DMC Core Value: Automating to Enhance Technology
With only so many hours in the day, it can sometimes be difficult to get everything done. Sometimes, we wish we had more than two hands, and perhaps even more than one brain, in order to take care of tedious tasks while focusing on more complex issues. Maybe we could take those important phone calls from our doctors and health providers while working remotely and simultaneously doing multiple household chores. While Data Machines Corp. does not have a solution for simplifying life, we do have a solution for simplifying technology: automation.
DMC understands the value of using automation to reduce toil. In terms of the open-source code and innovations we develop, our company consistently develops algorithms that may be automated to help improve the process. As our CEO Eric Whyne points out: “Creating and managing automatic, intelligent behavior is necessary to work flexibly and securely at scale. We build systems that adapt to unpredictable change while simplifying their intrinsic complexity for operators and users.” While unpredictable issues can always occur, especially in a developing system or digital structure, we can automate (and reuse) smaller and simpler commands and processes like categorization and specific analytics to give us more time to further develop the system and address any anomalies. And when these smaller automated commands are stacked to minimize toil, we can use this collection of tasks to automate larger commands.
Automation helps us accomplish the more predictable and tedious tasks, and provides more room to experiment and test for any challenges that may develop. The foundation of our company is curiosity; experimentation is what we do. Automating processes also allows for more work to be done in less time. Take DMC’s Inventory Control Engine (ICE) for example: data collection is enhanced with the use of QR codes, which can contain action URLs in addition to inventory IDs, increasing flexibility in the system.
Our automation principles rely heavily on metrics, logging, and alerting. When we automate, we observe various aspects of a device’s elements, such as the fullness of a system or disk, the speed at which the element fills, and how long it stays full. Automating an alert system to keep track of these aspects helps us to determine what difficulties need to be worked through at the moment they occur. It also prevents our software from becoming a “black box” technology by monitoring all of the system’s functions and keeping track of what is accomplished.
In the future, we see automation as the key to innovation and technological progress in this rapidly changing world. In terms of specific concerns and current events, DMC is currently using both automation and machine learning across a number of projects, including one to detect manipulated media. The prevalence of social media and media manipulation techniques has created an arms race of digital forgeries. Combatting fake media is critical in maintaining trust in an increasingly digital society. Automation in this case could eventually be used to assist forensic analytics in determining and identifying some of the most likely alterations, such as splices and inserts, within a matter of seconds.
For more information on our values and standards, visit our page here.
