by Gary Mintchell | Dec 25, 2011 | Commentary
Merry Christmas to everyone. (I know that some countries where this is read Christmas is not an official holiday–but have a merry one anyway, on me!)
I have used the time between Christmas and New Years every year for probably 35 years as a time of intense reading, reflecting on the last year and visualizing the opportunities for the new year. We’re in Florida at my son’s house for Christmas. As a life-long Ohio resident with snow as a usual Christmas guest, 75 degrees does not feel like Christmas weather.
The first two books I’ve dived into are “Necessary Endings,” by Dr. Henry Cloud, and “Moral Intelligence,” by Lennick and Kiel. I’m about done with Cloud’s book. If you have never read anything by Cloud, you’ve missed a treat. “Boundaries” and “Integrity” are two of his latter books. “Endings” packs a lot of insight into the necessity to prune things from your life or business or come to necessary endings of relationships, businesses or other things.
During the reading, I was reminded of a system of Bill Hybels, founder and pastor of one of the largest churches in the country as well as founder and leader of the annual Leadership Summit that draws thousands to hear some of the top leaders in the world. He identifies six things (tasks, people, projects, initiatives) where he needs to focus extra energy for the coming six weeks. He puts his “6 x 6” on a 3×5 index card and keeps it on his desk to remind himself where to focus energy during his day.
During some other scanning, I ran across some advice on education and learning from Stanford professor Dr. Tae (dr.tae.org ; universitae.com). Check him out. The secret to learning, “Work your ass off until you figure it out.”
On the business side of things for the end of the year, I’m thinking about software implementation. Business has endured 25 years or more of huge investments in ERP software. These applications promise to bring together most of the business systems of a company — accounting, order entry, customer service, HR, sales force automation, order fulfillment, and more. But implementing such huge sofware can be challenging, especially if it entails changing business processes in conjunction. I first heard the term “SAP pain” in the early 90s. Well, lately, I’ve seen at least three news stories of companies suing their ERP vendor for the trials, tribulations, lost sales and grief of these huge projects.
Speaking as someone who implemented a small version of business software that only needed to integrate three departments in a company that was $125 million in 1979, I can understand some of the problems. Usually everyone is at fault–from failure to define the project enough to unduly raised expectations to over-promised benefits.
We still have so much to learn.
Maybe we can all work on that in 2012.
by Gary Mintchell | Dec 21, 2011 | Standards, Wireless
Industry consolidation in the wireless mesh network space continues with the acquisition of Dust Networks by Linear Technology (see my article at Automation World). Dust has been the platform for Emerson Process development and then WirelessHart. It’s purchase means that the technology is backed by an established, $1.4 billion company. This should add some insurance for those engineers considering long-term deployment of wireless sensor networks.
Meanwhile, the International Society of Automation (ISA) has achieved its long-deferred American National Standards Institute (ANSI) approval for the ISA100.11a standard–the “competing” standard to WirelessHart. It’s nice that the rhetoric has died in the “wireless wars” and the path to convergence getting serious (see Renee Robbins Bassett’s article in Automation World).
The ANSI approval is usually a routine matter, but the ISA 100 wireless committee had a tremendous amount of contentiousness. It was so bad that one ISA leader told me that it was the most disfunctional committee he’d seen at one point in the process. When the original ISA100.11a was adopted, several members of the committee thought that proper procedures had not been observed and petitioned ANSI to deny approval. ANSI, in fact, did deny approval, and the issue returned to the committee for further work.
Much as I thought at the time, this is almost an anti-climax. Many companies have WirelessHart devices in the market, while ISA100 products are still in development (although a few that meet the requirements without final approval are released) by a few companies.
by Gary Mintchell | Dec 19, 2011 | Operations Management
Editors learn quickly that it is prudent to strip the verbal exuberance of marketing and PR people from press releases when evaluating whether a release is newsworthy or not. Words such as “first,” “fastest,” “best,” and other superlatives not backed up by facts should be treated with suspicion. Better for the marketing person to cite facts—rather than fastest, cite the speed for example.
Here is an example where you can get into trouble through definitions, obfuscation and exaggeration. I did not run the original QNX press release, but here is a response from Green Hills Software to that release. I am running parts of this release simply as a reminder for PR people—but also for readers who sometimes receive these verbatim press releases and wonder about them. Ponder before accepting any outlandish claims.
I don’t know enough about these embedded systems anymore to make any substantive comment, but you can follow the link train if you’re interested and see for yourself.
From the Green Hills Software release
QNX recently made an announcement that includes false and misleading statements. Green Hills believes it important to correct the false statements for the editor and analyst community. This letter provides the facts that counter the false statements. We are trying hard to avoid opinion or hyperbole; you can derive your own conclusions from the facts presented.
The primary false claim, as stated in the headline of the press release, is as follows:
QNX Announces Availability of First RTOS to Achieve Both Safety and Security Certification
This statement is false. The referenced QNX RTOS is not the first RTOS to achieve both safety and security certification. Green Hills Software’s INTEGRITY-178B RTOS is well known in the industry to have achieved both safety and security certification. In 2002, INTEGRITY-178B achieved its first RTCA/DO-178B Level A safety certification. In 2008, INTEGRITY-178B achieved its first Common Criteria EAL 6+ security certification. While this information can be independently verified quite easily, for brevity, we include the following links to Green Hills press releases, documenting the long history of safety and security certifications for the INTEGRITY-178B RTOS:
http://www.ghs.com/news/20110316_10th_INT-178B_anniv.html
http://www.ghs.com/news/20110307_Second_EAL6_SKPP.html
http://www.ghs.com/news/20090210_MES_editors_choice.html
End Release
There is much more to this release. Please visit the respective Websites if you are involved in safety/security critical embedded system development.
More important, watch for statements that you read that you apply judgement and memory. I try hard to be even handed and facts-oriented. If I slip up, I expect you all to remind me.
by Gary Mintchell | Dec 16, 2011 | Operations Management
I tried to be thoughtful and analytical in my post about Invensys and then broader into the automation market. But I often seem to stir up something.
Just discovered that this is not a new thing. My first “real” job out of grad school was at Airstream–the manufacturer of luxury travel trailers and motorhomes. While I was there we also built truck bodies for UPS and the bodies for the original people movers at the Atlanta airport (I quoted both of those projects). My last few years were in product development ending up as a program manager.
Turns out that Airstream (yes it still exists) has hired someone with an MA in history to write and compose an Airstream history. Part of it is an oral history. I’m going back to my home town of Jackson Center, Ohio tomorrow to be interviewed as part of this project. To prepare, I searched my files for any old stuff. Found the project plan for one of the 1980 trailer lines, the brochure for the first Airstream brand motorhome, the brochure for the Diesel-powered motor home (one of my projects), and, oh yes, a series of memos. Seems I wrote a memo about the the state of the bill of materials (which was one of my responsibilities) relative to such things as inventory shrinkage. Must have stepped on some toes, because what I found was the follow up memo where I said that I didn’t mean to point fingers (bet I did) and a copy of that memo returned to me with an atta boy written by the President. Wow. (didn’t stop him from laying me off two months later, though).
by Gary Mintchell | Dec 14, 2011 | Automation, Operations Management
Judging from the lack of flame in my comments section, I guess the disgruntled element at Foxboro who like to post anonymously on Jim Pinto’s Weblog have written me off as hopelessly bought off by “management.” I’m sorry about that. I just try to take a broader view. Easy for me, since I don’t work there nor have I invested a lifetime of work there.
I’m sorry to see Invensys back in the news in a somewhat negative light. I don’t think I’d rank its board up there with Yahoo’s and HP’s for dysfunction, but I still fail to see a sustained (at least public) direction there. As I’ve written before, there are many, many great people in the various divisions that I cover and they deserve some consistent leadership with a vision of success.
What Would Gary Do?
The Silicon Valley writers whom I follow closely, would all take this opportunity to voice an opinion on what the company should do next. Understand that I’m not a financial genius and I have no inside knowledge. I am experienced in corporate politics and strategies, though, and I am a careful observer. So here are a few thoughts.
A wise and experienced CEO once discussed strategy with me and told me that a company can be a hardware company or a software company, but it cannot be both. The business models are too different to house within one system. Now, don’t quibble with me about all hardware containing software these days. Not the same thing. I’m not talking about embedded operating systems, communications links and the like. Can a company sell both instrumentation/control systems (or PLCs/controls) and application software (such as MOM or MES or ERP)? My teacher said, no.
I think Wonderware back standing on its own would make an attractive software company. The new architectures, adding Skelta, workflow, MES on top of (what ARC Advisory Group calls the leading) HMI/SCADA. The question would be, is it too small to stand alone? I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think so. It’s possible that the era of hardware and systems companies jumping into software as a path to growth is about over.
The rest of Invensys Operations Management then takes on the appearance of its competitors. I’d take the work and ideas of Peter Martin and position the company as one which has the vision, people and products to help customers solve business problems of production. Sure, you use DCSs, instruments and the like, but this company doesn’t just sell products, it sells the idea of helping customer be profitable.
The challenge for this is that IOM is smaller than its rivals. And Emerson and ABB especially have been bulking up. Rockwell Automation has been growing rapidly, although it doesn’t offer instrumentation and final control elements to go along with its control and safety portfolio.
I’ve had some people call who think that merely a leadership change at IOM will make all the difference in the world. I know Mike Caliel and I have much respect for him. But expectations in some quarters are running very high right now. He has a challenge, for sure.
Competitive landscape
Watch for Jim Pinto’s 2012 Prognostications which will be online soon Automation World. He begins the column with the observation that 2012 could be a very interesting year in industrial automation. I think he’s right. Here are a few things I’ve pulled out of my recent travels and meetings that could lead to an interesting 2012:
ABB is beginning to seriously pull together its discrete automation offerings. It could become an even stronger competitor for Siemens (overall) and Rockwell Automation (in discrete) building from a strong process business base.
Rockwell Automation announced big growth numbers (although it didn’t say from what to what) for its process business. It’s taking share from someone. Could it begin to offer a more comprehensive challenge to Siemens Industry?
Changes at Invensys–who knows what that might bring? A big unknown.
The wild cards in the process space are Honeywell and Yokogawa. We’re all watching to see what 2012 brings for them. They each build from strong bases and could offer some interesting competitive scenarios.
Mitsubishi is showing signs of a more invigorated presence. As is Omron. B&R Automation and Beckhoff are both growing from their European machine builder bases. Competition in the discrete market is heating up, and many of these are trying to get into some process automation areas as well. Factor in National Instruments, which has some reach into automation, and add other players such as Advantech and Opto 22. Engineers have lots of choices.
Who will be the smaller challengers? The software business is getting interesting. We’re seeing some renewed life from Iconics and Indusoft with Inductive Automation continuing to grow. Especially the latter two are talking more about cloud and software-as-a-service. Watch for a flurry of announcements in that space.
Isn’t that supposedly an Irish curse–wishing to be born in interesting times? Or, is it a blessing? Regardless, I think 2012 will be interesting. My competitive juices are flowing, but I’ll just be here on the sidelines, as always.
