Monthly Archives: July 2017

The struggling hedge fund world has seen more and more firms turn to computers for the heavy lifting of analytics in recent years. Quant firms have come to dominate large portions of the industry. In the most recent edition of Institutional Investor's Alpha's list of largest hedge funds in the world by AUM, quant firms figured prominently at the top of the rankings. (See also: What are the Biggest Hedge Funds in the World?)

Particularly at a time when client confidence in hedge funds is faltering, many managers are seeing computers as a way to secure the quickest, most thoroughly-researched bets. And yet, there are other managers who are pushing in the opposite direction, recognizing that old-fashioned human decision-making has something to offer as well.

A recent profile by Bloomberg introduces four significant money managers who have moved toward human decision-making and analysis in recent weeks. The report indicates that investment decisions at Winton, a $30.6 billion hedge fund that has a 20-year history of using computer algorithms for trading purposes, must still ultimately be made by humans.

Michael Hintze, a manager of another unnamed fund, indicated in the report that computer models are useful for spotting anomalies in the market, but these models are rarely able to suggest the best ways to answer these anomalies or turn them into worthwhile investment opportunities. Other managers believe that human beings are more useful when it comes to detecting patterns.

Why the sudden deference to human decision-making, which is, of course, prone to human emotion, misjudgment, and more? In recent years, many workers in the finance industry have wondered if the days of human employees are numbered. Some money managers have experimented with automating all sorts of areas of the sector, from securities underwriting to the management of portfolios. What's more, major figures in the finance world and the tech landscape have cautioned that machine learning may usher in a new wave of automation. (See also: Artificial Intelligence Hedge Funds Outperforming Humans.)

Executives at Winton indicated in a letter that there is, in fact, room for automation in the hedge fund industry. Nonetheless, those leaders believe that computers are not ready to make independent investment decisions. They still require humans to run the operations and oversee decisions at every stage. "The notion that human involvement in investment management should, or even could, be fully automated is wide of the mark," the executives wrote.

So how should humans ensure that they remain viable in a world increasingly dominated by machines? The simple answer is that workers should be prepared to diversify their abilities, be flexible in adopting technological partners, and, perhaps above all, be confident that they are very much necessary in order to ensure that everything functions as it should.

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As Hedge Funds Move To Automation, Some Managers Prefer Human Analysts - Investopedia

In recent years, the threat of automation has loomed ever larger over firms in virtually every industry. Millions of Americans now justifiably fear being replaced by a machine or program, including nail-biting CPAs.

In 2015, PwC made headlines with a study that found accounting to be the most likely job to be automated in the coming years. Bookkeepers may find themselves in need of drastically overhauling their skillset, should they hope to remain relevant in the future.

How, then, can a CPA firm survive oncoming automation? By following these steps, you can ensure a lucrative spot for yourself in the workplace of the future, and even exploit the forthcoming revolution.

Move beyond the data

While accountants may find themselves restless with the realization that much of the number-crunching theyre responsible for can be automated, they should be looking forward to the opportunity to automate dull work so they can focus on the big picture.

A professional CPAs value stems not from his or her ability to garner and crunch large swaths of data, but rather their ability to interpret that data and draw conclusions from it. Accountants will remain pertinent to business operations only if they excel at keeping their eye on larger trends, and can offer the invaluable service of translating numbers into actionable ideas.

Automating routine task will enable the CPAs of tomorrow to become data specialist who navigate foggy areas clouded by near-infinite amounts of data. When less skilled task such as banal bookkeeping is completed using software, experts in the field of finance with a history of identifying the signal amidst the noise will still find themselves in high demand.

Prepare to exploit new industries

The rise of automation amidst the continuing information revolution brings with it a whole slew of new industries and opportunities. CPA firms that begin building the foundations of a 21st century business now will be well poised to swoop in and offer their services to new companies and customers as they arrive.

As car companies increasingly devote resources to building autonomous vehicles, for instance, the entire transportation industry is likely to change. CPAs who hope to be employed by companies likely to automate many of their own jobs should, then, familiarize themselves with that technology ahead of time.

Creating an anticipatory organization model, or developing the skills needed to foresee sudden market changes, may be one way for CPA firms to prepare themselves for coming changes. Only after an accountant has become sure of their future can he or she take steps to truly shape it.

CPA firms should become part of the process as their client companies begin making plans for an unknown future. Interpreting huge sums of data to identify changing trendlines in your clients market, for instance, will go a long way toward making your services to them invaluable. By focusing on future performances rather than past results, an accountant can remain innovative and salable to clients.

Find your accounting niche

As straightforward task become part of the realm of the robots, your marketability as an accountant will increasingly rely on your expertise in a certain niche area. Embrace the process of specializing in one aspect of your field, and focus on setting yourself apart from your competitors who will vie for what jobs remain.

Adjusting to auditing logistics of companies that have huge operations but very few human workers, for instance, will position you to thrive in a forthcoming high-demand area with a low supply of professionals.

Focusing on delivering your clients the analysis they need in real time by working closely with new programs will render your services invaluable. By focusing on one company or industry, you enable yourself to become the preeminent expert in that field.

It is critical to begin making this adjustment early. An accountant or firm that waits too long to modernize will soon find themselves left behind in the dust as their competitors snag the latest contracts and opportunities. Rather than compete with the robots, learn to adapt and work with them, expanding your capabilities and reassuring clients that youre worthy of future partnerships.

CPA firms which exploit their human potential will be those best prepared for a future defined by sudden and sporadic change. Accounts wont always be able to beat the machines, but those savvy professionals who embrace them and their capabilities will always be able to exploit them.

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How CPAs Can Survive The Automation Revolution - Accountingweb.com (blog)

In Cisco's weekly security update list, there are three critical bugs affecting its Elastic Services Controller and Ultra Services Framework.

Switchzilla warns its Elastic Services Controller (a network function virtualisation management environment) has static default credentials that would let a remote attacker log into the controller's UI.

The credentials are shared between multiple installations, meaning a miscreant could generate an admin session token that allows access to all instances of the ESC web UI.

There's also a privilege escalation bug: user tomcat has access to shell commands that lets that user overwrite any file on the system, and elevate their privilege to root.

The first bug in the Ultra Services Framework's (USF) automation service has an insecure configuration of the Apache ZooKeeper service, which again is remotely exploitable if the attacker can get at the orchestrator network.

The framework also has a bug in its staging server: a goof in shell invocations means an unauthenticated remote attacker can craft CLI command inputs to execute Linux shell commands as the root user.

There's also a credential disclosure bug in the USF's AutoVNF: it logs admin credentials in clear text, which an attacker can retrieve if they know the logfile's URL.

The same product also has a symbolic link error that exposes the system to arbitrary file read and malicious code execution.

Excerpt from:

Cisco automation code needs manual patch - The Register

Hundreds of companies are trying to disrupt the way we consume, work and move. The economy's growth potential could be higher if smart machines could turbocharge how humans go about their tasks. Higher productivity, or output per hour, would boost corporate profits and may help U.S. workers finally get a pay raise. Here's why that economic nirvana isn't happening just yet.

Vik Singh's company has powerful artificial intelligence software that helps firms hunt down the best sales leads. Getting somebody to use it well, that's a story that says a lot about the U.S. push into automation.

U.S. businesses have every incentive to adopt labor-saving technologies, replacing factory workers with robots and desk jobs with smart software. In some areas, such as finance, machine decision-making is advancing quickly. In others, there are obstacles. Overall, while the penetration of automation in the economy is happening, it is taking place at a slower pace than futurists expected.

Singh tells customers how his system can help trim sales prospecting staff and boost revenue. Managers are intrigued but sometimes reluctant to entrust a high-touch business such as sales to a black box.

"They just don't understand it," says the co-founder and chief executive officer of Infer Inc. in Mountain View, California. "And they don't believe it."

Hundreds of companies are trying to disrupt the way we consume, work, or move. The economy's growth potential could be higher if smart machines could turbocharge how humans go about their tasks. Higher productivity, or output per hour, would boost corporate profits and may help U.S. workers finally get a pay raise.

That economic nirvana just isn't happening yet.

Productivity in the U.S. rose only 1.1 percent last year, and rather than being replaced by technology, more workers are being hired. Employers have added an average of 159,000 new jobs a month so far in this expansion, compared with 99,000 in the previous upswing. Over the same period, investment in intellectual property products, such as software, has barely edged up as a share of GDP versus the last cycle.

"Low labor productivity is the biggest problem with the story," said Andrew McAfee, co-director at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Initiative on the Digital Economy and co-author of "The Second Machine Age," a book about the next wave of technology. "Some of these pretty profound innovations are going to take time to diffuse."

There isn't a single story that explains why second-wave technologies are trickling rather than flooding into the economy. Bloomberg News spoke with several to find out how the pace of technological adoption is proceeding. Here are some of the themes that emerged:

Here are some of their stories:

Social Tables helps companies with event space sell it to planners who need it, while also providing collaborative tools. The Washington-based company started using Infer about three years ago after launching a mobile app that gave it about 12,000 new sales leads.

The event space and planning market is large and varied. Sorting through those leads to find potential subscribers would have been a gigantic human task, said Trevor Lynn, the chief marketing officer. The company also turns up about 3,000 new leads a month.

Social Tables had a couple of choices: Hire an expensive database engineer or many more salespeople to sift the data. Instead, they use Infer, which sorts, queries and offers up live feedback on how the leads are performing. This kind of big-data hunting and vision would be difficult for any human to replicate in real time.

"We don't need as many lead qualification folks," Lynn said. While Social Tables didn't replace anybody with Infer's software, "it definitely shapes your hiring map in the future," Lynn said.

Social Tables is the typical Infer customer a young, fast-adapting company that is looking for ways to use technology to save money and move quickly. "One less person means more decisions in a rapid manner," Lynn said.

Getting more-established companies to use the software is challenging, said Singh, who previously worked at Alphabet's Google. About 25 percent of Infer's customers have been around 10 years or more.

"The biggest bottleneck to machine learning is trust," he said. As a result, finding the "hero CEO" who will tell their shareholders they are trimming a sales team to rely on a black box is difficult. "If we can create these technologies that build trust I am very confident we will be able to leverage that in a new way," said Singh.

From baggage carousels to shifting stages at a rock concert, a motor made by SEW-Eurodrive Inc. is probably the workhorse making things move.

Some of the most efficient manufacturing of precision casing and gearing this German company produces happens in a bustling plant on Old Spartanburg Highway in Lyman, South Carolina. Eighty percent of the plant's production is exported.

In 2000, there were no robots on the factory floor. Now there is one robot for every human, most made by Japan's Fanuc Corp.

The infusion of automation into the plant didn't push out a single worker. Robots added scale. The plant will produce 500,000 components this year, up from 78,000 in 1999. Total staff is up just 6 percent, to 148 people.

The plant is so lean that the humans are having a difficult time keeping track of all that robots need and do. Call it a robot saturation point.

The next big boost in productivity is likely to come from an unexpected place digital information, managers here said.

SEW Eurodrive is looking for a system to feed data from its production machinery into a computer dashboard that gives operators a real-time look at plant performance rather than scurrying around with clipboards.

"If we can make that product a little faster without jeopardizing quality or safety, then we win," said Melvin Story, a supervisor at the plant.

If a robot is having trouble with a line of components, a human can be on the problem faster. If there is a maintenance program coming up, they can do it on time before something fails.

Melding big data with manufacturing is the next step for hundreds of companies, and it is challenging, said Bryan Tantzen, head of manufacturing and industry solutions at Cisco, the networking-technology giant.

"You have to connect these machines to transform them," he says. There are obstacles. Not all machines are loaded with sensors. Information-technology staff can be different from operational-technology staff. People responsible for robotics can view networks as insecure and unreliable.

"That OT/IT divide is a huge barrier to adoption," Tantzen said, and the infusion of new technology into manufacturing has slowed in recent years, partly due to cost-cutting.

Eventually, big data will be a reality on the plant floor, he said, because there is a constant need to push up profits and productivity. "I think it is really about to hit an inflection point and accelerate, and therefore drive productivity."

BMW's Spartanburg plant the largest BMW factory in the world by volume, sprawling over 6 million square feet is the highly-automated carmaker that technologists talk about.

The hype around robotics suggests a world where humans have little input in manufacturing. Talk to BMW managers, however, and it's all about getting the right mix of humans and machines in a world where customization and complexity are big challenges.

Almost every one of the 1,400 X-series SUVs rolling off the line here each day has been custom ordered by somebody. While about 1,600 robots weld, drill and paint auto bodies in steel cages, further down the line the cars are surrounded by humans adding this audio system or that trim. Humans are paying close attention to look, feel, smell, and even the sound of these cars to ensure BMW authenticity.

"You can build a car for months and months, and never build the same car twice," says Steve Wilson, a spokesman for BMW Spartanburg.

If there is one lesson from the team here, it's that robots move processes while humans improve them, according to Richard Morris, vice president of product integration, who has been with BMW in Spartanburg since 1993. Morris says technology is good for "transactional jobs." He adds: "There is something that we call transformation and that is something only a human can do."

"When you put automation out there you are just living in the status quo, but with people you are constantly improving the process and finding ways to make it better," Morris added. "Sometimes it is better to start with people."

Managers are constantly on the lookout for new ways to insert more automation. One recent addition: a small "co-bot," working next to humans that rolls protective foil on a door frame. Having a machine do this simple task several hundred times a day saves time and wear on human hands.

But the company's continuous improvement wall, a display where they show dozens of small refinements created by their team, doesn't feature a single robot.

"I have never been inspired to do more by a robot; I have never gotten any ideas on how to improve something on the shop floor from a robot," Morris said. "Little improvements every day add up to efficiency, and we are adding more cars and we are still hiring."

Excerpt from:

Slow march of the robots: Biggest barrier to automation is trust - The Providence Journal

Whether taking a walk down the hall or hopping a flight to some far-flung destination, monitoring plant operations or large assets in the field has traditionally been an on-site role. Thanks to the emergence of remote access technologies, however, the need to be physically present to problem solve or monitor operations is fast becoming a thing of the past. Despite companies increasing level of comfort with remote access in general, they remain slow to expand usage into more sophisticated areas, including predictive maintenance applications enabled by the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).

A recent Automation World survey confirms that remote access is no longer a fledgling technology embraced by a limited number of early pioneers. Almost three quarters of survey respondents (72 percent) are employing remote access technologies to gain entre to plant equipment and data while off site. Not surprisingly, the same number of respondents have multiple plant locations, which in part explains their interest in remote access technologies as a way to keep tabs on distributed operations. Among those who have yet to implement remote access technology, 46 percent say they plan to do so; the other 54 percent, however, say their companies do not permit it.

Despite a small amount of reticence, remote access technology is not a novel application. About 40 percent of the companies responding to our survey have had remote access capabilities in place for industrial applications for longer than five years; an additional 31 percent have been using the technology for one to five years.

Overall, manufacturers are making more liberal use of remote access functionality, but usage is highly varied depending on industry, according to Matt Wells, general manager of automation software for GE Digital. Vertical market segments such as wind, water, power transmission and marine, for example, are far more likely to invest in the technology compared with traditional manufacturers, which still tend to be more plant-centric. Anyone dealing with distributed fleets has a strong demand to be able to see, manage or control it from a remote spot, he explains. It all comes down to the difficulty of accessing that remote asset.

Going mobile Increased demand for remote access is inextricably tied to the rise of mobile devices, which are now ubiquitous among operators and other plant floor personnel. The whole concept of mobility gives operators the freedom to monitor devices or collect usage data on equipment without being physically present or tethered to a specific programmable logic controller (PLC) and human-machine interface (HMI) on the plant floor.

All [remote access] solutions give operators complete situational awareness to everything thats going on with the factory floor from wherever they arethats whats picked up steam these last 18 months, says Matt Newton, director of technical marketing at Opto 22. It lets an operator virtually be present in their factory without actually having to physically be there to look at the process.

Customers operating a wind turbine farm, for example, can monitor the speeds of the turbines and the amount of electricity being produced, and even perform some basic controls like turning turbines on and off based on market pricing, Newton explains. In another example, a food manufacturer can keep tabs on a refrigeration system remotely to avoid the nightmare scenario of frozen foods melting over the weekend because there was no on-site visibility into the system. All around, the concept of connectivity is tapping into information you didnt have access to before, he says.

According to our survey, the most prevalent use case for remote access is for maintenance, repair, troubleshooting and diagnostic applications, cited by 60 percent of respondents. Production monitoring is next in line at 44 percent, and 26 percent of respondents are leveraging the technology to support manufacturing intelligence applications for plant management and executives.

Though companies are actively embracing remote access, few anticipate an expanded role for the technology any time soon, the survey found. Beyond their current use, respondents said future plans call for putting remote access to work for pretty much the same types of tasks: maintenance, repair, troubleshooting and diagnostics (36 percent); production monitoring (33 percent); and manufacturing intelligence (26 percent). About 22 percent of respondents said they are already maximizing usage of the technology.

Given the most popular applications, the primary users of remote access technologies remain plant operators, engineers and technicians, with 65 percent of respondents saying those positions are involved at their sites. Plant management was another healthy sized user with 37 percent of respondents adding them to the list, while third-party engineers (24 percent) and corporate management (22 percent) made up the rest of the user base.

For the most part, manufacturers are leveraging remote access to deliver more flexibility to personnel and save costs. Two of the primary motivators for the technology are to reduce the time and expense involved in physically deploying workers to a site for problem resolution (cited by 60 percent of survey respondents) and to reduce downtime (53 percent). Manufacturers are also tapping the technology to improve knowledge of production operations and provide better insight into equipment conditions (42 percent each).

One of the primary drivers is eliminating travel costs, says Keith Blodorn, director of the wireless program at ProSoft Technology, which provides industrial automation connectivity solutions. ProSoft Connect is a cloud-native platform designed to simplify secure remote access to automation systems. One of our customers recently had to fly out to a place thats hard to get to, and the plane ticket cost $1,500 at the last minute. They got there, plugged into the PLC, found the problem in 10 minutes, but couldnt get a return flight for three days. That showcases a tangible value for remote access.

In such cases, remote access delivers far better labor utilization, GEs Wells notes. Instead of each plant functioning as a self-sustaining entity with a dedicated staff of automation experts, manufacturers can parlay a single expert across multiple locations. In the case of extremely remote locations, remote access can substitute for dedicated experts to support unmanned operations. As cost pressures increase, local engineering staff can log in remotely and get the data they need to provide relevant advice to fix and improve things, he says.

Moreover, the ability to tap into a remote site to gain access to critical data furnishes manufacturers with a larger data set for analyzing plant performance. With remote access and the ability to bring data up into a centralized data store, you gain greater insight into whats working well and whats not and can start to identify things that arent obvious in a single plant, but that you can see in the context of multiple plants, Wells says. GE Digitals Predix platform is built around the whole framework of remote connectivity, he adds, with analysis and optimization applications built on top, including those assembled into its asset performance management (APM) suite.

Though 34 percent of survey respondents are building their own remote access systemsprimarily web access to SCADA and HMI systemsa growing number (41 percent) are leveraging outside suppliers like GE Digital and others as they integrate expanded remote access capabilities into their product suites. In terms of top suppliers of remote access technologies, Rockwell Automation was the dominant vendor cited by survey respondents with 25 percent, followed by Siemens (18 percent), Schneider Electric (13 percent), ABB (11 percent), Honeywell (9 percent), GE Digital (8 percent) and a long list of others.

Next stop: IIoT-enabled predictive maintenance The bulk of survey respondents have yet to put IIoT-enabled predictive maintenance applications on their dockets. But automation providers are expanding their portfolios in this area nonetheless, anticipating plenty of future demand. Beckhoff Automation, for example, recently released its ultra compact C6015 industrial PC, specifically geared for remote access applications. Emerson Automation Solutions DeltaV Mobile app allows process engineers and plant operators and managers to receive real-time alarm notifications and remotely monitor their processes from wherever they are located.

Moving forward, companies like Rockwell and GE Digital will lead manufacturers into predictive maintenance applications by leveraging remote access capabilities along with predictive analytics tools and IIoT platforms. Most companies starting down that path have high-impact assets that put a manufacturer at significant risk due to downtime, notes Umair Masud, Rockwells product manager for consulting and security services.

If someone has a large compressor or rotating machinery and that asset is critical to the environment, they are absolutely invested in understanding the ways in which they can predict failure, Masud explains. Failure in any one of those areas can have a large monetary impact from a downtime or environmental perspective. In contrast, less complex environments like a food and beverage plant, for example, typically have redundancy built into their production lines, so predictive maintenance might not be as business critical, he adds.

Whether its IIoT-enabled predictive maintenance or more traditional remote access applications for production monitoring and support, security remains the most significant concern and primary roadblock for expanding remote access applications. You are playing with fire when you connect this stuff, says Opto 22s Newton. If youre connecting multimillion-dollar equipment to the Internet, its going to take a lot of educationits still a totally foreign concept to many.

Link:

Remote Access: Widespread but Still Evolving - Automation World

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Robots in factories in the industrialised world are now taken for granted. Jonathan Wilkins, marketing director at obsolete equipment supplier, EU Automation, explores how robotics can also be used to create sustainable solutions and tackle world poverty.

The United Nations has reported that almost half of the worlds population lives on less than US$2 a day. On top of this, another billion people are considered to be living on less than this. Sustainable development that is, development that helps solve the problems of today without compromising the needs of future generations is an important part of decreasing the number of people living in poverty. And it is no small task.

Science and technology go hand-in-hand in solving the worlds problems and robotics and automation are the latest innovations set to tackle one of our biggest issues poverty. The number of people developing advanced technologies, such as robotics and artificial intelligence, to provide creative solutions to these real world challenges is on the rise.

Technological development relies on creative initiatives from companies, entrepreneurs and educational institutes to tackle crises. To solve these global issues, technologists also need to work with the people affected by them to understand the issues at hand. With a clear understanding of influencing factors, new technologies can be developed to tackle the problems head on.

The development of this new technology can draw on a number of innovative fields, such as big data, the internet of things (IoT), synthetic biology, 3D printing, quantum computing and drones to name a few. But it is robotics and automation which are now making waves.

In the developed world, robotics and automation are predominantly used in large scale applications, commonly in industrial settings performing tasks such as product assembly or welding. Personal robots are much less common, as many have limited functionality or are expensive. In more remote and less developed locations, low numbers of personal robots that provide a valuable service could be particularly useful in improving health or agriculture for a community.

In this environment, the robot could act not as a personal robot, but as a community robot performing specific, important functions on a small scale to benefit a group. This type of robot could increase quality of life for local people, and help develop more sustainable, healthy and safe communities. Potential functions include increasing accessibility to healthcare, performing agricultural work, checking the quality of water or solving design challenges.

The reasons a robot could benefit a community are similar to the reasons they benefit industrial environments so greatly robots are precise, strong and accurate. These characteristics can be put to use in different ways to suit a particular communitys needs. Once these have been identified, an engineer can develop a robot with the appropriate characteristics. For example, if it is particularly necessary that the community reduces waste, one solution could be the development of a robot to increase recycling by sensing the contents of different plastics using spectroscopy.

Alternatively, if there is a lack of clean water, a robot could be designed to monitor contamination. In agriculture, communities could use robots to assess soil condition, check the health of plants and animals and cultivate or harvest crops. These are just a few ways that robots could be deployed to increase the quality of life for those living in developing countries.

One company that is working with local partners to develop robotics for health and environmental applications is We Robotics. The company co-creates local innovation labs, known as Flying Labs, to help partners identify if robotics solutions may help to overcome the communitys problems. If a solution is viable, We Robotics works with technology partners to deploy technology for local applications, including transportation and data collection. Technological development using knowledge of the landscape and environment is essential as a part of this process.

Designing the community robot

Robots comprise several components to enable them to perform their specific functions, including sensors to recognise the environment, motors for actuation and systems for intelligent control. New designs can take advantage of existing components by combining these with knowledge of the specific application at hand, engineers can develop new solutions to problems.

If there are limitations to overcome, the designer must take this into account. For example, in some environments, energy may be a problem. To tackle this, a designer can combine a wind-up motor or biogas engine with an automated technology for sustainable use without access to electricity.

Robotic components can also be used in isolation or in combination with a human operator as a hybrid system. For example, using a sensor combined with a human for improved detection or a robot gripper that relies on humans senses.

In developing these robots, education is as important as collaboration. Creative local engineers that are familiar with the environment, culture and challenges can work with either academia or industry to develop the required technology. If this continues, new applications are sure to emerge that benefit communities and provide a useful function.

Robotics can contribute to challenges in developing countries, but robots need adapting to suit niche purposes. Once developed, these could be applied to help tackle the global poverty crisis, one community at a time.

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Automation for sustainable development - The Engineer