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AI’s Secret Weapon: The Importance of Quality Data for AI Insights 

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Quality Data

There are many conversations surrounding the benefits of AI. Two of the benefits often discussed are the amount of time AI can save you and its ability to provide key organizational insights. Unfortunately, many people fail to realize that just because AI simplifies many aspects of a job, doesn’t mean building it requires a simple approach. Using quality data for AI insights is key to ensuring you are getting the most out of AI technology.   Why Quality Data for AI Insights Matters  High-quality data ensures AI models can detect patterns accurately and then uses those patterns to make correct predictions to provide actionable organizational insights. With poor-quality data, you run … Read more

Basic PowerFx Functions Every Developer Should Know

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Basic PowerFx Functions

PowerFx is a declarative, Excel-like programming language, created by Microsoft, primarily for the creation of Canvas Apps. Like Excel, it uses functions and expressions to accomplish tasks with little to no need to specify step by step procedural logic. It abstracts away the implementation details, so the focus is on the ‘what’ and not the ‘how.’  This blog will highlight some of the basic PowerFx functions every developer should be familiar with. Take the following table that lists the items and their cost in a ‘Shopping Cart’ for example.   ShoppingCart  ID  Item  $ Cost  1  Bread  2  2  Milk  5  3  Butter  7  In an imperative language, the developer would have … Read more

Microsoft Sample Solution Gallery: Unlock Innovation 

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Microsoft Sample Solution Gallery

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulder of giants”. – Sir Isaac Newton  Isaac Newton, one of the most influential scientists in history and known for formulating the laws of motion and universal gravitation which laid the groundwork for much of modern physics and mathematics.   Newton is saying that innovation is a process and is often built on the ideas and work that existed before and seldom by isolated inspiration as often depicted in popular television. This type of innovation is exactly what Microsoft is attempting to inspire with the creation of their Sample Solution Gallery.   For those not already familiar, the Microsoft Sample Solution … Read more

Industry 4.0 Adoption – Part 6 

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Alright, if you’ve stayed with us so far, you’ve finally reached the end of this blog series. We’ve spent five articles going over the background, benefits and challenges, components and offerings related to Industry 4.0. You might be thinking, “This is all great, but what’s next?” How does you company move forward with a strategy for Industry 4.0 adoption? We’ll provide some direction for that in this final post by asking some thought-provoking questions.  Industry 4.0 Adoption 5-Step Plan In the Digital Operations Signals report referenced in post one of this blog series Microsoft outlines a simple 5-step plan that some businesses use for an Industry 4.0 adoption project:   Industry … Read more

Industry 4.0 and Microsoft – Part 5

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Industry 4.0 and Microsoft

Welcome back to the penultimate post in our Industry 4.0 series. In this post, we are going to look at how Industry 4.0 and Microsoft helps businesses with their modern factory adoption by providing services, tools and technologies to support the key components we reviewed.  Azure IoT Hub & Event Grid/Service Bus Topics   Ingest IoT sensor data from connected devices and then use event grid to push out the data to be consumed by other services in your enterprise architecture.  Azure IoT Edge   Run cloud workloads on the edge, faster and offline capable, containerized, including the ability to run AI and machine learning processes, custom services, etc.   Hololens2   Augmented reality … Read more

Industry 4.0 Key Components – Part 4

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Industry 4.0 Key Components

In today’s Industry 4.0 post, let’s look at some of the Industry 4.0 key components. Whether these components fit into your scenarios, or you need to consider others is dependent on your business case. For example, you may want to include cloud computing in your solution, but if your factory needs to be able to run in full isolation in the event of a network or power grid failure, then you can’t be dependent on cloud solutions, you need to use edge computing or local cloud instead. We’ve selected 5 components you should evaluate for your Industry 4.0 solution.  Industrial IoT as an Industry 4.0 Key Component Industrial IoT is a … Read more

Industry 4.0 Challenges – Part 3

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Industry 4.0 Challenges

In today’s post we’ll look at some of the Industry 4.0 challenges and risks presented by adopting it, to contrast with the benefits that we looked at in part two. Before adopting any strategy in this area, you should understand these challenges and see how they apply to your own business.  Cost of Industry 4.0 Adoption In part two we made the case that Industry 4.0 adoption will lead to lower costs over time and observed that the return on investment time for adopters was decreasing. Neither of these points eliminate the very real cost impact of adoption. There are significant costs, from replacing equipment with modern IoT connected options, … Read more

Industry 4.0 Benefits – Part 2

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Industry 4.0 Benefits

In part two of the Industry 4.0 blog series let’s look at a few of the great benefits of adoption. More and more companies are increasingly adopting strategic approaches around digital transformation. The benefits of leaning in to new digital tools build on each other to yield undeniable outcomes for companies that successfully execute these strategies.  Industry 4.0 – Visibility  With highly connected devices and a vast amount of data within arm’s reach, the modern factory becomes visible in ways it never could before. Real time monitoring and big data analysis puts this all front and center for everyone from top level executive to factory floor worker, at any time.  … Read more

Industry 4.0 – Part 1 – The History 

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Industry 4.0

What is Industry 4.0 Industry 4.0 is a term that has been around for about a decade already. Also known as the fourth industrial revolution, it’s a term that’s quietly slipped by a lot of people’s radars. A quick recap is required. The first industrial revolution occurred in the late 1700’s with the advent of steam and coal power and genesis of the manufacturing industry taking over from agriculture as the backbone of the global economy.   The second industrial revolution took place in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s with the onset of new energy sources, electricity, oil, and gas, along with process refinements in the factory such as the … Read more

SharePoint Look Book: A Hidden Design Gem 

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SharePoint Look Book

SharePoint Look Book: A Hidden Design Gem In the world of digital collaboration, SharePoint stands tall in helping organizations enhance collaboration and empower teams to create, share, and manage content seamlessly. One of its impressive features is the SharePoint Look Book, which showcases a vast array of design ideas and solutions of modern workplaces.  SharePoint Look Book is a hidden gem – a treasure that offers design ideas and solutions, showing the endless possibilities of leveraging SharePoint for the modern workplace.  SharePoint Look Book serves as a gallery of modern, visually stunning templates and designs built on SharePoint. It offers a collection of site designs, layouts, and components that demonstrate the … Read more