Author: Peggy Smedley
We all know the past year has seen many challenges, including ongoing supply-chain disruptions, fallout from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and widespread third-party breaches and security incidents. From healthcare to energy, no industry is immune to the attacks that are happening in our cyber world. New reports dig deeper into the trend happening in many industries today. It’s pretty darn scary, if you ask me. As one example, Prevalent’s new report The 2023 Third Party Risk Management Study provides deeper insights into current trends, hurdles, and programs that are impacting third-party risk management practitioners, which uncovers some current results.…
I have been writing about the labor shortage in multiple vertical markets for many years, covering manufacturing, construction, and even recently discussing the shortage of healthcare staff on The Peggy Smedley Show. Industries that are critical to the foundation of our country will falter if we don’t entice the younger generation to such careers—and the repercussions will be felt wide and far. Here at Constructech, I have even gone so far as to argue that finding the right workers is putting our country at risk. In fact, I went as far as to interview Whitney Jones who leads the Submarine…
Energy efficiency is essential for our homes—and for our data centers. Used to house computers, storage systems, and computing infrastructure, data centers account for roughly 2% of total U.S. electricity consumption while data center cooling can account for up to 40% of data center energy usage overall. Now, the government is looking for a way to improve this, in an effort to make all our communities a little bit more sustainable. To help, the U.S. DOE (Dept. of Energy) announced $40 million in funding for 15 projects that will build high-performance, energy-efficient cooling solutions for data centers. The projects will…
Are you ready to take that next step in your digital transformation journey, but you aren’t quite sure where to start? Well, you are not alone. Recently, I had the pleasure to spend some time with Joseph Msays, global managing partner, EA Managed Services, IBM Consulting. to talk about the digital transformation journey, what IBM Consulting is showcasing at SAP Sapphire, May 16-17, and how companies can take that critical next step. “We have been a partner of SAP for the last 50 years,” Msays explains. “I don’t know if you know this, but the three original founders of SAP…
What is coming next for the smart home? In a few words, connected home charging—something many automotive and technology companies are beginning to tout. But when exactly will it come to a neighborhood near you? Perhaps sooner than you think, especially if the car companies can live up to hype, production, and regulation. We all know EVs (electric vehicles) are speeding onto the scene at rates faster than ever before. New numbers from Precedence Research show roughly 2 million electric vehicles were sold globally in just the first quarter of 2022. Looking to the future, the global electric vehicle market…
Safety is a top priority for many construction companies. And that’s really good news. Safety needs to the be a priority for every company. How can we keep workers safe? One of the best places to start is to look at the trends and the data surrounding workplace accidents and injuries to gain better awareness about who is getting injured—and why. One place to find such insights is the 2023 Travelers Injury Impact Report, which is an analysis to identify trends that can help inform businesses about workplace safety risks. The organization analyzed more than 1.2 million workers compensation claims…
If we are going to have conversations surrounding sustainability, then we must also have conversations around data centers. We all know many large organizations have ambitious targets to meet net-zero emissions by the year 2050. The only way we are going to hit these goals is if we pay close attention to data centers. Traditionally, data centers tend to consume a lot of energy. In fact, C&C Technology Group reports data centers spend roughly 1,000 kWh per square meter, which is about ten times the power consumption of a typical American home. Yikes. Certainly, many in the technology world see…
Are new homebuyers really interested in energy-efficient homes? If we look at the data, then it seems the answer is yes, as more homeowners are often claiming home-related energy-efficiency tax incentives today. But let’s back up a bit because these types of tax incentives for homes are relatively new in the past two decades. If we look back to 2005, Congress began establishing many energy-efficiency tax incentives for housing. The benefits extend to both new homebuyers and remodeling homeowners—and let’s not forget the most important point here is to have a lasting impact on the environment around us. A closer…
The concrete industry is responsible for 8% of the global CO2 emissions. Why is it so important that we look to reduce those CO2 emissions? This was the exact question I asked Tapio Vehmas, CEO, Carbonaide, when we sat down for a candid conversation about climate change and the environment. “We need to do something with concrete. There are no real alternatives for concrete. Globally, we use 10 billion cubic meters of concrete every year,” says Vehmas. “We have to deal with concrete and make it less carbon intensive.” Perhaps we need to first encourage our structural engineers to design…
Manufacturing is changing because of a number of factors, one of which is the invasion of AI (artificial intelligence) into materials. Called materials informatics, this is the application of data-driven methods such as machine learning to the field of materials science—and it is going to change manufacturing processes in the future. Personally, this is very intriguing, as we put more data into manufacturing and information for good. Hopefully we are not talking data for data sake. Let me state this upfront. Sometimes we are our own enemies as we get lost in the data and the hyperbole, but if we…