Manufacturing - Collaborative, Teamwork and Leadership

Here is a final wrap on the ARC Forum along with some reflections.

Collaborative Value Networks

Andy Chatha, founder and president of ARC Advisory Group as well as host for this Forum which is essentially his "user group," presented a new model and TLA (three-letter acronym)--Collaborative Value Networks. The idea is to model a move toward a single corporate-wide network that integrates all departments.

Don Taylor, Vice President of Advanced Materials at Dow in Midland, Mich., walked attendees through a case study of the value of collaboration and team development that helped the company assimilate its acquisitions--and move the culture of the business to one that is closer to the customer.

Wireless discord

While the overall tone of the week was one of optimism and the sense that automation and manufacturing were back on the front burner, there remained an undertone of discord around the seemingly never-ending struggles of the ISA100 committee to resolve differences around its standard for wireless sensor networks.

A panel of end users moderated by ARC's Harry Forbes discussed the role of wireless in production (all the panelists represented refining and petrochemical plants). Herman Story, retired oil company engineer and currently a consultant and member of the ISA100 committee noted that the reason all of them were there and interested in the technology was because it represented a way for companies to save money.

Mike Brooks, a venture executive for Chevron, challenged the community to finish the standard. "I was here a year ago at the same forum and the same panel and little has happened in the year since. Refining margins are still slim. We need to do things to cut costs. I'm frankly [very mad] that nothing has happened."

Story concluded by talking about the need for "one standard." The remaining source of conflict on the committee revolves around WirelessHart. That technology is an IEC standard--something one end user told me privately he holds in low esteem because it is political, one vote per country instead of an end-user-driven standard. Regardless, it is a recognized standard that the ISA100 committee has been grappling with a way to reconcile. A minority block on the committee has been pushing for the committee to simply adopt WirelessHart. The majority wants to reconcile it with the already adopted standard (ISA100 has been adopted by ISA, but it was rejected by ANSI, leaving it in a bit of limbo).

So, I asked Story after the session how he defined "one standard" give the three existing standards (ISA100, WirelessHart and a Chinese standard that somewhat differs from the two). He told me he expects a convergence. I hope he's right and that it will happen. Quite frankly, I'm weary of the politics and acrimony and ad hominem attacks--count your blessings if you are not part of the discussions.

If you don't think this is crucial, an end user engineer who oversees many plants says he doesn't want to support different wireless standards in different plants. It's a source of pain he doesn't want to live with.

Ommm

I'm just wondering if there is any way for leadership to appear in this discussion that says, "Let's just all take a step back, take a deep breath, stop with the company politics, and then come up with a solution." As one executive told me during the week, we're spending too much time arguing about the solution without addressing the problem. Amen.

Wireless location application

Location applications are one of the hot areas in automation. Security is a major driver--knowing where people and assets are located in the event of an event at a plant. There are many other uses that make these applications attractive. Apprion announced the release of ION Location Application, IONite Personnel Tag and IONite Asset Tag. ION Location enables a suite of applications to address security, safety and environmental regulations and improve overall safety, productivity, asset utilization and performance. ION Location supports leading real-time locating technology systems including Wi-Fi, UWB and satellite in a single, comprehensive network. The location information from all of these systems is displayed on a single dashboard with integrated CAD drawings, maps and satellite photographs of a site to visually navigate the entire facility from a desktop while tracking the location and condition of people and key assets from a highly accurate spatial and visual perspective.

At the press conference series at the ARC Forum in Orlando.

Maintain Your Wireless Networks

Here's a set of new tools to keep your wireless networks at optimum performance. AirMagnet, now part of Fluke Networks, today released new versions of its AirMagnet Survey PRO 8.0 (including the AirMagnet Planner module) and AirMagnet WiFi Analyzer PRO 9.0. Both products now include the company’s new multi-adapter solution, which delivers dramatic enhancements to the wireless LAN (WLAN) designing and troubleshooting process by going beyond just collecting greater amounts of data, to integrating that data into features that help speed the performance and accuracy of site surveys, and deliver the industry’s most in-depth client roaming analysis to ensure wireless continuity.

“Our new multi-adapter solution, while not the only new update to these two products, is noteworthy because it provides a new way for users to measure and visualize the WLAN client experience. When integrated into AirMagnet Survey PRO (the Planner module) and AirMagnet WiFi Analyzer PRO, this has a profound impact on the time, effort, cost and effectiveness associated with designing, deploying and troubleshooting a WLAN,” said Chia-Chee Kuan, CTO and SVP of Engineering at AirMagnet. “We are the first to offer true multi-adapter capabilities that go beyond just the data capture and push to root-cause analysis leveraging our intelligence engine, AirWISE.”

The release of AirMagnet Survey PRO (including the Planner module) allows an organization to perform simultaneous multiple surveys – to dramatically reduce time and cost associated with WLAN design and deployment – by leveraging the industry’s only true visualization of the “client experience” with active surveys, and also includes the new WLAN throughput coverage mapping capability. Furthermore, it offers customized report templates to meet project requirements – a critical business component for installers, integrators and services provides that need to deliver customized WLAN design recommendations.

The new release of AirMagnet WiFi Analyzer PRO offers advanced WLAN roaming analysis that leverages the multi-adapter capability to allow users to monitor every client roaming event in the network and provide details on the success and failure of client device roams and the overall impact of roaming on the client experience and performance. This root-cause analysis of roaming issues helps mitigate reoccurrences of roaming associated problems in the future as users are provided with the precise reasons for the inefficient client roaming. Along with the roaming functionality, AirMagnet WiFi Analyzer PRO also offers a new wireless dashboard that focuses on top issues requiring immediate attention, helping to ensure maximum network security and performance, while still giving easy drill-down analysis on other issues that require deeper investigation.

AirMagnet WiFi Analyzer also addresses one of the most common IT staffer complaints with WLAN monitoring – “why isn’t there a single-click technique for testing connectivity and application performance?” Now there is, with a new onetouch connection audit with unique, on-the-spot verification for network connectivity and application performance.

Emerson Bloggers Have Busy Week

Between special projects, getting a magazine out and travel, I'm afraid blogging time has taken a hit. I'm working on eight stories right now. But then, I'm on the road again next week--you'll be getting a double dose of Rockwell news this time.

The bloggers at Emerson Process Management have had a busy week, though. Mr. Emerson Process Expert himself, Jim Cahill, reports on a mobility application. Watch for more mobility coverage in the future as we all want to use our iPhones and Droid Incredibles in the plant (yes, Don, not in hazardous locations, please).

Greg McMillan discusses using an advanced PID algorithm developed for wireless control for other applications, while Terry Blevins discusses Data Analytics in Pharma Manufacturing with a call to action.

Wireless Market Consolidation

Back to business. I thought wireless sensor networks would be a big boost of creativity and new business in our market. There's been some--but not much business for magazines since the business model seems to be selling. Here is a representative article I've found about Arch Rock selling to Cisco. Supposedly for the connected smart grid work going on. I've interviewed the founders and technical people at Arch Rock in the past. I guess not so much now.