Blog
May 12, 2021Though we tend to focus in on how much COVID has changed our world, the fact of the matter is, times were already changing. And thank goodness they were because as strenuous as the last year has been on the supply chain, it could have been far w...
May 5, 2021With COVID-19 vaccine injections hitting stride, many people are beginning to see the light at the end of a very long, very dark tunnel. We begin to fantasize about how soon normalcy can return and how normal that normal will look. Do we dare im...
April 28, 2021If you Google difficult recipes, Duck Pâté en Croûte pops up. It’s a time-intensive recipe that can take longer than 24 hours to prepare (“a labor of love”). To hit the mark, one must procure special ingredients, concoct a flaky homemade pastry ...
April 26, 2021Industry 4.0, also known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, merges traditional manufacturing processes with smart technology. This marriage of the old and new creates a more streamlined and efficient system — one that's run on data. The world'...
April 19, 2021It should be no surprise that American Supply Chain Summit 2021 will be a virtual event to accommodate the challenges with social distancing but still provide the world-class access to the latest in supply chain management technologies and best ...
April 14, 2021I’ve got a great deal for ya. I’ll sell you this high-end laptop for $5. Amazing, right? But the power cord — that’ll cost you $3,000. It’s an old trope, but there’s a lesson to be learned. A product is only as good as the sum of all its parts....
April 7, 2021Seeding your lawn isn’t so bad. Basically you clear and prep the soil, spread seed, water, and in good time, you’re mowing and edging beautiful green grass. That is of course assuming yours isn’t the size of the White House lawn. That’s a little...
March 31, 2021Fridges nowadays have touchscreens. There’s an Instant Pot with WiFi. My porch automatically lights up for 15 minutes when I arrive home after dark. Forget those cute yet mildly terrifying robotic dogs, it’s the small creature comforts of everyd...
March 24, 2021Change is as inevitable as death and taxes. Change, in fact, is the driver of those two certainties. If changes in health due to age, genes, and environment don’t get you first, a speeding semi might. And the ever-changing nature of vocation, th...
March 17, 2021Imagine handing a smartphone to a caveman. The leap in technology from fire to 4K video might make his brain explode. But what about someone from more recent times? Imagine showing that same smartphone to an assembly line worker from the early 2...
March 10, 2021The computer age is incredible. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are making possible what we once only dreamed of in TV shows like The Jetsons and Futurama. But aside from robot maids and galactic space travel, the greatest...
March 3, 2021In recent times, the general public has gained a heightened awareness of quite a few new topics that no one would have ever anticipated. Certainly, politics have taken a prominent place in many people’s lives in recent years, regardless of your ...
February 24, 2021Warranty Reserve is a fund maintained by a manufacturing companies to meet warranty expenses. The warranty reserve balance is the balance left after deductions of claim expenses for the year. The accrual rate is usually a fixed percentage of sal...
February 17, 2021Many companies, including Proctor & Gamble have set goals of zero waste from manufacturing. For P&G, zero waste means zero manufacturing waste is disposed directly to the landfill or sent to incineration without energy recovery by the si...
February 15, 2021Evolution is quite a thing to ponder. About 85 million years ago, primates diverged from other mammals, after which over a period of about 20 million years and several diverging families, subfamilies, tribes, and genera, the human form we know t...
February 10, 2021Food waste prevention isn’t just best practice in the supply chain, it’s of growing concern on a national and global level. To wit, Hellmann’s mayonnaise (or Best Foods as it’s known west of the Rockies, and that of Unilever) threw its hat into ...
February 8, 2021In the United States, food waste is estimated at between 30-40 percent of the food supply. Anytime a material balance calculation is done across a manufacturing plant, for example in food production, it may be a mystery why the “gazintas” do not...
February 3, 2021We wanted to give you more reasons to come back to thinkiq.com frequently, so we have revamped and relaunched our website. In addition to the latest ThinkIQ offerings for Continuous Intelligence for Manufacturers, contextualizing data — both in-...
February 1, 2021Remember when we used to buy all our computer software from brick-and-mortar stores? You might have driven to the mall and strolled into an Egghead Software or Software Etc to buy the latest Windows operating system, Microsoft Office, or MacPain...
January 27, 2021The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), the most sweeping reform of our food safety laws in more than 70 years, was signed into law by President Obama on January 4, 2011. FSMA aims to ensure the U.S. food supply is safe by shifting the focus f...
January 25, 2021It seems that the technology buzz du jour is blockchain. If you believe the hype, then blockchain will literally solve every problem under the sun and even technology problems that haven’t been discovered yet. While blockchain does have a signif...
January 20, 2021A long time ago, in what feels like a world far, far away, pizza restaurants promised to deliver their pies to customers within 30 minutes or they were on the house. By the 28th, 29th minute, the suspense was unbearable. Will they show up on tim...
January 18, 2021Statistics show that recalls are a real threat to doing business. A food recall is when a food producer takes a product off the market because there is reason to believe that it may cause consumers to become ill. In 2019, the USDA recalled over ...
January 13, 2021Big data is revolutionizing industries from healthcare to finance, and food manufacturing is no exception. In fact, the food and beverage industry might be one to gain the most, thanks to the arrival of material flow analytics, an advancement th...