Ulrich Spiesshofer, ABB CEO

From the press release: The Board of ABB has unanimously appointed Ulrich Spiesshofer, the head of its Discrete Automation and Motion (DM) division, as Chief Executive Officer. He will succeed Joe Hogan in this role in an orderly transition on September 15, 2013. Hogan will continue with ABB for some months as Senior Advisor to the Board.

Spiesshofer joined ABB’s Executive Committee in 2005 and was named responsible for DM in 2009. He has led a doubling of the division’s revenues by organic and inorganic means, and the integration of Baldor – ABB’s largest ever acquisition. He has increased profit margins through a turnaround in Robotics, as well as the profitable growth and relentless execution of the motors and drives activities.

“ABB has developed a strong bench of talent: I am extremely pleased that the new CEO comes from within the company, and brings a solid track record and deep knowledge of the portfolio,” said ABB Chairman Hubertus von Grünberg. “Ulrich has been a key force in shaping and implementing ABB’s strategy, and the integration of Baldor stands out as a benchmark for successful large acquisitions.”

Spiesshofer also initiated other business expansion activities in DM based on organic growth and acquisitions. These have helped DM to grow faster than the market and to expand into new business areas such as e-mobility and uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), as well as to better balance the business geographically. The planned acquisition of Power-One would make ABB a leading global supplier of solar inverters. A successor to his role in DM will be announced in due course.

CEO Joe Hogan said: “Ulrich has done a tremendous job in DM based on the solid knowledge and experience acquired in many successful years within ABB and outside. With his strong contribution and team-oriented collaboration, our mid-term strategy has been making great progress.”

Prior to taking over DM, Spiesshofer was responsible for Corporate Development, leading strategy development and implementation across the power and automation businesses, in very close collaboration with all of ABB’s teams. This included ABB’s roadmap for mergers and acquisitions and the formation of ABB’s technology venture arm. In this role, he strengthened ABB’s operational excellence and procurement processes, laying the groundwork for the cost savings program which has been executed over the past few years of global economic crisis.

“I am excited about the opportunity to lead ABB and serve our customers, building on Joe’s success,” said Spiesshofer. “I am looking forward to keep working with all my colleagues in the Executive Committee and the entire ABB team. Together, we will continue to drive profitable growth and relentless execution for the company.”

Before joining ABB, Spiesshofer spent three years at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants and 11 years at A.T. Kearney management consultants, where he built successful consulting businesses in industries including oil and gas, utilities, telecoms and automotive, in Europe, Asia and the Americas. He has a master’s degree in Business Administration and Engineering, and a PhD in Economics, both from the University of Stuttgart, Germany.

Water/Wastewater Symposium
For you Water/Wastewater and related Automation and Controls people, here is an announcement of the 2013 ISA Water/Wastewater and Automatic Controls Symposium.

It will be held August 6, 2013 - August 8, 2013 at the Crowne Plaza-Universal Hotel in Orlando.

Now in its eighth year, the symposium offers a unique opportunity for automation, instrumentation and SCADA professionals in the water and wastewater sectors to share ideas, network and earn continuing education credits. This 3-day symposium focuses on the challenges associated with providing reliable, secure and cost-efficient automation for the world’s municipal water/wastewater infrastructure.

This year’s program includes over 40 technical speakers, networking events, poster session and supplier showcase. The keynote is by IBM’s Carey E. Hikada on using data to make smarter investment decisions. Two short-courses on SCADA cybersecurity and flowmeter section/sizing are also offered. Registration is $425 and includes breakfasts/lunches.

Invensys Acquires SmartGlance Software
SmartGlance ScreensNot a surprise here, Invensys has acquired the SmartGlance mobile reporting product of Sarla Analytics, LLC, a privately held company headquartered in Barrington, R.I.

Founded in 2010, Sarla Analytics is part of The Sarla Group of software companies. SmartGlance, an industrial mobile reporting business app, delivers secure, on-demand access to rich, graphical reports from any operations data source via mobile devices, allowing industrial personnel to make smarter, faster decisions from anywhere, at any time and on any device.

SmartGlance provides connectors for accessing data from different manufacturing sources, including both Invensys and non-Invensys systems. SmartGlance permits the ability to push data from virtually any data source, including popular process historians and any SQL database.

As part of the acquisition, the SmartGlance product will be part of the Invensys Wonderware portfolio of software product offerings.

PAS Provides Live Chat
Here's a feature I love on consumer sites coming to you from an industrial B2B site. PAS announced live chat support on the company website. Live chat allows visitors to PAS website to quickly gain access to company resources.

“As a series of initiatives to enhance our customer experience, we have integrated the latest technologies to allow customers real-time access to our support staff,” said Bijan Habibi, Co-founder and Executive Vice President at PAS. “With live chat, visitors to our website will be able to quickly communicate with us from anywhere and at any time”.

Live chat enables PAS customers to initiate support chat conversations in seconds. A click on the “Live Chat” icon will launch a chat window for real-time communication.

TwinCAT 3.1 from Beckhoff Adds Features
As a continuation of the company’s next generation PC-based control software, Beckhoff Automation has announced the release of TwinCAT 3.1 with new features for eXtended Automation. One of the core concepts of eXtended Automation involves the convergence of automation with the domain of IT and computer science.

A key update with TwinCAT version 3.1 is support of 64-bit operating systems and the Microsoft Windows 8 operating system. Support of IEC 61131-3 programming languages, object-oriented programming (OOP), C/C++ and Matlab/Simulink is continued and provides numerous optional tools to the TwinCAT programmer.

Another highlight in TwinCAT 3.1 is the possibility to reserve individual CPU cores of a multi-core processor exclusively for TwinCAT. This feature, known as “CPU Isolation,” gives the full performance of the reserved cores solely to TwinCAT.

A step toward simplifying and advancing TwinCAT is the integration into Microsoft Visual Studio, making use of the most widely used IDE in the world.

The integration of TwinCAT into Visual Studio also offers the option to use familiar source control techniques used by the IT world. In addition to saving and backing up source code, source control is increasingly used for revision control. Comparison tools are available in TwinCAT 3.1 for displaying the differences between the versions and it is possible to view which nodes have been modified. If a difference is detected, more details can be made visible by a double click. The comparisons are available in all IEC 61131-3 languages.

Honeywell Introduces Turnkey Virtualization
Honeywell launched the newest Experion Virtualization Solutions package, said to be the industry’s first turnkey blade solution that is optimized for virtualization and the needs of the process control industry, enabling offshore oil and gas, refining and petrochemical customers to increase operations availability and reduce the total cost of ownership of their control system.

Virtualization is a major productivity and efficiency tool for commercial and industrial operations. Process controls typically require separate servers to support different applications – requiring additional space, hardware and significant maintenance costs. Virtualization allows a single server to simultaneously run multiple operating systems and applications, insulating the operating systems from hardware changes, improving overall server utilization, simplifying maintenance and reducing costs.

The newest member of the Experion Virtualization family, called the Premium Platform, is based on blade server technology. It provides an alternate offering for the ultimate in lifecycle and availability features being demanded by the process industry. The Premium Platform reduces setup time by 90 percent, generates 40% more energy savings, has 22% greater density than alternative virtualized server platforms and allows recovery from a processor failure in minutes.

The new Premium Platform leverages blade server technology from IBM. IBM’s long term support along with its significant worldwide support infrastructure and the maturity of this platform were considerations in our decision.

IQMS Goes Mobile
IQMS, a manufacturing ERP and MES developer, released six mobile apps as part of its expanded mobile offerings initiative. These are compatible on all Android devices, such as tablets and smart phones, as well as IQMS’ proprietary rugged shop floor control device, the RTStation.

The Mobile Application Manager allows users to track, assign and organize their app licenses for any IQMS supported device, then freely reorganize them when different needs arise. Recently released mobile apps include:
• Carton Builder App: Interface directly with a weigh scale to calculate total parts by weight, then print labels with the push of a button once the package is full.
• Inventory Transactions and Locations App: View inventory location information and perform inventory transactions, such as creating new locations, adding and removing inventory and moving items between locations.
• Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) App: View existing MRO work orders or create new work orders for any piece of MRO equipment.
• Opportunity Central App: Gain enhanced CRM control by managing contact information, tracking the progress of specific customer or partner leads and viewing action items assigned to your opportunities
• ScanID App: Print box labels based on item BOM standards and ensure a correct box count instead of having to rely solely on your packaging personnel for accurate counts.
• Signature Capture App: Electronically captures and stores the signatures of your shipping company’s drivers for review or to be printed on associated bill of lading (BOL) reports.

Previously, Siemens had acquired MES capability (Siemens IT now) and then UGS (Siemens PLM now) toward the goal of the digital factory. I have seen some good integration of Siemens PLM into Siemens Industry, but the IT integration does not seem to be going anywhere.

Dassault has previously started partnerships with Rockwell Automation twice and then with Schneider Electric. Neither seems to have born any fruit.

Off the record comments by some Rockwell people when I told them about this news is that they've investigated this sort of integration and the value just isn't there.

GE-IP news

So, it will be interesting to see how this program works out. I'll try to keep an eye on it. Here is the news release:

GE Intelligent Platforms is joining the PTC PartnerAdvantage program. The two companies will work to integrate GE’s Proficy software applications with PTC’s technology solutions to help manufacturers close the loop between product design and production execution on the shop floor.

As a platinum tier member of the PTC PartnerAdvantage program, GE Intelligent Platforms will gain access to tools for integrating its MES applications with PTC Creo design software and PTC Windchill product lifecycle management software. Proficy Plant Applications, integrated with PTC Windchill MPMLink, will enable process plans, manufacturing bill of materials (mBOMs), and work instructions to accurately reflect engineering design.

“When manufacturers design the process for quality and compliance they can ensure that products are built right the first time,” said Jim Walsh, Industrial Software General Manager for GE Intelligent Platforms. “The integrated solution that Proficy software and PTC Windchill offers customers is the ability to reduce errors, accelerate new product introductions, and provide flexibility to manage engineering change.”

GE’s Proficy Plant Applications maintains traceability and genealogy of products and parts, including process parameters, equipment and tooling used for a full “as-built” record of modifications and sign-offs, complementing the “as-designed” and “as-planned” records in PTC Windchill.

This was the primary takeaway from the annual RSTechED motivation keynote--this year delivered by Mike Mullane, retired NASA astronaut--for process control engineers and all of us. Using the Challenger disaster as the background, Mullane showed how bad things happen to individuals and teams with a stellar history. They fell victim to normalization of deviance. They turned back on the best practices that got them to where they were.

There is a critical alarm, but nothing was done, and nothing happened. Next time the situation occurred, there was no critical alarm. Then the next time an alarm, but nothing happened. Maybe the critical alarm isn't really critical? But then, it is. And things go "boom." That was the O-ring situation on the shuttle engines that eventually led to the explosion.

Personal success

A few other points to consider on the road to personal success:
In teams, we're all in it together. If you see something, speak up. "One person with courage forms a majority," as the saying goes. Even if you think that everyone else is smarter or more experienced, if you see a deviance, speak up and question it.

Leaders need to empower the team to keep them out of the "I'm only a passenger" mentality. Encourage people to speak up.

And finally, he talked about courageous self-leadership. Challenge yourself and be tenacious toward achieving your goals. Motivate yourself (and your team and your family) out of the self-comfort zone.

"Genius is overrated; tenacity is underrated."

Citing examples from the RSTechED keynote presentation from CTO Sujeet Chand along with the book "Digital Disruption: Unleashing the Next Wave of Innovation," by James McQuivey, Pantaleano looked at the rapid changes coming with mobility, virtualization, security. Someone must be tasked with implementing all of these technologies.

His answer is the Information Engineer--a person who combines electrical engineering and information technology knowledge and experience. The person filling this role needs to have several key traits. Collaboration ability is first. This is the ability to focus on customers both inside and outside the organization discovering their needs for data and how they use the system. The person must be adaptive bringing the right technology solution to the problem, understanding that customers don't always ask the right question and so adapting ideas and technologies to what the real needs are. Finally, an innovative approach is crucial. Sometimes this is best started with small, stealth innovations and then growing.

Such people exist now. Pantaleano profiled three existing IEs and the work they've done merging IT and controls. These were Wade Burns with Consol, Justin Molenda, Nestle Marysville, Ohio, and Curt Hastings, Ball Corp. A common thread across all their work was building on past successes. Hastings added when searching for new candidates, he is looking for someone with an analytical background, who understands business, is not intimidated by technology, and a customer service orientation.

The theme of the conference is The Connected Enterprise. It's interesting to see the progress that Rockwell has made over the last few years as it has methodically assembled the pieces of connectivity.

IP Advantage

The backbone of the connected enterprise is EtherNet/IP, the CIP series of protocols that are able to enable Ethernet TCP/UDP/IP connectivity without special silicon ("standard, unmodified Ethernet"), and what they now call Industrial IP. Check out the Web site. It is part of an education program called IP Advantage. The idea is that it's not just Ethernet, but the protocol suites based on IP (Internet Protocol) that is the key enabling technology.

Sujeet ChandChief Technology Officer Sujeet Chand delivered the first keynote presentation laying out the technology foundation and rationale for The Connected Enterprise.

Inflection Point

Charting a brief history of technology through the Industrial Age and as that changed from steam to electricity, he said that the Information Age is still nascent. (Something I've also read from McAfee and Brynjoffson of "Race Against the Machine" fame.) Since it is still developing, we have not reached the inflection point of the technology. Chand believes that 2013 will see the inflection point of the Information Age in manufacturing.

The key problem for manufacturing leaders right now is how to wring value from the huge investments they have made in ERP systems to connect their enterprises. Chand said that many are now focusing on outcomes: faster time to market, lower total cost of ownership, improved asset utilization and enterprise risk management. The keys to achieving the outcomes lie in being smarter, more productive, secure and sustainable. Technologies pushing this include mobility, the cloud, big data/analytics, fact-based decisions. Or, as he summarized, the manufacturing technology is becoming collaborative, virtual, secure.

People Use It

Frank KulaszewiczSenior Vice President Frank Kulaszewicz discussed how IT and operations are coming together with EtherNet/IP as the enabler. He mentioned a couple of products with enhancements coming to RS Studio 5000 and a new secure product coming from Rockwell's collaboration with Cisco--the Stratix 5900 UTM. Leveraging off a discussion about how Toyota has used FactoryTalk Vantage Point (MES product) for improved operations, he discussed how customers are starting to put together all the technologies Chand discussed for improved operations.

I've attended many sessions over the past 15 years, and I find patterns interesting. Rockwell never has gone for the "Wow" factor in presentations such as this. Its speakers always methodically lay out the path, technologies and use cases and leave you with the feeling that things just work. It's just logical.

I also compare people discussing the technologies sometimes to the fable of the blind men describing the elephant where each described what an elephant was based upon what he happened to touch.

Ayla Networks Founders Friedman and Caceres

We've been talking about the Internet of Things (or M2M, or Industrial Internet, or Pervasive Internet) for a long time. What we need is more of the binding that brings stuff together. Recently I talked with David Friedman, one of the founders and the CEO of Ayla Networks, a company that just emerged from stealth mode with a couple of announcements. I think that what they are doing is significant to manufacturing and production (and a lot more, as well).

Friedman pointed to the backgrounds and experiences of the founders, "We know what it takes to do the software to bind the IoT together," he told me. "We also worked with hardware leaders, software preloaded in chips that people need to do this. It's a technology and business model of service as a component to get rid of the monthly fees."

The company announced a round of financing and a significan first customer.

Platform and financing

Ayla ProductIn the first news, Ayla formally unveiled the Ayla Platform, which allows manufacturers and service providers to transform thermostats, appliances, lighting and other everyday products into interactive connected devices quickly, easily and economically. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company also announced that it has raised $5.4 million in Series A financing led by investors Voyager Capital and Crosslink Capital.

“We are at the beginning of a major evolutionary step for the Internet,” said Friedman. “We have built a platform that eliminates the hurdles involved in building great connected devices and bringing them to market. We have also created a business model with key partnerships to deliver on this vision.”

The company’s platform seeks to simplify and accelerate product development for manufacturers while enhancing usability from the consumer’s perspective, leading to greater overall satisfaction and lower costs for everyone. The efficiency by which the company can provide its service also minimizes the cost of connectivity so that consumers can start to enjoy great connected products without high ongoing monthly service fees.

The Ayla Platform consists of three distinct components, each working seamlessly together to provide a rich, secure, and highly flexible path for manufacturers to rapidly deliver Internet-connected products to market. These components include production-class Ayla-enabled Wi-Fi modules and IP gateways, Ayla’s cloud service for managing devices on behalf of manufacturers and consumers, and Ayla application libraries.

Ayla has created these components to work together so manufacturers do not have to write any networking, security, or connectivity protocols in their devices. Similarly, Ayla customers do not have to write any code to use the cloud service: a powerful UI is used to configure “virtual devices,” and the platform takes care of the rest.

Partnerships

Ayla has forged an ecosystem that includes world-class elements from leading companies such as Broadcom Corporation, STMicroelectronics, and Amazon Web Services. Ayla’s technology supports a wide variety of standards and platforms, including Android, iOS, Wi-Fi, ZigBee, Linux and others.

With Ayla’s technology, devices are available at all times, yet minimize the amount of bandwidth and energy required they consume. Hardware solutions and application interfaces can be configured for specific devices but also leverage common design elements to save money and reduce integration challenges. Smooth surfaces and ‘clean’ industrial designs will emerge as smart phones and apps replace buttons and switches to control appliances.

The founders of Ayla Networks all have deep expertise building solutions, technologies, and companies serving the Internet of Things. Adrian Caceres, Ayla’s head of engineering and another co-founder, previously worked at Amazon’s Lab126, where he was technical lead for the networking capabilities of the Amazon Kindle. Philip Chang, GM of Greater China previously helped establish a presence for ZeroG Wireless in China, and has been founder and executive at several early networking companies. Thomas Lee, a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University who has helped create companies such as Matrix Semiconductor, is also a founder.

First Customer

The next news is that it is collaborating with SINA to bring a new generation of connected devices and interactivity to consumers in China.

With more than 500 million registered users worldwide, SINA is the most recognized Internet brand name among Chinese communities globally. SINA’s digital media network also includes Sina.com (web portal) Weibo.com (social networking) and Sina.cn (mobile.)

The first device to come out of the collaboration is the SINA Wi-Fi Weather Station which provides SINA customers with targeted, up-to-date weather information and forecasts for their home, office or any other place of interest where one of the devices is located. The key is the cloud: SINA’s personal weather stations feed location-specific information about temperature and precipitation to a cloud-based service that SINA customers can access through smart phones and other devices. Ayla’s cloud platform for the Internet of Things provides the technology and foundation to seamlessly and securely link the weather station to SINA’s services.

Once things can be easily connected to rich cloud-based services, the possibilities for what comes next are almost limitless. Appliances, lighting, thermostats and a broad array of other consumer electronics can all communicate together and through the cloud to provide a social network for things. Formerly mundane devices will offer a rich new way for users to interact with them.

Since I'm a "digital native" of sorts, I have looked for some sort of digital assistant for implementing my GTD practice. All of us who have implemented automation or a new software application in business or manufacturing know that it must be easy and intuitive to use or it just won't be used. (I saw $50K worth of vision equipment I had installed in the trash one day at one of my customers. Long story, but lesson learned.) What I'm using now is a program called Nozbe (affiliate link).

Michael Sliwinski, the developer of Nozbe, has published a "Productivity Course" where, in 11 short videos, he explains his take on the GTD practice. It's a course that could be worth hundreds to attend, but it's on the Web for free. Many good ideas there.

Introduction
Step 1 - "Inbox"
Step 2 - "Projects"
Step 3 - "Next Actions"
Step 4 - "Mobility"
Step 5 - "Collaboration"
Step 6 - "Contexts"
Step 7 - "Reference Material"
Step 8 - "Weekly Review"
Step 9 - "Email"
Step 10 - "Get It All Done"

Here are a few thoughts I pulled out to remind myself of some good ideas.

• If an action item actually includes more than one step, make it a "project", defined as something that takes more than one task to accomplish. Then add the several action items it will take to accomplish the task.

• Nozbe allows for syncing with Evernote, so he just adds "projects" for notes and research material and syncs with Evernote in order to have everything in one place.

• Keep the daily priority list short.

• Within Nozbe, you can set recurring things for dates. Say there is something you want to do daily (write a blog post...) or weekly (meet with yourself to review progress), you can do that so that it will pop up in your Next Action list.

• I use mind maps to think about things. Sliwinski uses mind maps to define his personal strategy and then uses it in his weekly review.

• Schedule a time to meet with yourself once a week for maybe as long as 2 hours.

• Process email, do not check it. He processes first at noon, and then hourly, using the David Allen 2 min. rule (if you can answer in two minutes or less, then do it right then. If it's a task, forward to Nozbe to add to the task list.

• He works in 25 minute chunks of time, followed by a 5 min break. Personally, I often work in somewhat larger chunks of time. Often as long as 90 minutes. But whatever suits you. Remember the break. Brew a cup of tea. Take a short walk. Something to refresh the mind and body.

SKF Machining Department

The company designs and manufacture bearings. Not the sort of thing that I normally cover. There were two very interesting announcements covered, though.

Many companies have management that just doesn't grasp the importance of condition monitoring of equipment, analyzing the information, and developing plans to fix things before they break. Trying to sell them on an automated condition monitoring system with MES/MOM software and some Manufacturing Intelligence applications will work about as much as selling the proverbial refrigerator to an eskimo.

SKF has developed an entry-level condition monitoring system that can often fit within the constraints of the budget of a maintenance manager. With this system, managers can begin realizing the benefits of condition-based and predictive maintenance on the low hanging fruit.

Revolutionary product
I am building The Manufacturing Connection around the concept of connected devices in the plant or factory, which are in turn connected to the MES/MOM layer with Manufacturing Intelligence in place to guide better decision making in manufacturing. The success of this entire concept lies with connected devices.

SKF Insight Bearing with Wireless SensingThe truly revolutionary thing I saw at the media day was SKF Insight--intelligent wireless technologies that are integrated into SKF bearings. As they put it, developments in various smart technologies now enable bearings to communicate their operating conditions continuously, with internally powered sensors and data acquisition electronics. "Bearings have long been considered the heart of rotating machinery, now SKF makes them the brain as well," they said.

Monitoring directly on the bearing
SKF is able to monitor the damage from the first microscopic effect as it is happening, and with this information, customers can take remedial action.

Packaging of sensor technologies enables measurement of critical parameters such as RPM, temperature, velocity, vibration, load and other features. It uses the application environment itself to generate power. (Energy harvesting) The network uses a wireless gateway and bearings with SKF Insight form a “mesh network” for communication (I think WirelessHART, but I'm still trying to verify). SKF Insight application specific solutions are under trial with key customers in industries including wind energy, railways and metals, and other industries are under investigation.