Blog
-
January 26, 2022The control tower. This term might call to mind visions of a literal, concrete structure reaching towards the sky - a hub where people man headsets and switchboards, managing the flow of information and executing decisive action to keep processe... -
January 19, 2022Have you ever noticed that complexity is really quite complex? Yet they say simplicity is complexity resolved. It’s really quite simple. Wait, what? Think about feats of strength or athleticism that leave you feeling underwhelmed. The general r... -
January 12, 2022ThinkIQ is starting a fireside chat series with industry experts Greg Ladd, vice president of sales for ThinkIQ, Doug Lawson, Founder and CEO of ThinkIQ and Jake Barr, CEO of World Supply Chain Consulting sharing need to know thoughts for smart ... -
January 5, 2022Marines say “Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome.” And that’s exactly what the world has been doing since COVID-19 really started changing our way of life in early 2020. It’s incredible to think that early on, we spoke in terms of things resuming bac... -
December 29, 2021From all of us at ThinkIQ, we wish you a very happy, healthy and safe holiday season and prosperous New Year -
December 22, 2021Doug Lawson, ThinkIQ CEO speaks at the CESMII Smart Manufacturing Summit 2021 on "How Smart Manufacturing Enables Business Value". Everyone responsible for supply chain and manufacturing optimization should not mee this presentation which can be... -
December 15, 2021They say, “Take no half measures.” Half measures are actions that only achieve part of what they are intended to achieve and are the reason many home improvement projects, famous portraits of presidents, and great novels remain unfinished. And l... -
December 8, 2021Remember when it was cooler to drive a stick shift? We’re kind of old school and still think a manual transmission should be the only way to drive certain exotic vehicles (does Porsche even make a car with an automatic transmission?), but gone a... -
December 1, 2021Remember MS-DOS computers? Show the C prompt to anyone born after 1990, and they’ll probably look at you like you’re wearing a tin foil hat. To execute the simplest of tasks on your computer, you had to know a whole language of commands. It was ... -
November 24, 2021Don’t you hate interruptions? One moment you’re cruising along, the next, you’re dead in the water. Stranded. All momentum lost. That feeling of being in the zone, fully immersed and focused, is sometimes referred to as the flow state. In this w... -
November 22, 2021ThinkIQ CEO and Industry thought leader Doug Lawson spoke at the American Food Manufacturing Summit on Thursday November 14. His topic was "A Journey to Autonomy: The Future of Industrial Supply Chains" and you should check out the recording her... -
November 17, 2021Want to buy a new car? Good luck with that. Interested in picking up a high-end graphics processor for your gaming computer or crypto farm? Fat chance. Hey, let’s just hope toilet paper doesn’t start drying up from store shelves again. As the ho... -
November 10, 2021One of the greatest innovations in all computing this century is the pinch-to-zoom. Twenty years ago, touchscreen gestures were not much of a problem. Most touchscreens — we remember the old digital mall map kiosks back in the 1990s that always ... -
November 3, 2021Modern problems require modern solutions. You wouldn’t have your Tesla Model X serviced by a blacksmith. Nor would you get your Wi-Fi network installed by a an old-timey switchboard operator. It stands to reason, then, that in matters of mitigat... -
October 27, 2021Regulation is a tricky thing. One’s first instinct may be to roll his or her eyes at the thought of having progress stymied in the name of bureaucracy. And it’s true, there can be a lot of frustration in regulatory compliance. On the other hand,... -
October 20, 2021Career success is a funny thing. Typically, you start out in the mail room. Your prime objective is to sort everyone’s mail correctly and deliver it on time. It doesn’t get much more micro than that. The interesting dynamic is that as you achiev... -
October 13, 2021What’s a modern car without an ECU? A pile of parts that won’t move. What’s a computer without a CPU? A blank screen. What’s an HVAC system without a thermostat? Thousands of dollars of equipment that won’t stop cooling or heating once the ideal... -
October 6, 2021Your senses of smell, taste, hearing, touch, and sight serve a greater purpose. They’re not just for breathing in freshly baked bread, swishing a glass of pinot noir, listening to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, squeezing the Charmin, and... -
September 29, 2021Once upon a time, the combustion engine was a threat to everyday life as man knew it. Somewhere, a resentful stagecoach driver shook his fist at the prospect of him and his horses losing their jobs to this newfangled “horseless carriage.” In hin... -
September 22, 2021How do you feel about change? We fear change. Who’d blame you? The pandemic has been either a catalyst or accelerant of boatloads of change over the past two calendar years, including issues extending far beyond the realm of healthcare. It can f... -
September 15, 2021“Trust the process” was the mantra pushed by the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers when they went through a particularly rough patch in the mid 2010s. During a six-year period, the team managed to win only 36 percent of their games, reaching their lowest... -
September 8, 2021Sports and athleticism sometimes have a tenuous relationship. Sure, there are the freak athletes who dominate their sport: Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders, and Jim Thorpe come to mind, each two-sport stars. But then there are the players who aren’t ph... -
September 1, 2021You are what you eat. Which for some of us, means we are lasso-toting, cowboy-hat-wearing cream-filled golden sponge cakes. Yee-haw. For others, their body is a temple — everything that goes in must be pure organic brain or muscle fuel grown wit... -
August 25, 2021Where would the human race be without software? The concept was first explored in the 19th century for the Analytical Engine, then later theorized more formally by Alan Turing in the 1930s. The first piece of software was executed in 1948 on the... -
August 18, 2021A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. To be sure, this is a powerful, poignant refrain that is easy to fathom when you imagine said chain is only six, even 12 links long. But what if your chain consists of 50 links? Thousands of links? ... -
August 11, 2021In the 1960s, George Jetson showed us the sexy side of the future. We were promised flying cars that could fold into briefcases and robotic maids (top that, Back to the Future 2!). The joke of the whole thing — the same basic joke they used abou... -
August 4, 2021Aristotle is credited as the first to say, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” In other words, if you have the ingredients you’d use to bake a pie in a pile, it isn’t as meaningful as having the baked pie itself. The value of the f... -
July 28, 2021Humans have been imagining the future in a variety of ways for quite some time now. We’ve dreamed everything up, from flying cars to funky clothes to space travel. Another trope is artificial intelligence (AI). For centuries, we’ve imagined coex... -
July 21, 2021Remember your earliest ambitions? For some it was to be the starting shortstop for the New York Yankees. For others, it was to be the first astronaut to set foot on Mars. Perhaps you wanted to be the prima ballerina for the American Ballet Theat... -
July 14, 2021Every great film series includes a few key elements. Usually, they’re grounded in a great first act: the original movie that got the audience hook, line, and sinker — think Star Wars: A New Hope, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Back to the Future, The ... -
July 7, 2021We live in an age of immense and often overwhelming information sharing. The internet, social media, and a cacophony of smart devices have democratized the flow of information so that everything from TikTok dances to lifehacks to the fringiest o... -
June 30, 2021We live in a constantly changing world. Most people don’t buy groceries like they did just 10 years ago. We’re more aware of the consequences of the foods we choose to eat, so we shop healthier. We use apps to help us find deals and coupons on t...
-
June 23, 2021A revolution wouldn’t be a big deal if it didn’t have long, far-reaching effects. The American Revolution was not only the birth of a superpower, but it signaled the beginning of the downfall of the previous superpower, the British Empire. Revol... -
June 16, 2021Back when America Online CD-ROMs, Netscape Navigator, and the tumultuous buzzing noises of a modem connecting over dial-up were synonymous with the World Wide Web, we were told the promise of the internet would be a great free exchange of inform... -
June 9, 2021At the end of the day, everyone is just trying to live his or her best life. Your best life might be different from someone else’s, which is why some people are driven to Steve Jobs-ian business success, while others are just as happy to play vi... -
June 2, 2021A lot of habits were changed in 2020. When you’re stuck at home, cut off from most human interaction, things start getting weird. It feels like a lifetime ago that we were all anxiously trying to figure out where our next roll of toilet paper wo... -
May 26, 2021Not everything is what it appears to be on the surface. A sports car may have stunning lines and exotic accents, but you’re always going to want to check under the hood and make sure that make/model isn’t known to be parked at the shop all the t... -
May 19, 2021When we think of wars in recent American history, the World Wars come to mind, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War. Each subsequent conflict resulted in fewer and fewer deaths. The logical conclusion must be that the human race is gett... -
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...