MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY
Globenewswire | April 11, 2023
Volcon Inc., the first all-electric, off-road powersports company, and ElectraMeccanica Vehicles Corp., a designer and manufacturer of electric vehicles revolutionizing the urban driving experience, today jointly announced that ElectraMeccanica has been selected for the final assembly of Volcon’s electric UTV, the Stag. This contract expands the previously announced assembly work ElectraMeccanica will do for the Grunt EVO and Runt LT electric motorcycles.
“We continue to make progress in scaling our vertically integrated supply chain in partnership with GLV Mexico, with frames, panels, suspension components, paint and cure lines ramping as we speak,” commented Jordan Davis, Volcon Chief Executive Officer. “By adding stateside assembly to our vertically integrated supply chain, we accomplish both our promise to keep manufacturing in North America while focusing on profitability and supply chain resilience.”
The partnership provides ElectraMeccanica with additional EV manufacturing brands to assemble in their state-of-the-art Mesa, Arizona facility; while assisting Volcon with their reshoring efforts for the Americas.
Susan E. Docherty, ElectraMeccanica CEO, stated: “The EV market continues to expand and we’re excited that our Mesa facility is playing an immediate part in that growth. We’re also extremely pleased to build on our existing relationship with Volcon and GLV by leveraging our teams’ expertise to bring new types of electric vehicles to eager customers, while we also work to develop our own next generation EV.”
With more than half of Volcon's product line being assembled in the United States, the Company hopes to show its dedication to make best-in-class products, without handing off significant costs to the consumer. Davis continued, “Complex global supply chains, as we know them, existed long before Volcon was established. However, instead of subscribing to the trickle down of common transnational commerce practices, we feel we have an opportunity to show what a ‘trickle up’ model could look like by collaborating with businesses in our own backyard for components that are often sourced overseas. While not perfected, we feel with opportunities like this, we get closer to creating a version where maximum profits are not at the expense of American jobs and maintaining a circular flow of dollars in our own communities.”
About Volcon, Inc
Based in the Austin, Texas area, Volcon was founded as the first all-electric powersports company producing high-quality and sustainable electric vehicles for the outdoor community. Volcon electric vehicles are the future of off-roading, not only because of their environmental benefits, but also because of their near-silent operation, which allows for a more immersive outdoor experience.
Volcon's 2023 vehicle roadmap includes both motorcycles and UTVs hitting the market in North America. Its first product, the innovative Grunt, has been shipping to customers since late 2021 and combines a fat-tired physique with high-torque electric power and a near-silent drive train. Volcon just announced the launch of the Grunt EVO, an evolution of the original Grunt with a belt drive, an improved suspension and seat. Volcon also just announced the launch of the Runt LT, which is a fun-sized version of the groundbreaking Grunt, is better suited for small statured riders, more compact properties and trails, or as a pit bike at race events, while still delivering robust off-road capabilities. The Brat is Volcon’s first foray into the wildly popular eBike market for both on road and off-road riding and is currently being delivered to dealers across North America. Volcon is also launching and currently delivering the Volcon youth line of dirt bikes for younger riders between the ages of 4 to 11. Volcon recently launched the Stag and entered the rapidly expanding UTV market. The Stag empowers the driver to explore the outdoors in a new and unique way that gas-powered UTVs cannot. The Stag offers the same thrilling performance of a standard UTV without the noise (or pollution), allowing the driver to explore the outdoors with all their senses.
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MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY
Businesswire | April 26, 2023
MCA Connect, LLC, an award-winning Microsoft Manufacturing and Supply Chain Partner, announced today its acquisition of Pervicta, LLC, a Dallas, Texas based data consultancy specializing in Data Strategy and AI/Machine Learning.
Pervicta employs a seasoned team of data experts with deep expertise in building IP and providing consulting services to help companies turn their data into a strategic asset. “Now more than ever, data is at the heart of every customer conversation. The manufacturing industry has seen significant change over the past few years,” said Claude Watson, MCA Connect CEO. “Welcoming Pervicta to our team means we can reach more customers and bring increased AI/Machine Learning capabilities to help solve increasingly complex manufacturing challenges.”
“Joining forces with MCA Connect enables us to expand our reach and bring advanced data capabilities to manufacturing companies seeking to optimize operations and improve business outcomes,” said James Roberts, CEO of Pervicta.
The acquisition of Pervicta is a significant step in MCA Connect’s commitment to modern manufacturing, the Microsoft Cloud, and manufacturing excellence. The launch of the modern analytics platform MCA Connect Inspire Platform™, coupled with the acquisition of Pervicta enhances the breadth of manufacturing intelligence capabilities MCA Connect brings to its customers. MCA Connect’s best-in-class data and AI services coupled with industry IP such as Inspire Platform™ help customers become more agile, efficient, and profitable.
Lori Borg, MCA Connect Chief Growth Officer and SVP, Manufacturing Intelligence, said, “Combining the strength of our existing Manufacturing Intelligence sales and delivery teams with the Pervicta team allows us to serve our customers more holistically, continue our growth trajectory, and be in lockstep with Microsoft as their go-to Business Applications and Azure partner for all things manufacturing.”
Ryan Smiley, RLH Managing Director and MCA Connect Board Member, said, “This acquisition demonstrates our commitment to expanding the reach and capabilities of MCA Connect, enhancing their ability to serve US-based and global customers with world-class expertise. We believe the data strategy and advanced analytics capabilities Pervicta brings will further accelerate MCA Connect’s existing growth model.”
About MCA Connect
MCA Connect is a global systems integrator and ISV with specialization in modern manufacturing, the Microsoft Cloud, and manufacturing excellence. A Microsoft Azure and Business Applications Solutions Partner, MCA Connect delivers innovative technology solutions and services that help manufacturing companies improve business outcomes using world-class processes built on the Microsoft Cloud.
About Inspire Platform™
MCA Connect’s Inspire Platform™ is a modern analytics platform providing self-service business intelligence while enabling advanced machine learning and AI to give customers a competitive advantage in Industry 4.0 and intelligent manufacturing. This subscription-based IP delivers end-to-end visibility and real-time curated manufacturing / supply chain intelligence across organizational boundaries to improve inventory turns, fill rate, customer satisfaction, profitability, and sustainability.
About Pervicta
Pervicta is a specialized Data Consultancy offering decades of experience in Data Strategy, Data Modeling, Reporting, and Advanced Analytics. Founded on the belief that data can be an organization’s greatest asset when leveraged properly, Pervicta employs a proven process for business alignment, technical validation, and statistical modeling that leads to fine-tuned models and enhanced performance to create real business value.
About RLH
RLH Equity Partners is a private equity firm focused on investing in and growing distinctive services businesses into market leaders by strengthening their infrastructure and investing in new initiatives. RLH Investors completed a majority investment in MCA Connect in June 2020.
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MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY
Prnewswire | April 13, 2023
Siemens and Microsoft are harnessing the collaborative power of generative artificial intelligence (AI) to help industrial companies drive innovation and efficiency across the design, engineering, manufacturing and operational lifecycle of products. To enhance cross-functional collaboration, the companies are integrating Siemens' Teamcenter® software for product lifecycle management (PLM) with Microsoft's collaboration platform Teams and the language models in Azure OpenAI Service as well as other Azure AI capabilities. At Hannover Messe, the two technology leaders will demonstrate how generative AI can enhance factory automation and operations through AI-powered software development, problem reporting and visual quality inspection.
"The integration of AI into technology platforms will profoundly change how we work and how every business operates," said Scott Guthrie, executive vice president, Cloud + AI, Microsoft. "With Siemens, we are bringing the power of AI to more industrial organizations, enabling them to simplify workflows, overcome silos and collaborate in more inclusive ways to accelerate customer-centric innovation."
Connecting shop floor workers with teams across business functions through AI-powered collaborative apps
With the new Teamcenter app for Microsoft Teams, anticipated later in 2023, the companies are enabling design engineers, frontline workers and teams across business functions to close feedback loops faster and solve challenges together. For example, service engineers or production operatives can use mobile devices to document and report product design or quality concerns using natural speech. Through Azure OpenAI Service, the app can parse that informal speech data, automatically creating a summarized report and routing it within Teamcenter to the appropriate design, engineering or manufacturing expert. To foster inclusion, workers can record their observations in their preferred languages which is then translated into the official company language with Microsoft Azure AI. Microsoft Teams provides user-friendly features like push notifications to simplify workflow approvals, reduce the time it takes to request design changes and speed up innovation cycles. The Teamcenter app for Microsoft Teams can enable millions of workers who do not have access to PLM tools today to impact the design and manufacturing process more easily as part of their existing workflows.
Keeping factories running with AI-powered automation software engineering
Siemens and Microsoft are also collaborating to help software developers and automation engineers accelerate the code generation for Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC), the industrial computers that control most machines across the world's factories. At Hannover Messe, the companies are demonstrating a concept for how OpenAI's ChatGPT and other Azure AI services can augment Siemens' industrial automation engineering solutions. The showcase will highlight how engineering teams can significantly reduce time and the probability of errors by generating PLC code through natural language inputs. These capabilities can also enable maintenance teams to identify errors and generate step-by-step solutions more quickly.
"Powerful, advanced artificial intelligence is emerging as one of the most important technologies for digital transformation," said Cedrik Neike, Member of the Managing Board of Siemens AG and CEO Digital Industries. "Siemens and Microsoft are coming together to deploy tools like ChatGPT so we can empower workers at enterprises of all sizes to collaborate and innovate in new ways."
Finding and preventing product defects with industrial AI
Detecting defects in production early is critical to prevent costly and time-consuming production adjustments. Industrial AI like computer vision enables quality management teams to scale quality control, identify product variances easier and make real-time adjustments even faster. In Hanover, teams will demonstrate how, using Microsoft Azure Machine Learning and Siemens' Industrial Edge, images captured by cameras and videos can be analyzed by machine learning systems and used to build, deploy, run and monitor AI vision models on the shop floor.
This collaboration is part of the longstanding strategic relationship between Siemens and Microsoft, built on over 35 years of joint innovation with thousands of customers. Other areas of collaboration include Senseye on Azure, enabling companies to run predictive maintenance at enterprise scale and support for customers that seek to host their business applications in the Microsoft Cloud to run solutions from the Siemens Xcelerator open digital business platform, including Teamcenter, on Azure. Siemens is also partnering with Microsoft as part of its zero trust strategy.
About Siemens AG
Siemens AG (Berlin and Munich) is a technology company focused on industry, infrastructure, transport, and healthcare. From more resource-efficient factories, resilient supply chains, and smarter buildings and grids, to cleaner and more comfortable transportation as well as advanced healthcare, the company creates technology with purpose adding real value for customers. By combining the real and the digital worlds, Siemens empowers its customers to transform their industries and markets, helping them to transform the everyday for billions of people. Siemens also owns a majority stake in the publicly listed company Siemens Healthineers, a globally leading medical technology provider shaping the future of healthcare. In addition, Siemens holds a minority stake in Siemens Energy, a global leader in the transmission and generation of electrical power.
In fiscal 2022, which ended on September 30, 2022, the Siemens Group generated revenue of €72.0 billion and net income of €4.4 billion. As of September 30, 2022, the company had around 311,000 employees worldwide.
About Siemens Digital Industries (DI)
Siemens Digital Industries (DI) is an innovation leader in automation and digitalization. Closely collaborating with partners and customers, DI drives the digital transformation in the process and discrete industries. With its Digital Enterprise portfolio, DI provides companies of all sizes with an end-to-end set of products, solutions and services to integrate and digitalize the entire value chain. Optimized for the specific needs of each industry, DI's unique portfolio supports customers to achieve greater productivity and flexibility. DI is constantly adding innovations to its portfolio to integrate cutting-edge future technologies. Siemens Digital Industries has its global headquarters in Nuremberg, Germany, and has around 76,000 employees internationally.
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