Manufacturing Hub

In this special ProveIt edition of Manufacturing Hub, Vlad Romanoff and Dave Griffith sit down with Amy Williams from Skellig Automation to unpack Enterprise C, a life sciences virtual factory built to look and feel like the reality inside many regulated facilities today. If you work around batch processes, compliance, historian projects, electronic batch records, or industrial data architecture, this conversation is a practical walkthrough of what it actually takes to turn raw signals into a story you can defend, improve, and scale. Amy has spent years working exclusively in life sciences manufacturing, starting deep in DeltaV automation for batch pharma and moving into digital transformation projects that focus on open architectures, modern data pipelines, and real operational outcomes. In this episode, she explains what Enterprise C is simulating, why it was designed as an Industry 3.0 style biotech startup, and what kind of data and documentation a vendor would have to wrestle with in the real world. The factory is producing a fictional enzyme using a fed batch fermentation process, and the UNS publishes realistic one second resolution batch data across four pieces of single use equipment including a mixer, a bioreactor, a chromatography skid, and a TFF skid. One of the most valuable parts of this episode is the reminder that data sitting in an MQTT broker is not inherently valuable. The value comes when the data is contextualized enough that different teams can use it without tribal knowledge, and when the resulting traceability helps you answer the questions that matter in life sciences. What happened during the batch, what changed compared to previous runs, what went out of spec, what documentation proves compliance, and what you should do next time to avoid losing a batch that can cost millions. Amy also explains why Enterprise C intentionally includes uncontextualized tags and paper files, because that is exactly where many facilities still are. The hard part is not connecting a sensor, the hard part is governance, agreement, and building a model that humans actually follow. You will also hear the crew dig into Smart Manufacturing Profiles and why standardizing information models is one of the clearest paths toward true interoperability. If you are tired of every site, every integrator, and every project reinventing the same pump, valve, and equipment model from scratch, this is the kind of conversation that helps frame why that problem keeps repeating and what might finally reduce it. The ProveIt format forces the questions that most conferences avoid, including what problem was solved, how it was done, how long it took, and what it cost. That is exactly why this conference has become a magnet for practitioners who care about the difference between a demo and a deployable solution. About the hostsVlad Romanoff is an industrial automation and manufacturing systems expert and the founder of Joltek. He has over a decade of experience modernizing control systems, data infrastructure, and plant operations across regulated and high throughput manufacturing environments.Dave Griffith is the cohost of Manufacturing Hub and a long time practitioner in industrial automation and manufacturing technology, focused on practical deployment and what actually works on the plant floor. About the guestAmy Williams works with Skellig Automation and has spent years in life sciences manufacturing, from DeltaV batch automation to digital transformation initiatives that focus on open architectures, data contextualization, and scalable modernization strategies. Timestamps 00:00 ProveIt edition intro and why this month is technology modernization 01:40 Who is Amy Williams and why Enterprise C matters this year 02:10 Amy’s background in life sciences, DeltaV, and digital transformation 03:30 Unified Namespace explained in plain language for life sciences 05:10 What Enterprise C publishes and what you will see in the MQTT broker 07:10 Why UNS in life sciences is about use cases, not buzzwords 10:10 Smart Manufacturing Profiles and reducing data model reinvention 11:10 What outcomes to expect including compliance and golden batch analysis 12:10 Enterprise C process overview from mixer to bioreactor to downstream 14:10 Bioreactor instrumentation and what operators still do manually 19:40 Why Enterprise C data is intentionally not contextualized 22:10 The real work of mapping signals to compliance stories and governance 25:10 What SM Profiles enable and why schema matters before data arrives 31:30 Why cost and time questions change everything at ProveIt 36:10 Cell counter files, batch records, and paper driven reality in many sites 45:10 What life sciences attendees should ask during Q and A 58:30 Vendors the team is excited to see and why non traditional players matter 01:02:20 Where to find Skellig at the conference and what they are bringing References and links mentioned Skellig Automation https://www.skellig.com/ ProveIt Conference https://www.proveitconference.com/ CESMII Smart Manufacturing Profiles and Marketplace https://www.cesmii.org/technology/sm-profiles/ https://marketplace.cesmii.net/ Joltek resources related to this episode  Mastering Unified Namespace https://www.joltek.com/blog/mastering-unified-namespace-uns-a-guide-to-data-driven-manufacturing-transformation Ultimate Guide to MQTT in Manufacturing https://www.joltek.com/blog/ultimate-guide-mqtt-manufacturing Subscribe and follow Manufacturing Hub for more conversations on technology modernization, UNS architecture, MQTT, industrial data systems, and how real factories actually evolve when the goal is uptime, compliance, and measurable outcomes.