A Step-by-Step Guide to Auditing Your Control Cabinet for Rework Risks How to Find the Problems Before They Find You By Connectivity Colin It is a familiar story for anyone on a plant floor. A critical packaging machine grinds to a halt, the line stops, and the pressure mounts. After a frantic scramble, the culprit is found: a single loose wire in a control cabinet, a connection that looked fine but failed […]
Industry Articles
The Connectivity Blog
Practical insight on industrial connectivity, machine design, and the business of packaging automation. Free, because I believe good information should not be locked behind a paywall.
The Hidden Costs of Tribal Knowledge in Your Maintenance Department
The Hidden Costs of Tribal Knowledge in Your Maintenance Department When the Person Who Knows the Machine Walks Out the Door By Connectivity Colin Why relying on a few key individuals is a ticking time bomb for your plant Every plant has them: the seasoned veterans, the folks who know every quirk of every machine, the ones you call when something goes sideways and no one else can figure it out. They […]
Terminal Blocks vs. Connectors: A Practical Cost-Benefit Analysis
Most of the electrical teams at packaging machine builders I have visited can tell you the cost of a terminal block compared to an M12 connector. Very few can tell you what that same terminal block costs when a machine goes down at 2 a.m., and the maintenance tech on shift does not have access to an up-to-date wiring diagram. That gap between component price and total cost is where the real […]
How to Slay the Electrical Downtime Dragon: A Guide for Plant Managers
How to Slay the Electrical Downtime Dragon: A Guide for Plant Managers The Fault Is Rarely Where You Think It Is. Here Is How to Find It Faster and Stop It Coming Back. By Connectivity Colin Every plant manager knows the feeling. The line goes down. The maintenance team scrambles. The production schedule starts to slip. And somewhere in the machine, buried inside a cable tray or tucked behind a panel, there […]
Decentralized I/O: The Secret to Simpler, Cleaner Machine Designs
Decentralized I/O: The Secret to Simpler, Cleaner Machine Designs The Way You Wire Your Machine Is Just as Important as What You Wire Into It By Connectivity Colin There is a moment on almost every machine startup that every controls engineer knows well. You are standing in front of a cabinet that looks like the inside of a telephone exchange from 1987. Hundreds of wires. Dozens of terminal blocks. Cable bundles so […]
The Top 6 Reasons Your Machine Startups Are Taking Too Long
The Top 6 Reasons Your Machine Startups Are Taking Too Long And the Electrical Reality Most Teams Overlook By Connectivity Colin If you’ve worked on machine startups before, then you will recognize this familiar scene. The PLC is powered up. The program is loaded. The drives are configured. And yet the machine still refuses to run properly. A sensor will not trigger. A drive faults intermittently. An axis moves once and then […]