Greek and Roman astrologers recognized that, with the rise of the star Sirius in the summer sky, they were about to enter a period of extreme heat, drought, thunderstorms, lethargy, fever, mad dogs and bad luck… Today we just know this as the hottest part of the summer and with wildfires burning across North America, the effects are easy enough to see!

But, it’s more than fires that endanger lives. Field Service team members are deployed every day to work in the heat and it’s essential that these workers are protected from the hazards of the “Dog Days of Summer.”

HMI (Human Machine Interface) – is really just the software application that presents information to an operator, or a user about the state of a process, then accepts and implements the operators’ control instructions.

This is usually displayed in a graphic format. But, it's that graphic format, and how well (or poorly) it's designed that can make all the difference. We, the humans as the users are generally visual learners. Which is just one of the reasons why our users love our HMI so much; hi-res, crystal clear graphics right in front of them that are easy to understand and give users the ability to make better business decisions.

The summer catches many of us off guard every year - The sun heats up, the icy cold temperatures of winter are quickly replaced with the sweltering hot, humid, sunny days of summer. We welcome most of the change, but there is certainly one change that comes with the warm summer days that none of us welcome.

Unfortunately, the season change doesn’t simply bring us summer vacations, and fishing. It also brings tragedy. It’s just like clockwork, every year. I can’t explain it, nobody can, but it happens every year with amazing regularity when the temperature starts to climb.

I don’t know about you, but I love the smell of freshly-baked bread. Or chocolate cake. Or cookies. There’s just nothing like tasting hot-from-the-oven baked goods!

More and more of our clients are concerned about their own data security, and rightfully so. Hardly a week goes by without the announcement of some huge data security breach.

And for those who use our automation and remote monitoring solutions, they’re concerned about Zedi’s security—because our systems are connected with theirs. Remember, in the Target breach in 2016, hackers broke in through the retailer’s HVAC contractor. So it’s legit for companies to be concerned about the security of anyone who’s connected with their system.

What if we could help you know about production issues instantly—anywhere in the world? 
What if all relevant personnel got that information in an easy-to-read dashboard at the same time? 
What if that same information system helped valves and pumps self-monitor so they required less oversight?

This blog post has been updated as of May 4th, 2021

Several years ago I was at a customer site and there were two executives who were struggling to figure out if a field they recently purchased was producing as much as they were expecting.

They had over fifty reports in their system, but they didn't know where to look. It didn't help that they had multiple systems and each one had slightly different numbers. Everything this company did was electronic-based and they collected so much data that obviously they had this information somewhere. The big question, though, was where do you look?