I continue to be impressed at the growth of the Rockwell Automation process business. A walk down the hallway at break time between technical sessions is slowed by the many people and the buzz of conversation and energy. Check out my news report of the event.
Many of you know that I have distant roots to Rockwell’s process efforts. In one of my many “past lives” I sold Rockwell products. I attended an early process control class for the PLC5 and (I think) Control View. Interestingly, yesterday I saw Steve Ryan, who was leading the process initiative at the time. He’s now President of M+W Automation, an EPC. But we talked about those early roots.
Keith Nosbusch and his team made significant investments in the business. On my recent trip to Cleveland, I was shown its lab for testing process and instrumentation systems. It took a long time for the business to brew, but once the executive team realized the business potential, they jumped on it.
Rockwell announced reduced earnings in Q4 yesterday, but in private conversations I was told that EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) sales were actually up in the quarter and the process business contributed to that growth. Very interesting.
The picture is of Som Chakraborti, director of the process business, taken with my new iPhone 5. My apologies to Som. I didn’t realize that I sat on the wrong side of the room making the lighting impossible.
