An engineer turned product marketer, Mike has held a broad range of roles in manufacturing, engineering and marketing over a 20 year career. He brings his perspective as an industry practitioner to advocate the application of analytics to solve the most difficult of business challenges. Mike currently serves as manufacturing industry marketing manager at SAS. He regularly shares his experiences and insights in published articles, webinars and live speaking events. Mike earned a BS in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Ohio University and holds an MBA from The Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. In addition to subscribing to this blog, you can follow his updates on Twitter @MikeHitmar and LinkedIn.
Today, we celebrate Manufacturing Day 2015. Manufacturing may not be the world's oldest profession, but it is likely the world's oldest industry. The very earliest characteristics that separated us from other animals is the manufacture of tools. Other animals use sticks and rocks and other collected items to help them
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
Well okay maybe you can't hear us, but at least you can read what we have to say. Although, I'm not ruling out an occasional video or podcast entry. One of the best kept secrets at SAS is the incredible domain expertise that comes to work here everyday, ready to
Recently, I had the opportunity to talk with James Haight of Blue Hill Research regarding the Internet of Things and how it is and will impact manufacturers. We also dipped our toes into other topics, including text analytics and the interesting combination of all these trends. The conversation was captured
Perhaps the greatest legacy that Ford Motor Company’s former chief executive, Alan Mulally, left behind is a culture of analytics. Ford began using analytics in the late 1990’s, but it wasn’t until their financial woes in the 2000’s and Mulally’s arrival in 2006, that analytics started to be used regularly for
After decades of trying to "manage" and "control" quality, manufacturers continue to struggle with consistently achieving quality excellence. To conquer the realities of today's marketplace and achieve quality excellence, manufacturers need to adopt an analytic approach to quality. The basic objective of manufacturers hasn't changed since the beginning - produce
