---
title: "Blog"
url: "https://mescator.com/blog"
description: "Why the system and the floor disagree, why machine data never reaches a decision, and why nothing we build will ever write to a machine."
---

# Blog

Why the system and the floor disagree, why machine data never reaches a decision, and why nothing we build will ever write to a machine.

September 2, 2026·2 min read

## [The system says it is finished. The floor says otherwise](https://mescator.com/blog/two-versions-of-the-truth)

Every plant runs two records of the same production, both maintained honestly, and reconciles them once a month. That delay is where the variance comes from.

-   ERP
-   shop floor
-   data latency

[Read article →](https://mescator.com/blog/two-versions-of-the-truth)

August 19, 2026·2 min read

## [Your machines have been talking for years](https://mescator.com/blog/your-machines-have-been-talking-for-years)

Most plants are already instrumented. The data goes to maintenance and stops there, so the plant is well measured for engineering and blind for planning.

-   OPC UA
-   SCADA
-   machine data

[Read article →](https://mescator.com/blog/your-machines-have-been-talking-for-years)

August 5, 2026·2 min read

## [Traceability for an audit is not traceability for a recall](https://mescator.com/blog/traceability-for-an-audit-is-not-traceability-for-a-recall)

Most plants can produce the records an auditor asks for. Far fewer can answer which shipped units contain a suspect batch, before the second phone call arrives.

-   traceability
-   genealogy
-   recall

[Read article →](https://mescator.com/blog/traceability-for-an-audit-is-not-traceability-for-a-recall)

July 22, 2026·2 min read

## [A promise date from standard times is a guess with a decimal point](https://mescator.com/blog/a-promise-date-from-standard-times)

Standard times describe an operation running well with nothing going wrong. Schedules built on them are optimistic by a factor nobody measures and everybody absorbs.

-   scheduling
-   throughput
-   promise dates

[Read article →](https://mescator.com/blog/a-promise-date-from-standard-times)

July 8, 2026·2 min read

## [Nothing we build touches the control path](https://mescator.com/blog/nothing-we-build-touches-the-control-path)

Reading from a machine is an integration problem. Writing to one is a safety problem, and they should never be presented as two settings of the same feature.

-   functional safety
-   OT
-   boundaries

[Read article →](https://mescator.com/blog/nothing-we-build-touches-the-control-path)