Burlington, Ontario -- (SBWire) -- 11/02/2011 --In a recent Society of Manufacturing Engineers’ press announcement, the tone was clear: “Everyone knows the issues and the situation, but little is being actively done to fix it, and this forum has a fresh and much broader representation across many parts of industry, and once the forum has formulated its common view it will be the turn of government and others that set policy to listen.....Stay tuned…”

Take Back Manufacturing (TBM) was a theme at the recent CMTS event in Toronto. SME presented a roadmap to take Back Manufacturing. It was shared that North America is rapidly losing prosperity via the decline in this important part of the economy. During the event it was advocated that much more must be done to improve the business environment, improve the focus and approach to better position success within the manufacturing sectors.

According to John Rattray of Memex Automation who supports the initiative, “The goal of TBM is to get Government, Educators and Industry leadership to work closer together to plan the recovery of our declining manufacturing sectors.” Rattray’s firm totally support the active TBM forum of a broad range of technical societies, management associations, and trade union organizations.

One of the ways in which Memex Automation is actively demonstrating the TBM philosophy is to service on the MTConnect Shop Floor Connectivity Committee. Thought leaders from sixteen companies representing a diverse cross-section of the discrete parts manufacturing industry collaborated in the development of the guide. The committee addressed the most fundamental question shop owners and plant managers when deciding to implement MTConnect.

The guide addresses connectivity issues associated with both new and legacy manufacturing equipment; it provides a structured framework to guide companies through the assessment of equipment and the early planning stages of a project.

The foundation for improving manufacturing productivity starts with easy access to data. MTConnect provides manufacturers with a simple and extensible mechanism to connect manufacturing equipment to software applications used to run the businesses.

Memex Automation Inc., http://www.memex.ca, was created to leverage the research and development of Memex Electronics, which was founded in 1992. Memex continues its tradition of serving the discrete manufacturing sector, supplying component hardware, memory upgrades, and visionary shop floor communication technology. Memex products allow a manufacturer to realize the impact of OEE Profitability.