Small, midsize manufacturers must ‘get smart’ in digital transition, experts say
Crain’s Cleveland Business: Nick Barendt, executive director of the Institute for Smart, Secure and Connected Systems (ISSACS) and co-executive director of the IoT Collaborative, weighed in on the new regional effort to help small and mid-size companies learn and adopt “smart manufacturing” using internet-connected machinery. The Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, will be built into a Smart Manufacturing Innovation Center (SMIC) that Barendt will direct. Small and mid-sized manufacturers, he said, can address their technical limitations through awareness-building, education and development of “right-sized” smart manufacturing services.