Congratulations! You are part of a prestigious and exclusive club! A club of innovators and forward thinkers. A club of manufacturing professionals dedicated to data and the power of analytically driven decisions to make your organization the best that it can be - you are a SAS user. The best part of this exclusive club is that is fully inclusive, in fact the more members, the more valuable the club becomes.

Whether you are a long-time SAS user or new to the family, you recognize that you have a powerful tool at your fingertips. You've already proven to the business that you and SAS are a dangerous combination and no bad decision is safe. But you've got that nagging suspicion in the back of your head that there must be something more. What are other people like you doing with SAS? Is there some innovative technique or that one-perfect-model that will take you to the next level?

Well look no further. A new user group has formed, specifically for people in manufacturing - SMUG!

Available to users in the US, the SAS Manufacturing Users Group is a growing group of users like you who have all these same questions. And what better way to improve your skills than through your peers. SMUG allows you to network, share ideas and foster best practices with other SAS users in the manufacturing industry.

Benefits of being SMUG

• Network with peers
• Brainstorm and share ideas
• Learn innovative approaches, techniques and applications
• Improve your SAS and functional domain expertise
• Build friendships

The group plans to meet in person once a year at SAS Global Forum. Virtual meetings will be held throughout the year on topics of interest nominated by the group. The next virtual meeting is being planned for July, so sign up now to be included. A SAS expert will present some novel uses of SAS Visual Analytics and lead a discussion from the group. Other topics the group has expressed interest in learning more about, include:

• SAS Asset Performance Analytics / Predictive Maintenance
• SAS Event Stream Processing
• Quality Control
• Predictive Modeling for Manufacturing
• SAS Enterprise Miner in Manufacturing
• Reference Tables

Do you have other ideas? List them in the comments below, or even better, join the group and let your voice be heard. Whether you are just getting started or have been using SAS for some time, this is a great opportunity to learn from your peers and hear how they use SAS software in manufacturing. To learn more, or to get signed up with SMUG, please send a quick email to Dana Chitty.