Blog
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Beyond Kepware: Why Modern Industrial Connectivity Demands a Second Look
Kepware isn't chosen, it's assumed. It appears in budgets like line items for electricity or insurance. No one questions it. No one compares it. It just... goes in.
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FlowFuse 2.26: Bringing access-controls to your MCP nodes
With the holiday break sitting in the middle of this release cycle, it's a smaller release than usual this month.... -
What Is a System Integrator? Understanding Manufacturing's Most Misunderstood Role
Most factories don't get built all at once. They evolve. Someone buys a robot in 2018. A conveyor system gets... -
Integrating Git within Node-RED Workflow with FlowFuse
If you've been using Node-RED in production, you already know the pain points. Flows get complex. Teams grow. Someone makes... -
Mean Time to Failure (MTTF): Formula, Calculation, MTTF vs MTBF vs MTTR, and More
When a critical motor bearing assembly fails after just 6 months—half its rated lifespan—maintenance teams face a fundamental question: "How... -
What Is a PLC (Programmable Logic Controller)? What It Does, How It Works, and Where It’s Used
A PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) is an industrial computer that continuously monitors sensors, executes control logic, and operates motors, valves,... -
Five Whys Root Cause Analysis: Definition, Steps & Examples (2026)
The Five Whys is a root cause analysis technique where you ask "why" repeatedly—typically five times—until you identify the underlying... -
What is TEEP? Calculation, Benchmarks & TEEP vs OEE (2026)
Total Effective Equipment Performance (TEEP) is a manufacturing KPI used to understand how much of an equipment investment is actually... -
FlowFuse 2.25: Interacting with MCP Resources in FlowFuse Expert, Improved Update Scheduling, and lots of UI improvements!
This release comes with some big updates for the FlowFuse Expert. -
MQTT vs Kafka: Complete Comparison Guide 2026
Building IoT systems means making hard choices about how messages flow through your infrastructure. Apache Kafka and MQTT couldn't be... -
Node-RED Buffer Parser Guide: Decode Modbus and Industrial Device Data
Legacy industrial devices communicate in bytes. Your temperature sensor doesn't send you {"temp": 23.5} - it sends you [1, 3,... -
How to Access Optimized Data Blocks in TIA Portal (S7-1200/1500)
When working with Siemens S7-1200 and S7-1500 PLCs, you’ll notice that TIA Portal creates optimized data blocks by default. Unlike... -
How to Optimize Industrial Data Communication with Protocol Buffers
You're generating terabytes of sensor data every day. Most of it is waste, I mean.. Not the measurements—those are fine. It's... -
How to Protect Your Factory From Bad Data: A Must-Have Read for IIoT
Bad data quietly corrupts production analytics, triggers false equipment alarms, and causes automation systems to make faulty control decisions. Unlike... -
Store-and-Forward at the Edge: Buffering Production Data During Network Outages
Network outages happen. A fiber cut, a switch failure, or infrastructure maintenance can take your connectivity offline without warning. When... -
FlowFuse 2.24: FlowFuse Expert in the Node-RED Editor, Scheduled Updates, Simpler Edge Device Addition, Store and Forward Blueprint, and what's next!
This release unlocks several new abilities for our users, speeding your development time, easing management of Node-RED instances, providing a... -
Building a Web HMI for Factory Equipment Control
Most factory HMIs are still stuck in one place. Dedicated panels mounted next to equipment, or SCADA workstations in the... -
FlowFuse + LLM + MCP = Text Driven Operations
In industrial operations it's all about getting more out of the CAPEX already spent. Achieving higher efficiency means everyone needs to... -
Building a Label Scanner with FlowFuse for Product Labels & Serial Numbers
In production environments, labels are everywhere! Products have Serial Numbers and Lot Codes, Packages have Batch IDs and Dates. These...
