Ideas

The Knowledge@Emory newsletter from the Goizueta Business School of Emory University is an excellent monthly resource for ideas. There are three articles especially interesting this month:

The Changing Face of the American Workforce

The American landscape has changed. Unemployment rates remain stubbornly high at close to 10%, companies and state governments are being forced to shed jobs, cut services and close schools, while the lack of capital continues to stifle small business and job creation. With daunting domestic problems from a growing deficit to gridlock in Congress, what's the mindset of the American worker? Knowledge@Emory recently spoke to Rick Gilkey, professor in the practice of organization and management at Goizueta Business School and associate professor of psychiatry at Emory University’s School of Medicine, to gain insight into the tenor of Americans during this uncertain time.

Can an Ethical Approach Boost a Business’s Bottom Line?

The scandal resulting from Toyota Motor Corp.’s failure to adequately address life-threatening malfunctions in several of its car models has once more underscored the importance of ethics in corporate decision making. Though the market often rewards quick performance, Paul Root Wolpe, chaired professor of bioethics and director of the Emory Center for Ethics, says that “in the long term, it tends to punish companies that achieve those results improperly.” In a recent Q&A with Knowledge@Emory, Wolpe discusses the effect of ethics on a company’s bottom line, especially in an Internet-saturated culture where the fallout from unethical decisions can be uncontainable.

Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Christopher Klaus, founder & CEO of Kaneva, told an audience of BBA students that despite the gloom and doom they may hear, “It’s a pretty amazing time to be an entrepreneur.” Given ever-expanding Internet access to potential customers and business partners, he believes “there are thousands of opportunities if you have the right skill sets to pursue them.” The keynote speaker at Emory University's Goizueta Business School’s 11th annual Undergraduate Business School Leadership Conference (UBSLC), Klaus predicts major paradigm shifts ahead, including the use of gaming technology to enhance education by taking a "boring subject and transforming it into a fun video game," participatory marketing and branding in virtual worlds, and the rising demand for technologically savvy leaders with global perspectives.

OPC News

New OPC Foundation Member

NextNine, a global provider of remote product service solutions, has joined the OPC Foundation as a corporate member.

"This membership will allow us to offer comprehensive OPC support to our growing list of manufacturing and automation customers," said NextNine VP Marketing and Business Development, Nimrod Reichenberg. "We strive to make remote service easy. Out-of-the-box support for OPC will enable our automation customers to quickly design and deploy such services to their customers."

NextNine Service Automation (NSA) allows automation vendors to remotely service a broad range of products, from simple drives to complex control systems. Using a single software platform, service organizations can remotely capture and analyze plant data, troubleshoot issues more effectively and offer premium services that increase the efficiency of the manufacturing process.

OPC UA Training

Unified Automation has partnered with leading OPC UA consulting companies to provide training to jumpstart OPC UA development. All trainers and presenters are members of the OPC UA core working group. Unified Automation, ascolab and DSInteroperability join together to provide a complete infrastructure to enable rapid deployment of OPC Unified Architecture in Europe and North America for Microsoft and non-Microsoft platforms. The complete list of webinars and training events. Register for the first OPC UA introduction webinar. This webinar will be held on Thursday, March 18, in 4 different time zones. The first Developer Training will be held April 20th-22nd in Houston, Texas.

The Manufacturing Recovery Has Begun But Is It Sustainable?

This report from ARC Advisory Group contains several nuggets of interesting information. It sees a modest recovery in 2010 for automation suppliers. It also sees controllers becoming increasing commoditized with falling prices driving suppliers to increase support and service offerings to drive growth. From the report:

Automation supplier revenues continued to fall throughout 2009 as compared to 2008. ARC expects that year-on-year comparisons between 2008 and 2009 will experience a decline, with modest growth in 2010.  ARC sees signs that the manufacturing recovery has begun but its continued success depends on the ability of the financial markets to return to normal functioning. Small, medium, and large businesses have all been strained by the inability to access short-term capital.  Moreover, many businesses have simply delayed capital equipment expansions, particularly if they manufactured components in the automotive supply chain.

Although the short-term forecast for the global automation expenditures for the process industries looks bleak, ARC expects moderate market growth to resume during the latter part of the five-year forecast period. Once the economic turmoil settles, the globalization environment will resume, which will once again cause manufacturing companies to invest in capital expenditures. “Manufacturers will continually face challenges to raise productivity, lower product costs, reduce plant operating expenses, and increase return on investment (ROI) to compete in the global market. Consequently, capital investments for automation should resume across many industries,” according to Senior Analyst David Clayton, the principle author of ARC’s “Automation Expenditures for Process Industries Worldwide Outlook”.

It is not often that price erosion becomes a major concern in the automation sector. However, industry veterans have experienced double-digit price decreases. There are several reasons for this, but the net effect is that the market will have difficulty growing even in the high single-digit range over the next five years. One element contributing to the price erosion is that controllers are rapidly becoming an automation commodity in some sectors. Differentiation between products, capabilities, and performance factors is rapidly diminishing. A large percentage of the suppliers in the market can compete very effectively from a performance criterion across many markets. This increases price competition.

With the commoditization of control equipment, many automation suppliers are differentiating themselves by broadening the scope of services offered to include front-end engineering and design, operations, outsourced maintenance, and performance improvement. Users and suppliers alike benefit from a more collaborative relationship. Users can leverage the expertise of suppliers to help manage plant assets across their entire lifecycle. Suppliers can go beyond being just automation providers, enhance their overall project revenues, and enjoy long term revenue streams through customer service relationships.

The change in leadership in America, dwindling oil and gas reserves, and environmental concerns are providing an environment ripe for alternative fuels. Revival of the nuclear industry and LNG liquefaction and gasification plants, commercialization of clean coal and cellulose ethanol are all possible. Suppliers should keep abreast of these markets by helping them solve measurement problems with industry specific solutions.

American Machine Tool Distributors Report

January U.S. manufacturing technology consumption totaled $130.96 million, according to AMTDA, the American Machine Tool Distributors’ Association, and AMT - The Association For Manufacturing Technology. This total, as reported by companies participating in the USMTC program, was down 40.3% from December but up 26.2% from the total of $103.77 million reported for January 2009.

These numbers and all data in this report are based on the totals of actual data reported by companies participating in the USMTC program.

“Many customers placed orders in December to take advantage of tax relief measures, pulling orders out of January 2010,”  said Peter Borden,  AMTDA president. “The good news is that January 2010 orders are still 26% ahead of January 2009. Fortunately, there are measures moving through Congress that will expand these benefits, incentivizing manufacturers to invest in capital equipment in 2010.”

Honeywell News

Honeywell has signed a global five-year agreement to be a Main Automation Contractor (MAC) for Shell. The Global Framework Agreement (GFA) is part of Shell’s long-term MAC strategy to maximize production while lowering total operating costs by equipping its worldwide facilities with integrated process automation technology.

As a MAC, Honeywell will design automation and safety systems that will help Shell meet its customers’ energy demands in economically and environmentally responsible ways. For more than three decades, Honeywell has served as a MAC on hundreds of Shell projects. Currently, Honeywell is working on three of Shell’s largest projects: its new gas to liquids (GTL) plant in Qatar, the Athabasca Oil Sands Project (AOSP) designed to help Shell dramatically increase production in Western Canada’s oil sands, and the  expansion of its Port Arthur Refinery.

Honeywell also announced it is providing virtualization technology for its Experion Process Knowledge System (PKS). This technology can help manufacturers streamline Experion system management and is said to lower the total cost of ownership by up to 30 percent.

Virtualization allows a single server to simultaneously run multiple operating systems and applications. It also improves reliability by insulating these operating systems from hardware changes. When process manufacturers use this technology with Experion, they can improve server utilization rates, reduce disruptive operating system and hardware changes and simplify overall system management.

Honeywell’s range of virtualized offerings include Experion off-line testing and development solution that can be used for training, simulation and engineering. It also includes Experion’s suite of Advanced Alarm Management solutions that improve process safety and operator efficiency, and eServer solutions that provide Web access to the system. All three products have been awarded VMware Ready status, which provides independent assurance that Honeywell has tested its software with VMware vSphere.

Here's the agenda for the two days:

Wednesday, April 21: The event will run from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and is dedicated to all current and prospective ABB customers. In addition to the on-floor demonstrations, over 30 topic specific seminars will be held throughout the day. This is a great opportunity for industry professionals to gain first hand intelligence and network with their peers in the industrial robotic, motion, control and automation industries. Continental breakfast and lunch will be served.

Thursday, April 22:  Is the Open House from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. - open to anyone interested in learning more about robotics, including old friends, new friends, family, youth organizations and students. Though there will be no formal seminars on this day, the full demonstration floor will be open and all ABB experts will be on hand. Continental breakfast, lunch and dinner will be served.

A sampling of the nearly three dozen robotic exhibits and demonstrations includes cutting edge applications in welding, laser cutting, packaging (picking, packing and palletizing), painting, tool changing, unmanned military vehicles, refurbished robots – before and after, entry level robotic cells and much more.

Each of the 45 minute long technical seminars will be presented several times on Wednesday so attendees can see as much as possible. Seminar topics include emerging technology and innovations in robotic safety, welding, high-speed picking applications, material handling, material removal, press automation, remote monitoring, off-line programming and more.

New for 2010 will be the presence of exhibits from other divisions of ABB. The new ABB Automation Products Rolling Road Show, a 45 ft long, 60,000 lb expandable trailer will be in the parking lot featuring an array of product and service solutions from the Drives, Low Voltage Products, and Low Voltage Motors business units.  Additional products from the Discrete Automation & Motion and Low Voltage Products divisions will be featured, including a working demo of the ABB Wireless Interface for Sensors and Actuators (WISA) and working demos of the new ABB Motor Control Center and Low Voltage Switchgear product. Also, there will be active demonstrations of the Ultra Low Harmonic drive, AC500 PLC communicating multiple protocols, drive dynamometer applications, and a pump simulation that demonstrates the ability to control 3 drives simultaneously without the need of a PLC as a master control.

Click for more information including a full list of seminars and demonstrations and to register for the event. The ABB facility in is located at 1250 Brown Road, Auburn Hills, MI 48326.

"Facing the most challenging business environment in years, Apprion has continued to grow and thrive," said Doug Donzelli, CEO of Apprion. "Apprion's industrial wireless applications are delivering what manufacturers value most – cost-effective, reliable, turn-key solutions that address their most pressing compliance and operational challenges. This round of financing will allow us to build on our momentum and accelerate the development of new products that will extend our market, technology, and thought leadership."

Apprion delivers wireless application networks and services for the process manufacturing industry. Apprion's ION System enables industrial facilities to cost-effectively deploy and manage multiple wireless applications as one unified, integrated system. The ION System consists of the Apprion IONosphere and IONizers. Integrated into the ION System are five applications that are core to industrial wireless application networks: Video Monitoring, Communications, Condition Monitoring, Workforce Mobility, and Location.

"We have seen how wireless technologies and applications have transformed how manufacturing facilities operate by providing more secure, safe, efficient and reliable industrial operations," said Lara Druyan, General Partner at Allegis Capital. "As the only company to have thoughtfully integrated industrial wireless infrastructure, applications, and services, it is apparent that the Apprion team is leading this transformation."

In the first meetings, engineers from John Deere, P&G, Hershey, Boeing and General Dynamics were prominent. They then evolved into working groups: Microsoft Manufacturing Users Group (MS-MUG); Packaging; and Machine Tool. At one meeting in the early 2000s (I forget just which one), Ken Crater brought a Compact PCI chassis with various cards touting it as an OMAC controller. I pointed out that the vendor of the chassis he brought did not comply with the CompactPCI standard. <ouch>

Anyway, MS-MUG worked on some best practices for using Microsoft operating systems. It thought it would influence Microsoft to keep XP--nuff said? Microsoft lost interest in the user groups in the early part of this century instead focusing on solution providers. The machine tool working group still exists. It is developing standards for moving data among manufacturing software--CAD, CAM, CNC--using the StepNC technology. They have had some demonstrations of success. Boeing is the major user proponent of this.

Perhaps the most successful efforts were spurred by P&G, Hershey and Unilever (probably others) and by the technology providers hoping to unseat the incumbant control supplier at those companies. This was the Packaging Working Group. It developed PackML, Pack Tags and an entire standardized nomenclature and state model for packaging machines. At the last meetings in February 2010, P&G's Rob Aleksa detailed the benefits his company has derived from the effort. Unfortunately, the proponents from Hershey and Unilever either retired or were re-assigned within their companies and some momentum was lost. Meanwhile, P&G would like to see the effort broadened to other machines that it procures.

Meanwhile, ARC couldn't continue its support and the organization went to ISA and the Automation Federation umbrella--when that group was going to be an organization of organizations. ISA's severe cuts last October cost OMAC a place at its table. And many of the founders have retired or gone on to other things.

OMAC really needs to gather its remaining leaders and figure out where to go and what to work on. It has lost some enthusiasm from suppliers who were not able to displace the dominant control suppliers. So it is at a crossroads.

Meanwhile, there are other organizations in a similar situation. What I'd like to do is figure out some kind of "thing" where we could bring in several of these under an umbrella--not to run them, but to have a venue for their conferences. If you'd like to help, let me know. Or send ideas. I have a few. Maybe we can work out something.

Despite what some write, content is still king. Try as I might, I still get almost no value from Facebook. I thought I'd connect with a bunch of scattered family. Most don't post, and the others keep growing crops in some place called farmville. I don't care about all those games designed to make people increase time on Facebook's site. I lived through this same thing with AOL in the early 90s. In fact, Facebook is becoming the new AOL. We'll see how long it prospers. Then there is Twitter. I get a little more value finding new information on Twitter.

The big problem is in both filtering out stuff I don't care about and finding new stuff that is meaningful to me. We haven't solved that, yet. Further to one of Doc's points--we keep getting advertising pushed at us (hmm, well you might keep that coming, it pays my bills right now), but wouldn't it be better if we could ask for information about things we are in the market for without worry about getting bombarded with all manner of crap coming at us?

Then I ran across this post from GigaOM about a problem facing newspapers. Prominent newspaper owners have been criticizing Google for stealing their profits. That's not the problem. The problem is content. Newspapers have defaulted much of their journalism by repurposing New York Times and AP content. They don't engage their readers at a local level.

Most newspaper (and magazine) Web sites are not built in a way that's friendly to commenting. I've been hounding our Web people for years at Automation World. Our site is pretty good by magazine standards--but not what I see in my vision of things to come. We started a product blog called Automation Gear (I was hoping to model on Engadget), but we had to do it in the same content manager as the Web site and not in a blog-friendly tool such as WordPress or SquareSpace. So, the content is fine, but the presentation doesn't match my ideal. That just means we have a long way to go.

Content is not going away. Reading is not going away. Print is not going away. What is happening is that there are more options. We really need for the end of the "walled garden" bookstores for digital reading to blossom. We need people to develop economical tools for magazines like ours to be able to publish a decent digital edition. The thing is--readers will have increasing options in the way they read, just as advertisers now have many options for reaching prospects. We're still figuring all this out. And that's cool. That's where innovation occurs.

Advantech will integrate both parties’ strengths and anticipates becoming a global market leader in industrial in-vehicle computing. In addition to DLoG’s focus in Europe, both parties will jointly develop the Asia and U.S. markets. After acquisition, the company will be rebranded to Advantech-DLoG to reflect the synergy of the integration. In the future, Advantech-DLoG will focus on four in-vehicle computing markets: Intralogistic, Heavy Duty, Stationary Applications, and Fleet Management.

Advantech CEO KC Liu states, “DLoG boasts sophisticated German craftsmanship, design quality and distinguished brand architecture in the European market. I highly appreciate the achievement of the current DLoG management team in the in-vehicle computing business. After the acquisition, the current DLoG CEO, Hans-Peter Nüdling will continue to lead Advantech-DLoG.”

At about my third year on the local school board, we would have executive sessions on personnel and it would be brought up that certain teachers were not competent--or at least not doing well. Some of us on the board had business backgrounds, so we asked why they didn't non-renew (fire) them. Well, came the reply, they have had consistently good reviews even though they haven't been doing well. This happened quite a few times.

We had to counsel school administrators to begin following rigorous personnel policies. They needed to identify the failing teachers. Meet with them, let them know that they were not meeting expectations, let them know clearly what the expectations were, lay out a plan to help them improve, and then let them go if they didn't.

This is not as heartless as it may sound. You've hired these people. At one time, anyway, someone thought they could do the job. If they don't, you give them a fair chance. It's like I told a couple of engineers in my life as a manager, "It's really better for both of us. You can go find a situation in which you can succeed. I can get someone who can do this job." It also took them out of a situation where they were foundering. Everyone could see they were lost.

Good leaders will turn around many, if not most, people. But sometimes you just have to give them the proverbial kick in the pants to wake them up to make decisions to find a better situation. I've had that decision several times--and it never got easy. I'd lose sleep for a week. On the other hand, once I tangled with my boss (and his boss) and was asked to leave. I think I sang in the car on the way home,, I was so happy to leave that place. (I never applied for a quality manger job again, either.)

So, did the school system do the right thing? If they fired the principal, too, then perhaps they did. Giving everyone a fresh start is sometimes a good thing.

The Accenture Life Safety Solution uses Wi-Fi technology in plant environments to alert central controllers of incidents and of workers' locations. It is designed for hazardous working environments such as refineries, chemical plants and other locations, where dense steel infrastructure can make wireless safety solutions difficult to introduce.

Marathon Oil Corp.’s Robinson, Ill refinery is deploying the Accenture Life Safety Solution across two units in the facility. Marathon intends to further evaluate the use of this technology once the two units have been completed.

“The refining industry has not been able to use wireless networks to remotely detect hazards or remotely locate workers,” said Jerry Welch, senior vice president of Marathon’s refining organization. "This solution not only alerts on-site individuals to gas incidents but would also allow off-site colleagues to locate workers and rescue them if an event were to occur. The cost effectiveness of this solution has the potential to transform on-site safety in our industry and should be relevant to many other sectors.”