You Have No Need for a Historian

There are a good many reasons why you wouldn't use a historian, but we believe them to all be inaccurate reasons. Having a historian is an investment, a long term investment.

Think about this: When you're looking for a place to live, are you planning on renting where you live all of your life? Or are you going to buy something to own it? In the first case, you are putting out money each month and gaining nothing. In the second case, you're also putting out money but gaining something in the end. In the long run, wouldn't it be better to find something that was a bigger payment, but you knew would give you what you needed? It's the same when it comes to your business, especially when the product that you are buying will prove your company to be more efficient, leading you to an increase of profits.

When management is worried about controlling monthly maintenance costs (short term thinking) instead of getting to the root of the problems, they must change their focus to an investment of a historian which will show them what is really happening within their process. Instead of constantly putting out fires, correct the reoccurring problems that are costing money. Long term thinking is not for impatient people, you must be a visionary leader. If you choose to continually play it safe, you will get nowhere, and this thinking will only hinder you from acting on things that have potential to make you a better business. Business is all about taking calculated risks."Get-rich-quick" schemes won't work. Don't be a short term thinker! It will hinder you from seeing better results.

"My own view is that every company requires a long-term view." - Jeff Bezos (Founder, Chairman and CEO of Amazon)

Can you think of the problems that are holding you back from being a better company? If you are not aware of your trouble areas, how will they become fixed? Is your company working at its maximum speed and efficiency? Knowing where your specific problems are will be more helpful than seeing that you have problems without solutions.

Don't be afraid of change. It is more productive to have a historian logging your data rather than the "guess and check" method. New, better inventions would not have been created had it not been for forward-thinkers willing to take a risk.

In the end, our point is to say that a historian is only going to help you. Yes, it is an investment, but an investment that will help increase profits in the long run and overall make your company more efficient! 

Canary Labs Integrity

A company’s values start at the top and trickle down through the whole organization. The leadership at Canary Labs has always focused on providing value and quality products to the end-user. Emphasis has always been on long term growth, not short term profits, this is why the terms 'high performance' and 'small footprint' are significant. 

Programming and designing software products is an art. Canary Labs senior programmers were trained in a time when memory and CPU hardware resources were very limited. 30 years ago, programmers had to spend days at a time organizing and optimizing their code. With today’s tools, the philosophy is productivity and there is always more powerful processors and unlimited memory to make your program run faster. Canary Labs engineers focus on effective engineering practices, knowing when to optimize the code versus the productivity of turning out code.

"People may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do." - Lewis Cass

Efficiency is highly important when dealing with time-series data. The design of the database determines the speed to write data, read data, and the space in which to store the data. Canary Labs has specialized in the management of time-series data since the beginning of the company. Historian and trending tools provide users easy access to the data needed, in order to make informed decisions.
  

Another saying here at Canary Labs is that software is never done. As soon as our engineers think they have added all the necessary features, it is probably time to do a major redesign to the software to take advantage of the latest technologies available. We typically see this occurring every 7-10 years with minor improvements throughout the life of a product. If your supplier is not constantly making product improvements, they will be left behind quickly. Another advantage we practice at Canary Labs is examining how the customer uses the product daily, searching for how to make the product more efficient according to customers. Also, if the same recurring questions come up in customer support, the software should be redesigned to eliminate those questions.

We appreciate positive feedback from our customers and often are told that our product provides value many times over while exceeding their expectations. This also means that our work is never done.

Counting the Cost: The Real Price of Data (PART 2)

In my last post, I talked about the benefits of having time-series data. Having the data has the potential to save your company thousands of dollars.  It saves you time when it comes to figuring out problems and it helps eliminate or minimize fines when the inspector rolls around. Now I want to talk about the real price of data. Yes, I have established pretty well that data is important and can save you money, but now I want to discuss what life looks like without the data. There are many instances where companies have regretted the decision not to record the data; and it cost them dearly.

What if an accident occurs at one of your production locations where all your data is lost? All the information about the equipment that was recorded was lost after the accident.  

What was the source that caused the accident? Could it have been prevented? Will it happen again? How can we prevent it from happening again at other locations?

Fines might occur costing millions of billions of dollars depending on the accident and what occurred. The greater the effect on the environment, the greater the cost.

With the Canary Historian, it backs all this important data up on a separate system so there is no loss if a disaster occurs. If this system is in place at the time of the incident, it will lead to answers. A company will know the answers to why it happened and how it happened. This knowledge is invaluable to company and can save millions in future costs.

More and more companies are realizing the big need for big data. This is why they are taking measures to build the security of their companies and utilizing the information that comes from big data. Producing the data does not produce money. Producing data gives you something that is much more valuable, insight.

When you have the data, you have knowledge. Knowledge about the equipment, knowledge about your operator’s ability to run the equipment, and knowledge about how to better run your organization. Problems are solved faster and more efficiently. Insight is given that gives you a better idea of how to run your company and become more profitable. And it helps provide security to the future of your business.

Many companies don’t realize the value of this knowledge. It provides a foundation on which you can base your decisions. It provides awareness to create a safer work environment. Lastly, it gives insight into how to make your company more efficient, saving you money. That’s the power of data!

Have you counted the cost?