by Gary Mintchell | Aug 30, 2011 | Commentary
Late last year I received a very nice invitation to a small dinner party featuring an MIT professor. It was an informative evening even though I chose perhaps the wrong seat. When I entered there were two open chairs, and, to quote the Knight Templar from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, “He chose poorly.” In other words, I picked one end and he spent most of the evening turned the other way. But what I got was priceless. Discussing many of the students he’d been getting for the past several years, he recommended a book, “The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement,” by Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell.
I’m finally getting around to reading it. It’s well worth the read. Especially if you are hiring or supervising people. Do you know any people who feel entitled? Who think everyone and everything exists to serve them? Who don’t understand why they can’t be CEO of a major company with fewer than two years’ experience?
The Dayton (Ohio) Daily News recently had a news item about the difficulty of hiring people for manufacturing jobs. One plant manager said that most applicants didn’t want to work eight hour days or work overtime–and that’s from the few who could pass the drug test. He said he could use 55 people right now.
In the Automation World Linked In Group, there is a discussion about whether automation costs jobs. But Jim Cahill of Emerson Process Management and the Emerson Process Experts blog pointed out that there were many job openings posted on the Delta V Linked In Group. I’ve seen job postings in many other Linked In Grroups, as well.
Have we as a generation failed to bring up the next generation with a work ethic? Or does this describe only a small proportion of the generation that’s under 45 or so? Are you finding plenty of younger people who are willing to work and pay their dues to learn the systems?
by Gary Mintchell | Aug 29, 2011 | Automation, Operations Management
There are big changes at HP and I wonder if they in any way reflect what may be happening in much of the automation space. This article in Business Insider by Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry takes a more in-depth look at the recent changes than most of the reaction I’ve see so far.
HP’s Dilemma
To recap, Hewlett-Packard (what’s left after spinning off some of the original parts) forced out Mark Hurd for expense account hanky-panky and perhaps hanky-panky of another sort after much public bickering among its Board. The board settled on Leo Apotheker from SAP as the new CEO.
HP at that time had a number of businesses: enterprise software and services; PCs (a combination of its own PCs, the long-ago acquisition of DEC and the more recent acquisition of Compaq—which led to the demise of former CEO Carly Fiorina) and printers; and mobile (acquisition of Palm and its WebOS).
Let’s see, which of those areas would be Apotheker’s strength? Enterprise software and services, of course. But many technology analysts were shocked when word leaked (really poor corporate communications) that HP was going to spin off its PC and mobile businesses. The outcry was intense.
But Gobry argues that HP would have been bled dry trying to fund WebOS to the point that it could begin to compete with Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile. Plus, the PC business is quickly becoming a commodity market. Expect lower gross margins there. HP may not be organized to profit from that type of business as well as the Chinese and Taiwanese competitors.
Relate to Automation
Several years ago, four automation companies rushed to acquire MES companies and move into that enterprise software and services space. PLCs and even SCADA software could be moving into commodity territory. Certainly Rockwell Automation and Siemens kept boosting the high end of their PLC offerings in order to push technology and maintain higher margins. But attacks from lower-cost products had to be eating away at the base. Same with plant-level software.
The vision at the time for these large MES players was to hire sales teams skilled at working with CIO-level customers. The payoff would be huge (as in 7 figure) sales with long term commitments–a la SAP. These sales would be high margin into the foreseeable future.
The only one of the group that had existing high-level relationships was Wonderware—and not really it, but (at the time) Invensys Process Systems. As the two groups merged into Invensys Operations Management, they could take advantage of Peter Martin’s work with CEOs plus the relationships that come more naturally in the process system space where sales for systems for huge projects draw high visibility.
IOM has been working very hard with its InFusion solution at the higher level. Rockwell has worked very hard at cultivating relationships at the CIO and higher level among its customer base. Siemens has taken a decidedly lower profile with its software, at least in dealing with the press. Its focus now seems to be PLM and the digital factory concept. GE Intelligent Platforms seems to be focusing mostly on sales internal to GE, but it still gets out into the open at times. But…most MES sales seem to be done at the plant manager level right now. Most multi-million dollar projects seem to be still in the future.
I’m really just thinking out loud. But many PLC systems are already designed and manufactured in Thailand, China and South Korea. Industrial automation always lags the technology sector by several years. So, what is the future in automation? Will the big players begin to emulate HP? At what point will PLCs (by whatever name) become commoditized? What will happen if a huge Chinese company decides to buy an automation company? China has a lot of national pride (the US has no monopoly on that sentiment!). It could seek to be a player. That would be interesting.
Or was there something funny that baked in with the pizza I had for lunch?
Let me know your thoughts.
by Gary Mintchell | Aug 25, 2011 | Operations Management
Industrial automation is a PC-centric technology. I can still remember the ARC Forum in Orlando in 1999 when the evangelists from Sun thought there was still a chance for Java (they kept thinking it was an operating system) and “the network is the computer” only to be confronted by speaker after speaker talking about how they’ve ported their applications to Microsoft Windows on the PC.
We got in the habit already in the late 80s differentiating the PC from the Mac. This existed through the famous PC vs. Mac commercials of a few years ago.
But I had an Apple II by 1984. It was a marvelous machine. Up until then I had used a mini-computer for work and hobbyist computers to play with (remember the Timex Sinclair anyone?). I’ve followed Steve Jobs ever since. And I’ve never really been surprised (other than his banishment from Apple and then his return). Because he has held true to his core vision for his entire adult life. And that vision has brought many wonderous devices. I’m typing this on a MacBook Pro. My iPad is beside it–where I just finished reading my news feeds. Soon, I’ll go out for a run in the park listening to podcasts on my iPod Touch. Only thing I don’t have is an iPhone (maybe the iPhone 5 on Verizon?).
Most effective CEOs are people you never hear about. The ones who seek headlines seldom have staying power. Maybe they are strong in the short term, but they always flame out. Not Steve Jobs. His passion and vision have kept him focused not so much on himself as his goal. We’d all like to be like him. Almost none of us can.
The best report I have read overnight comes from Rex Hammock. I second much of what he had to say. Check it out. On that humble Apple II from 1984-1987 while I worked at Cardinal Production Equipment, we found a better way to prepare quotes, shipped documents back and forth with a remote engineer via modem, managed cash flow in a $10 million (1985 numbers) company, developed a project management tool. And on it I found it much easier to keep track of the soccer referee assignments I made, send mailings to the members (remember life before email?), and manage much of my personal business.
Thanks, Steve. I think Apple will survive a long time. But we’ll miss the vision.
by Gary Mintchell | Aug 24, 2011 | Events
One more week of summer, then it’s conference time. I’m already getting invitations to register for user conferences. Line up of my travels below. If you will be at any, let’s see if we can meet up.
A year ago at this time, I was flat on my back in my garage waiting for the Rescue Squad. Refereed my first high school game of the year on Monday, taught Yoga on Tuesday and then on Wednesday as I was getting in the car, I stretched out to throw something on the seat and popped my quadricep muscle. Couldn’t walk for two weeks. Barely hobbling for Emerson Exchange (it was earlier last year). Wasn’t really ready to run until December. I reffed a game Monday, taught Yoga last night–and really, really watched myself this morning 😉
Getting ready for conference season, Andy at The ArchestrAnaut blog wrote Five Reasons to go to OpsManage (he’s a Wonderware integrator). Actually it was more. Here are highlights:
1) It’s a great place to hear about what’s new. Yes you can read about these things in the press releases afterwards but there’s something cool about being the first to hear about new features and new directions.
2) You’ll get a good sense of where the entire ship is headed.
3) The networking is great! No, not the wireless networks… the people you geek! Where else can you get the chance to sit down with product managers, company directors, big thinkers, and other interesting people. What’s cool about this is that you don’t really have to do anything special to get these meetings.
Aside from networking with Wonderware folks there is also the chance to chat up other customers and integrators. I’ve made quite a few connections with people at the conference that I stay in touch with to this day. It’s kinda neat to watch everyone grow through the years as we all get a little older and wiser.
4) The Opryland is an AMAZING place. Unless you really want to, you literally won’t need to leave the property during your entire stay.
5) It’s not like it’s Vegas or something where you can get in trouble.
OK, I’m heading to Vegas, too, but you get the idea. There’s more at his blog. Check it out and see why going to conferences is a good thing.
Here’s my list so far:
Meanwhile, we’ll still get the monthly Automation World out with blogging, tweets, Plus and the rest. See you there.
by Gary Mintchell | Aug 21, 2011 | Commentary
The Dayton Daily News today carried a report stating that many manufacturing jobs are going unfilled. It cites a report from the Ohio Manufacturing Association supplemented with interviews with two local manufacturers. This is the type of story that leads to generational stereotype discussions. You probably shouldn’t extrapolate the data too far, but there is definitely a problem.
The reasons that people either don’t apply or aren’t hired were noted as don’t show up for work every day, don’t want to work eight hours a day let alone overtime, and can’t pass the drug test. The two companies interviewed would hire over 100 people this week if they could find them. Wages aren’t outstanding, but much better than service work.
Have any of you been trying to hire lately? I asked a couple of managers in church this morning and they corroborated the reports. What has been your experience lately?
By the way, notice no link? It’s because the editor and publisher of the newspaper are such strategic visionaries that they don’t want links to their Website that would give many pageviews for their advertisers (this blog would have sent over 100 alone). A text box at the end of the article notes, “This is only in the paper. Exclusive, hard-hitting reports such as this are only available in our newspaper, no our free website.”
