Monthly Archives: July 2021

Tampa, FL, July 14, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In a post-COVID world, businesses have been forced to re-evaluate how they operate. From paying bills to processing sales orders and managing the ever-increasing inflow of documents, enterprise companies are looking for efficient and cost-effective ways to get a handle on their daily workload.

The goal: simplify and automate business processes, comply with industry regulations and business rules, and streamline error-prone processes while reducing costs. With Enterprise Content Management (ECM), reaching new levels of productivity, whether remote or in-office, is simple.

For Infor (BPCS/LX, MAPICS/XA, LN, PRMS) customers with complex business processes, that means implementing a solution that fits the way you work, and not the other way around. In this session, you will explore IntelliChiefs proven playbook for streamlining operations and improving management visibility into performance. This session will help you understand savings gained from digital transformation that combines people, processes, and technology.

Register: https://www2.intellichief.com/Infor07212021

Our playbook will help you gain a better understanding of the end-to-end use cases for business process automation in various areas of your organization, including of Accounts Payable, Sales Order Processing, Fulfillment, Accounts Receivable and Human Resources, among others.

Understand how you can streamline processes for AP Automation with:

See how Infor sales order automation can reduce the time to process an order and manual entry errors:

You will also learn how ECM improves audit compliance for any business process and reduces costs associated with paper handling, including retrieval time from filing cabinets, copying documents, finding lost/misplaced documents, and maintaining physical paper storage cabinets

Join us for Process Automation Playbook: Infor Accounts Payable, Sales Orders, and Beyond to see first-hand how IntelliChiefs ECM solution can be leveraged across your organization to simplify and improve how you do business.

Register: https://www2.intellichief.com/Infor07212021

About IntelliChief

IntelliChiefis the emerging leader in Enterprise Content Management (ECM), Accounts Payable Automation, and Sales Order Automation. Leveraging advanced OCR, powerful workflows, document management, and analytics, IntelliChief eliminates manual processes and automates repetitive, time-consuming tasks to help businesses secure a decisive competitive advantage.

As a trusted Infor Solution Partner, IntelliChief is recognized for its robust, configurable solutions and secure integrations with ERP systems and applications. Hundreds of customers in every industry depend on IntelliChief as a strategic partner to help them digitize documents, standardize business processes, and automate Accounts Payable, Sales Orders, Human Resources, and more.

The IntelliChief team is committed to serving our customers, community, and country by guiding them throughDigital Transformationand exemplifying what is possible with an ardent dedication to innovation and progress.

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For more information, visithttps://www.intellichief.com/.

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People. Processes. Technology. Together. Explore IntelliChief's Proven Playbook for Automating Accounts Payable and Order Processing With -...

Insider Monkey has processed numerous 13F filings of hedge funds and successful value investors to create an extensive database of hedge fund holdings. The 13F filings show the hedge funds' and successful investors' positions as of the end of the fourth quarter. You can find articles about an individual hedge fund's trades on numerous financial news websites. However, in this article we will take a look at their collective moves over the last 6 years and analyze what the smart money thinks of Rockwell Automation Inc. (NYSE:ROK) based on that data.

Is ROK a good stock to buy? Rockwell Automation Inc. (NYSE:ROK) has seen a decrease in enthusiasm from smart money in recent months. Rockwell Automation Inc. (NYSE:ROK) was in 26 hedge funds' portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic is 50. Our calculations also showed that ROK isn't among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings).

So, why do we pay attention to hedge fund sentiment before making any investment decisions? Our research has shown that hedge funds' small-cap stock picks managed to beat the market by double digits annually between 1999 and 2016, but the margin of outperformance has been declining in recent years. Nevertheless, we were still able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 115 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). We have been able to outperform the passive index funds by tracking the moves of corporate insiders and hedge funds, and we believe small investors can benefit a lot from reading hedge fund investor letters and 13F filings.

Gavin Saitowitz of Prelude Capital

Gavin Saitowitz of Prelude Capital

At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, economists warn of inflation flare up. So, we are checking out this backdoor gold play that has hit peak gains of 718% in a little over a year. We go through lists like the 10 best battery stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our homepage. Keeping this in mind we're going to view the new hedge fund action surrounding Rockwell Automation Inc. (NYSE:ROK).

Story continues

At the end of the first quarter, a total of 26 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of -26% from the fourth quarter of 2020. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards ROK over the last 23 quarters. With hedge funds' capital changing hands, there exists an "upper tier" of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings significantly (or already accumulated large positions).

The largest stake in Rockwell Automation Inc. (NYSE:ROK) was held by Impax Asset Management, which reported holding $167.2 million worth of stock at the end of December. It was followed by AQR Capital Management with a $51.4 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included PEAK6 Capital Management, GAMCO Investors, and Markel Gayner Asset Management. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Heathbridge Capital Management allocated the biggest weight to Rockwell Automation Inc. (NYSE:ROK), around 4.03% of its 13F portfolio. Jade Capital Advisors is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 3.7 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to ROK.

Due to the fact that Rockwell Automation Inc. (NYSE:ROK) has witnessed falling interest from the smart money, it's easy to see that there exists a select few hedge funds that elected to cut their full holdings last quarter. Intriguingly, Seth Rosen's Nitorum Capital dumped the largest position of the "upper crust" of funds tracked by Insider Monkey, worth about $54.8 million in stock, and Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell's Arrowstreet Capital was right behind this move, as the fund dropped about $38.5 million worth. These transactions are important to note, as aggregate hedge fund interest dropped by 9 funds last quarter.

Let's now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Rockwell Automation Inc. (NYSE:ROK). These stocks are Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE:DAL), Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR), Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX), Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:IBKR), Public Service Enterprise Group Incorporated (NYSE:PEG), Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd (NYSE:CHT), and SBA Communications Corporation (NASDAQ:SBAC). This group of stocks' market caps resemble ROK's market cap.

[table] Ticker, No of HFs with positions, Total Value of HF Positions (x1000), Change in HF Position DAL,50,1099712,-8 NTR,33,895159,8 XLNX,57,3581332,-9 IBKR,31,1456604,3 PEG,24,287434,-4 CHT,3,153173,-2 SBAC,38,2090468,-5 Average,33.7,1366269,-2.4 [/table]

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 33.7 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1366 million. That figure was $442 million in ROK's case. Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd (NYSE:CHT) is the least popular one with only 3 bullish hedge fund positions. Rockwell Automation Inc. (NYSE:ROK) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for ROK is 32.9. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. This is a slightly negative signal and we'd rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. Our calculations showed that top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 24% in 2021 through July 9th and surpassed the market again by 6.7 percentage points. Unfortunately ROK wasn't nearly as popular as these 5 stocks (hedge fund sentiment was quite bearish); ROK investors were disappointed as the stock returned 10.1% since the end of March (through 7/9) and underperformed the market. If you are interested in investing in large cap stocks with huge upside potential, you should check out the top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds as most of these stocks already outperformed the market in 2021.

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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.

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Is Rockwell Automation Inc. (ROK) A Good Stock To Buy? - Yahoo Finance

Four years ago in Mountain View, California, a team of robots was cranking out pizzas on a production line that was almost fully automated. The first robot pressed a ball of dough into a flat circle, a second squirted tomato sauce onto it, and a third spread the sauce over the whole crust. Then a human stepped in to add the toppings, but a fourth robot put the pizzas in the oven and a fifth sliced them up when they were done.

That operation, called Zume Pizza, has since discontinued its pizza-making operations and shifted its focus to systems for food packaging, production, and delivery. But the idea of robots taking over repetitive food preparation work has only gained traction, especially in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. A restaurant in Paris has taken Zumes idea to a whole new level of automation, with robots in charge from start to finish.

At Pazzi Pizzeriaor, as the owners are calling it, Pazziriacustomers place their orders on screens at self-service terminals, then they can watch a team of robots working in concert to deliver up their pizza. In fact, the spectacle seems as important as the food; a sign outside the restaurant encourages passerby to Come for the show, stay for the pizza.

The show starts with a robot grabbing a handful of dough and depositing it on a pan, where another bot flattens it, a third applies tomato sauce, etc. From dough-grabbing to inserting in the oven, preparing a pizza takes just 45 seconds. The oven can bake 6 pizzas at a time, yielding about 80 pizzas per hour. Once a pizza is baked to gooey perfection, a robot slices it and places it in a box, and its then transferred (by a robot, of course) to a numbered cubby from which the customer can retrieve it.

Its a shame the pizzeria didnt open during the height of the pandemic, as its revenues likely would have gone through the roof given that theres zero person-to-person contact required for you to get a fresh, custom-made pizza in your hands (and more importantly, your belly!).

Pazzis creators spent eight years researching and developing the pizza bots, and they say the hardest part was getting the bots to work effectively with the raw dough. Since its made with yeast, the dough is sensitive to changes in temperature, humidity, and other factors, and for optimal results it needs to be rolled out and baked with very precise timing.

Its a very fast process, the timing is perfectly controlled, and quality is assured because the robots are consistent, said Pazzi co-founder Sebastien Roverso. He added that engineers monitor the bots remotely, and if needed they can take control of them and fix any issues.

Despite the savings on employee training and labor that the robots bring to Pazzi, its prices are about on par with what youd expect from a traditional counter-service fast casual restaurant, ranging from 7 to 14 euros for a pizza that feeds 1 to 2 people.

Pazzis Paris restaurant opened last week, and the company plans to expand internationally, starting with Switzerland next year. As the companys website explains, Pazzi isnt just a rearrangement of the word pizza; its also the plural of the Italian noun pazzo, which translates as crazy, and can be used to refer to people supporting or building an audacious project.

Pazziria may have seemed a bit crazy when the idea was first conceived of years ago, but now its seeming downright logical. Restaurants are experiencing a massive staffing shortage post-pandemic, with many of the workers who were laid off, quit, or were furloughed showing little interest in returning to their jobs, often because theyve moved to new geographic locations.

Thus, just as the pandemic accelerated other tech trendsincluding automation, e-commerce, and remote workit seems likely to give robotic food service a forward push. Whether this will fill much-needed gaps in the labor market or end up displacing workers who need jobs remains to be seen, but my guess is that Pazzi will soon have plenty of competition for robot-run restaurants. The biggest outstanding question is, hows the pizza?

Image Credit: Pazzi

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Watch Robots Make Pizzas From Start to Finish at an Automated Pizzeria - Singularity Hub

A Brief History of Automation in Architecture

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Efficiency in theconstructionsite by reducing waste and lowering costs,improving safety through better planning, and introducing machines to assist in the construction and design process. These benefits can be achieved through automation in architecture, but for technology to reach this point of empowering and supporting creativity while also improving efficiency, we have come a long way.To understand how automation developed and the prospects it offers for architecture, here is a brief timeline.

The history of building automation started back in 1883 when Warren Johnson invented the thermostat. Thiscomponentis used to sense and regulate the temperatureof a physical system, and back then, itwas a simple device that responded to falling temperature by activating a light in the boiler room, indicating when janitors should shovel more coal into the furnace to maintainheat in the building.

Mechanization in architecture, however, was introduced through the Modern Movement. Modern architecture embraced functionalism and mass-production and has had a major influence on the way we think about technology in architecture to this day. With the effects of the Marshall Plan and economic stability in the post-war context, construction was boosted by developmentalism and housing policies, which resulted in an increasing number of buildings with automation systems, most notably the Seagram Building, built in 1958. At the same time, futuristic avant-garde groups such as ArchiGram and the Japanese Metabolists started to emerge with their proposals envisioning different ways to experience life and the built environment through the possibilities of technology applied to architecture.

Up until the 1970s and 1980s, almost all controls (thermostats and valves) and even central control stations for large commercial buildings continued to be hydraulic and pneumatic, but automated control systems improved over the years andbegan to be revised with the advent of digital computers. At the same time, cybernetic theories were introduced, and soon, the paradoxical concept of "Smart Buildings" emerged in the United States, which meant buildings with any kind of automated management and control system - a distinguishing feature at the time, as technology played a key role in marketing and sales by creating falsely futuristic images of buildings with computerized systems. In this context, building sensors gained popularity for being able to identify and react to heat, smoke, light intensity, etc. At this point, these mechanismswere still based on actions programmed by man, in other words, a system that is not yet capable of learning from the events.

As technology continued to improve, the concept of Smart Buildings started to also focus on the design process, construction techniques, components, and environmental issues. BIM has become more sophisticated, allowing for more practical and affordable designs and a more intelligent construction site.

By the late 1980s, the central computer began to give way toindividual devicesthat would communicate back to the central system, and by1995,with the growing popularity of the internet,the central control automation hardware has given way to cloud-based software operated from any web-linked computer. With inexpensive local controllers with internet connectivity, it became possible to report large amounts of data to central software in the cloud, containingvaluable informationthat the system can use to evaluate and improve itself.This way, issues related to comfort and waste of materials and energy areresolved, leading to amore efficient operation of complex building systems.

With the combinationof artificial intelligence and processes of digitalization and automation in architecture, the industryis now seeing rapid innovation while also enabling more possibilities and more creativity in architectural design. Computational and generative design tools can be used to automateroutine tasks,optimize rapidly,and also create highly complex designs.But the most dynamic developmentis perhaps the digitalization of construction, which has become safer and more creative while also improving efficiency.

Looking forward, we can certainly expect to see more systems in which the digital tools are starting to contact the physical world so that we can confirm that the design in the computer can actually be printed or fabricated in the real world. Using digital design and fabrication technologies, this potential is already becoming a reality. For example, researchers from the Block Research Group at the ETH Zurich were able to calculate and construct a self-supporting shell structure using the minimal necessary material, resulting in an ultra-thin, sinuous concrete roof system with an average thickness of just 5 centimeters. Another group that stands out in this field is the ICD/ITKE University of Stuttgart, with many types of research and constructions that indicate the growing influence of robotics in architecture, as seen in their latest project, the Maison Fibre, showcased at this year's Venice Architecture Biennale.

Adopting digital approaches in architecture will likely lead to more innovation and an even more dynamic field. Automation has slowly made its way into architecture and construction, and from now on, this collaboration can lead to novel strategies, as well as help revisit vernacular solutions, to improve the built environment. What we are seeing is actually a new era of architecture, where absolute precision becomes the norm, allowing us to efficiently build almost everything we can imagine.

This article is part of the ArchDaily Topic: Automation in Architecture. Every month we explore a topic in-depth through articles, interviews, news, and projects. Learn more about our monthly topics. As always, at ArchDaily we welcome the contributions of our readers; if you want to submit an article or project, contact us.

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A Brief History of Automation in Architecture - ArchDaily

End-of-line packaging automation specialist Pearson Packaging Systems and vision software company Plus One Robotics have joined forces to offer simpler solutions for complex packaging challenges.

As robots have become an integral part of manufacturing, and distribution and warehouse automation, the extent of what can be automated often hinges on how well the robot sees and interprets the data. Vision software specialist, Plus One Robotics, uses 3D cameras to identify the three-dimensional geometric surfaces, edges, and corners of products and determines size, shape, height and location in real-time. The integration of machine learning also often referred to as artificial intelligence (AI) further boosts the robots ability to accurately pick when vision data alone is not entirely conclusive. The third layer of operational excellence is a human-led supervision system called Yonder that closes any remaining performance gaps by enabling a remote robot controller to solve exceptions without delay while training the AI to adapt over time.

For the first application, Pearson Packaging Systems is integrating Plus One Robotics PickOne and Yonder software into its depalletising cell to enable handling of mixed or rainbow pallets. Until now, this task could not be addressed efficiently because reflective or newly introduced cases would cause frequent stoppages that required manual intervention resulting in substantial downtime and lack of labour savings. PickOne, on the other hand, scans the pallet layers to determine optimal pick positions. If vision data is inconclusive, the system consults its continuously growing library of AI data. And if neither of those result in a high enough pick confidence, PickOne automatically generates a Yonder request to call in human intervention.

The partnership is an exciting opportunity to automate increasingly complex tasks with consistency and simplicity for reliable throughput, said Michael Senske, President & CEO of Pearson Packaging Systems. Since we are nowhere near replacing humans with the ability to think, reason and learn, supervised autonomy gives us the ability to handle tasks such as sorting random, overlapping or overhanging products or introducing new SKUs without programming in an efficient way.

AI-Driven vision is particularly beneficial in warehouse, e-commerce fulfilment and distribution centres that handle a multitude of SKUs. Manufacturers offering popular party mixes or variety packs are also increasingly interested in improving their efficiencies with the help of AI and vision-powered automation.

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Non-uniform automation challenges addressed by Pearson and Plus One Robotics - Logistics Manager

We cant be the most sustainable company in the world if we dont work on the worlds biggest sustainability challenges, says Travis Graham, international account manager at Schneider Electric. Schneider provides a vast array of digital technologies to multiple sectors, including horticulture. However, the company recently decided to strategically address the indoor farming segment and partner with growers to improve energy efficiencies within the sector.

As a global specialist in energy management and automation, Schneiders goal is to empower the global population to improve their energy and resource use efficiency. This purpose, coined Life is On, aligns strongly with the spirit of indoor agriculture whose goal is to produce food and medicinal crops in an environmentally sustainable manner.

Named the worlds most sustainable company in 2021 by Corporate Knights, Schneider holds sustainability at its core and uses its century-long experience in energy management to help growers improve the energy efficiency of their facilities.

There is a lot of Schneider equipment in all of these facilities whether people realize it or not, especially when it comes to solutions around electrical distribution packaging, automation and OEMs. But when we examined the indoor farming industry deeper, we quickly realized that while crop production techniques were very advanced, they were often inefficient in terms of energy, explains Travis.

Opportunities in indoor farmingAs Travis explains, Schneider has identified three major opportunities for improvement within the indoor farming industry. Firstly, the strategic use of capital investment for larger ROIs and more efficient total cost of ownership. For example, financing models like energy as a service (EaaS) can be used to convert capital costs into operational expenditures.

Secondly, the deployment of technologies to manage energy more intelligently. Schneider helps growers gain better visibility over their energy consumption and improve data analytics to facilitate energy management and cost avoidance.

Lastly, embracing digitization and harmonizing independent technologies. Indoor farms are operated by numerous systems, often from different providers which can make system integration challenging and create blind spots within the system. Schneider helps growers harmonize these systems.

These three strategies can help indoor farms reduce their energy costs, which can account for 50-70% of total costs. Reducing energy costs is a roadmap discussion that begins by baselining growers according to their current energy practices and their goals. For existing operations, Schneider conducts a business, technical and data review. For planned facilities, Schneiderworks with the company to ensure that systems will be energetically efficient and profitable.

Energy as a priorityWhile the indoor farming industry is still emergent, account manager Lisa Causarano explains that energy discussions within the industry need to be a top priority, especially as indoor farms across the globe are expanding exponentially.

Many of these companies are in the same position where they have one facility, are looking to expand, and are simultaneously thinking ahead to the next eight facilities. Companies are investing a lot of money into building a good production system with intense energy needs, but how much of that investment is actually going towards optimizing energy efficiency? says Lisa.

She also explains that anyone questioning Schneider's experience in indoor farming can look to the companys 180+ years of experience in manufacturing, which has presented challenges similar to those in the indoor farming segment.

The only reason that we can talk about how to improve our customers operations is that we are also improving our own operations. We struggle with the same challenges they do, such as the pressure to meet sustainable goals from investors. So weve developed technologies to address these challenges and can apply these to other segments, Lisa explains.

Notable partnerships within the indoor farming industry include projects with Fifth Season and Bowery, that have implemented microgrid systems leveraging EaaS to finance. According to Schneiders website, these companies use Schneiders EcoStruxure Microgrid Advisor software platform to manage distributed energy resources.

For more information:Schneider Electricwww.se.com

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Bringing energy management and automation opportunities to indoor farming - hortidaily.com