Armed with iPads and expanded wireless networks, today's workers are free from the workstation, ready to do far more with far less. And that is a trick that certainly deserves some notice.
In July of this year, GE (IW 500/5) CEO Jeff Immelt travelled to the new GE Energy Storage facility in upstate New York to officially launch the brand's revolutionary molten salt battery line. Just before Immelt delivered his speech on the noisy factory floor, a facility manager pulled out his iPad, punched up the location on the factory map and turned off the overhead fans to clear up the audio.
Amid the fresh, bright white walls of the state-of-the-art plant and in the midst of a product introduction promising to fundamentally change the energy-storage industry, it was that mild trick that captured people’s attention.
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"Things like that always seem to wow people more than the fact that we are able to cram so much energy into a battery cell or transform the industry," joked Randy Rausch, business analyst and manufacturing information leader at GE Energy Storage.
And it’s no wonder.
Wireless technologies are infiltrating the manufacturing environment at an accelerating pace. In their wake, they are fundamentally changing the way factories operate and providing new avenues for lean manufacturing.
Armed with iPads and expanded wireless networks, today's workers are free from the workstation, ready to do far more with far less. And that is a trick that certainly deserves some notice.
