Would you attend a conference where the speakers were CEOs, CTOs, VP Engineering and the like of supplier companies? More important, would you pay to attend such a conference?
Over at Automation World, we are busy organizing the second iteration of The Automation Conference. The truism in our industry (used by us, at the ARC Forum, at Emerson Exchange, and many more) is that presentations should be non-commercial and best by peers of the anticipated audience.
In the technology arena, Tim O’Reilly has made a nice living publishing books about technology and producing conferences. I listen to speakers from many of his conferences via podcast from IT Conversations (which, sadly is going away by the end of the year). His audience is primarily developers (I think). His speakers are for the most part exhibiters. They talk about advances of new products and the uses of technology.
I was just wondering if such a conference would go over in our market. Please leave comments.
I’m also starting to get my podcast series back in gear. There were so many things going on, that I sort of shelved it. But podcasts get far more downloads than videos. Another question–what if I did a series of interviews with top executives of supplier companies? Would that be worthwhile?
Emerson and Invensys and OPC
I posted a video essay recapping Emerson Exchange and Invensys Software’s User Conference. Both attracted good attendance and the atmosphere at both was full of energy and enthusiasm. Also, there were many faces that were not “old white guys.” Many younger people and many females. It is great to see such a demographic mix.
OPC’s inaurgural technology summit was also good. And the annual conference of the Society of Maintenance and Reliability Professionals (SMRP) was well attended–900 registered I was told. The most important point I learned at SMRP was tying Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) to profitability. I’m glad to hear people think in those terms. If we can get EAM, MES and ERP working together to improve manufacturing profitability (as well as maintenance & reliability, operations and IT working together), that will be a positive outcome for the industry.
Rockwell Automation
After spending the weekend in the Chicago suburban area watching my first ever 5-yr-old’s soccer match (grandson, of course–the next generation of Mintchells in soccer), I headed to Cleveland Monday for a briefing with several Rockwell Automation executives and a tour of a couple of its labs.
Part of the briefing was to give me a heads-up on announcements coming at Automation Fair in a couple of weeks. I am fascinated watching the development of Logix from around 1999 when Rich Ryan and John Nesi were explaining the concept to the way it’s building out. Rockwell has stayed the course while adapting to changing technologies–e.g. multi-core processors. More to come on that at Automation Fair. I’ll see some of you in Philadelphia, for sure.
Networking (especially EtherNet/IP) and process automation have been the core drivers of growth and market share gains for Rockwell over the past few years. I got to tour a greatly enhanced networking lab and also the process automation configuration lab (well, and also an instrumentation lab). Suffice it to say that the company has placed much investment in these areas. It’s interesting to hear Rockwell executives discuss the nuances of process automation with the same knowledge as they used to discuss automotive.
This week finds me back in Orlando for the OPC Technology Summit. The inaugural event drew about 110 people to learn about OPC UA–the technology, the status and how it’s being used even now. I’ve written much about OPC UA–the technology update designed to move OPC beyond its Microsoft COM/DCOM roots and into modern, multi-platform software engineering.
You all know OPC, that’s the technology everyone uses, but few advocate–the way it seems. I think that the UA specification is changing that. Today’s packed agenda included several use cases where UA’s ability to live harmoniously with corporate IT networking infrastructure as data is moved from device to application was the optimum solution.
Thomas Burke, OPC Foundation president, opened the session explaining the path away from COM/DCOM to the current multi-platform technology. He also stressed how certification gives users assurance of interoperability of OPC messaging from vendor to vendor.
Rashesh Mody, Invensys sr. vice president and former OPC Foundation chief technology officer, presented the value proposition of OPC. Actually, this may be the best explanation I’ve heard on the subject. He related the value to companies’ striving for operational excellence by aligning the right things at the right time–people, materials, utilities, equipment–protecting and preserving value while creating values. OPC UA offers lower total cost of ownership (TCO), empowerment of workers among many other benefits.
Mbaga Ahorukomeye of Schlumberger detailed a petroleum drilling operation featuring how OPC UA moved data for improved operations.
Stefan Hoppe, product manager of embedded software at Beckhoff and president of OPC Foundation Europe, discussed a joint working group of OPC Foundation and PLCopen that is developing function blocks for programming various OPC UA messages in IEC 61131.
Had you followed my advice about attending the event, you would have a new respect and understanding of where OPC UA fits in the automation toolbox–and that many companies are already developing products and many users are exploiting the benefits.
We’re very busy producing the “show daily” for the conference, but that keeps us moving around the area and learning new things.
Steve Sonnenberg and Peter Zornio had to start the day off with me for an exclusive interview. It was a wide ranging discussion that began with standards and ended with target industry trends. Here are highlights of the interview:
GM: You were refreshingly open and transparent about the supply chain struggles the company endured. It sounds like you came out stronger.
Sonnenberg: It was helpful to put a face on the problem and just acknowledge the situation and thank our customers for working with us. We really appreciated the loyalty of our customers as our teams worked to prioritize needs to assure that the most critical needs were served first. There was some tremendous working together such as when some companies realized that they had extra parts and offered to sell or loan them back to help other companies in need.
GM: You have made services a major point of the conference this year. In fact, you even did a press conference differently by using Emerson executives to set the context and then had some very articulate customers explain how they were using various services. The point was that they were using Emerson personnel resources–engineers, project managers, program managers. I believe this move of engineering resources from users to suppliers has been going on for some time. Is this a growing and continuing trend?
Zornio: Yes, this is a growing trend. Engineers are a scarce resource. This is actually a more efficient use of resources. We can hire engineers and put them in regional areas where they are more readily available to customers. We can cut down airplane time and improve the speed of service. Customers often find it more efficient to hire us as the main automation contractor for many kinds of projects.
GM: One of your customers mentioned yesterday that he was not worried about Intellectual Property problems, because his company has domain expertise in manufacturing the product while they can rely on your automation expertise.
Zornio: That’s just one of the efficiencies of allocating engineering resources. Another customer mentioned that he is only one-deep in expertise in many areas within the company. We are an alternative way to enhance his expertise. Even EPCs are seeing value in hiring us as the automation designer so that they don’t have to develop expertise in that area.
GM: Emerson has been strong in oil and gas for many years, now, and in fact the Industry Forum session devoted to oil & gas and refining were filled to overflowing. But so was the Life Sciences session. What’s happening there?
Sonnenberg: There are a number of things going on in that industry. First, there is a lot of consolidation which is both a challenge and an opportunity as the companies rationalize different automation systems. So far, we have been chosen as the supplier for the combined companies. Specifically in the pharma area, we are working with the companies to do some of the control system design up front–to put DeltaV in the lab, so to speak–so that it shrinks time at the end of the project as they move from trial to production.
iOps Center
The assembled media were introduced to the “iOps Center” demonstration during Monday’s press conference. I have seen similar at Invensys and ABB, so my curiosity was whetted. Whether dubbed “Integrated Operations Center” or “Intelligent Operations Center,” the demonstration showed off Emerson and third-party technologies and the power of Emerson solutions services.
Multiple, easy-to-read screens paired with advanced video conferencing and collaboration technologies enable advanced decision making whether predictive maintenance or energy trading. They showed using for remote experts–say condition-monitoring experts for rotating equipment talking to the process automation and instrumentation folks. Another scenario was an energy trader who needed to make a fast buy/no-buy decision and could summon multiple screens, dashboards, others in the same control room or remote video conferencing.
Day one of the 2012 Emerson Global Users Exchange is in the books. As always, lots of people and lots of energy. Registered attendance this year is about 3,000. I stopped by several of the Industry Forums in the afternoon and there were overflow crowds at the Refining, Oil & Gas and Life Sciences ones. Don’t know about the others. But I stayed in the Refining forum for 30-40 minutes and enjoyed the “exchange” between panelists and speakers.
Steve Sonnenberg frankly addressed the company’s supply chain problems following last year’s floods in Thailand. He said the company undertook a thorough risk management review searching for every aspect of the company and supply chain to mitigate those risks.
<b>Trusted advisor</b>
Definitely one theme of the conference is services. Emerson has added more than 3,000 employees in the past year–many in project management, application engineering and other technical roles. Expansion of service centers globally has been torrid. Emerson has striven to become the trusted advisor for its customers often taking on the role of Main Automation Contractor for both new projects and for turnarounds.
Chief Strategic Officer Peter Zornio followed with a description of the many new products unveiled at the show. Even for one who can talk rapidly if necessary, Zornio couldn’t fit them into his allotted time. Chief among the products was the introduction of safety integrated systems into the new CHARMs architecture.
There is additional information, and it will be flowing all week, at this Emerson Exchange site. Our team is doing the “show daily” for the event and posting a lot of stuff there. More later.
The OPC Foundation will host OPC Technology Summit 2012 on October 16-18 in Orlando, Florida, at the Renaissance Orlando Hotel at SeaWorld.
OPC is one of those technologies that sometimes flies under the radar. Almost everyone uses it in some manner, but not everyone knows how to exploit it to its fullest extent. Especially the power of the latest iteration OPC UA–the technology that moves OPC from the Microsoft COM/DCOM foundation to a more modern XML and Microsoft.Net technology.
There is still time to register and plan your trip, so I thought I’d try to get the Top 5 Reasons to attend OPC Technology Summit 2012.
Learn how OPC UA…
1. Provides interoperability: Roland Essmann, Elster, with SAP and Beckhoff, demos shop-floor to top-floor connectivity.
2. Is field proven: Mbaga Ahorukomeye, Schlumberger, presents OPC UA in drilling automation architecture.
3. Provides competitive advantage: Mark Conde, Universal Parks & Resorts, discusses “future proofing” your application with OPC UA.
4. Is easy to use and available: Global automation suppliers ABB, Invensys, Rockwell Automation, Siemens and Yokogawa present OPC UA technology adoption roadmaps.
5. Is certified: Bill Cotter, 3M, addresses OPC Foundation certification.
This is another of the conferences I’ll be attending. See you there.
