot of development, innovation, and potential