TechHub: PPG Is Pittsburgh’s Patent King, versiondog & more

GrayMatter Innovates With versiondog

GrayMatter is co-innovating solutions with versiondog of AUVESY GmbH to help companies track and implement critical device updates and backups.

Our solutions allow technicians to avoid lengthy, manual searches for device update documentation and ensures companies can track when key systems have been changed.

“Companies want an automatic way to handle this,” said Joel Purl, a GrayMatter digital utility consultant. “This technology will go out to a PLC (programmable logic controller) and

do a comparison. If there’s a difference it will grab a copy, automatically.”

The system logs when changes occurred, who made it and creates a precise accounting of the modifications. That allows maintenance supervisors to manage system changes across hundreds of devices and technicians working in the field.

“Technicians don’t have to worry about making a backup, and they don’t need to worry about finding the latest versions,” Purl said.

Dave Geiger, a technical solutions architect with GrayMatter, said when he begins working with a new maintenance supervisor, one of the first questions he’s asked is often about change management.

He said GrayMatter assists its customers with the installation, which is compact enough to fit on a USB flash drive.

And if there’s a system failure, there’s a backup at the ready.

“It’s always comparing the current system with the backed-up version,” Geiger said. “You can have the copy that was pulled the night before or at whatever time restored.”

PPG is a Patent-Producing Machine

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published a fascinating story about how PPG, a GrayMatter partner, is an absolute patent-producing machine with 583 in the last decade, making it the most prolific patent producer in the Pittsburgh region.

“Between 2005 and 2015, individually owned patents were the only category that beat out PPG with 804 in total, according to data compiled by the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance.”

Among PPG’s patents is a reflective “eggplant” coating that allowed PPG customer Southwest Airlines to keep the dark blue color of its planes and reduce the amount of thermal energy absorption. The solution dropped the amount of energy (and money) it needed to spend on air-conditioning to cool airplane cabins.

It also notes the major benefits that companies that go after patents can enjoy, “A 2016 report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found companies that apply for patents have 35 times more growth potential than those that do not.”

Don’t Miss Our Industrial Cyber Briefing — Denver

Sign up now to attend TMMI powered by GrayMatter‘s Industrial Cyber Briefing Oct. 4 near #Denver.

Sign up here: http://bit.ly/TMMICyber

GrayMatter cyber lead Scott Christensen will take you through the anatomy of an operational attack and discuss how firms can mitigate #cybersecurity risks.

More details here.

Topics the cyber briefing will cover:

• Building and developing maturity into a OT Cyber Security Program

• Anatomy of an Attack

• History of Industrial Control System Attacks

• Identifying Risk and Modeling attacks against an OT environment (Cyber X)

• Cloaking and Segmentation of a Production Network (Tempered)

• Defense in Depth Strategy (Avoiding single points of failure)

Be Our Guest at Minds + Machines in San Francisco

GE’s Minds + Machines event Oct. 29 – 31 is a great industrial IoT conference, packed with customer stories this year including GrayMatter’s work with T. Marzetti Company and Eastman Chemical.

We have several promotional offers, so let us know if you’d like to join us in San Francisco this year.

If you are attending Minds + Machines to represent your company, you can register to be our guest at the conference + our own dinner reception at EPIC Steakhouse the first night: Register Here.