by Gary Mintchell | May 19, 2010 | Uncategorized
About 4,000 attendees greeted ABB Chief Executive Officer Joe Hogan as the Zurich, Switzerland-based diversified power and automation systems and components supplier kicked off its annual user conference, Automation and Power World. “There is hope at last (about the economy),” stated Hogan in his keynote address. “We are in a recovery, but it is still tenuous in the developing world.”
Hogan began with the state of the company in broad terms. He had reorganized the company about a year ago into five divisions. To get a sense of the size of the company just in the automation market, the “discrete automation” unit is at about $5.4 billion in sales–more than competitor Rockwell Automation in total, for example. It process automation unit adds another $7.8 billion to the corporate top line.
Much of Hogan’s talk, as well as many sessions and exhibits in the 100,000 square foot exhibition hall, focused on power and enery efficiency. The theme begun last year at the merged “Power World” and “Automation World” conferences continued this year–the confluence of power and process automation. This fact was backed up by Chief Technology Officer Peter Terwisch’s presentation at the press briefing where he threw in one process automation comment at the end of an otherwise power and energy focused talk.
While there was some talk of the recent acquisition of Ventyx acquisition, said to give ABB the tools to help manage energy better, the only news release was the announcement that ABB will invest $90 million in the United States to build a factory that will produce high voltage AC and DC cables. Executives hastened to explain that these aren’t your father’s cables. They are specially designed for such applications as moving electricity from remote power generation sites–for example wind turbine farms far out at sea–to places in the electric grid robust enough to handle the load.
Terwisch’s one comment about automation at the press briefing was to note the company’s virtualization technology for the 800xA platform. Later I got an indepth look into the new, but as yet not formally announced, cpmPlus History–a new historian that not only is capable of acquiring tremendous quantities of data, but also has built-in tools for analysis and scripting capability for development custom analysis built on more complex math and algorithms if required by the customer application.
In another presentation I was able to attend, Clovis de Almeida from Petrobras in Brazil explained a substation project at a refinery using the IEC 61850 protocol. The valuable thing about project leaders sharing experiences is that he could provide details about places where things didn’t go as planned and how they were able work through the challenges. Although he was also quick to say that many problems came from suppliers other than ABB at a couple of points.
I think the size of the event reflects the growing recovery. While this one was a record, some credit probably goes to planners who located it in Houston enabling many engineers a better opportunity to drive in for a day or two rather than having to submit a travel budget for air fare and hotel for several days. As I continue on the spring tour of conferences, we’ll see how widespread this surge is.
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 28, 2010 | Uncategorized
If you’d rather get it as a podcast.
Some thoughts on the need for education, company sponsored education, and talks about entrepreneur education at Stanford, Vivek Wadhwa writing at TechCrunch on why America needs to invest in its workforce, a Robert Scoble video interview and finally refers to a Seth Godin blog with a video on what a teacher makes.
by Gary Mintchell | Feb 27, 2010 | Uncategorized
Here’s a video feed of the news recap.
by Gary Mintchell | Jan 18, 2010 | Uncategorized
[Sorry, I was dashing out the door this morning to head for Chicago and hit the wrong button. Thought I was saving a draft.]
I ran across these comments from Bill Waddell on the Evolving Excellence blog. He’s a manufacturing consultant and Lean expert. Some of his conclusions match some current news reading I’ve done. Saw something about the current CEO of Toyota who does not seem to have the same drive for Lean and excellence as his father and grandfather. Notice Toyota has had some slight problems creeping into its vaunted production processes.
Waddell notes, “I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to achieve excellence – for some impossible to achieve mediocrity – until the leadership of the company decides what it is trying to accomplish and communicates that objective to the entire company. The goal of the company and its reason for existence has to be spelled out.”
He continues, “When there is no clear statement of the objectives and purpose, confusion, conflict and chaos reign.” I have seen this time and time again. It’s a pain to get old, I guess. I still see people who just cannot define what business they’re in and what the optimum outcomes are. What about you? Are you building a business, or milking some short-term cash?
“Lean is a philosophy and a strategy aimed at profitability in the long term, and it assumes that the critical value creation activities will be kept in house,” he says. “In most companies, however, no one ever said that making money in the long term was the paramount objective – and there is ample evidence that making money now – this period – is the higher priority. So people advocating long term ideas run smack into those who think this month is the highest importance.”
Have you ever run into these conflicting objectives? I have. It’s not pretty. I’m also not really interested in people not building for long term prosperity (except some technology startups find their best exit as a sale to a company hungry for technology).
by Gary Mintchell | Oct 29, 2009 | Uncategorized
CEO KC Liu revealed the new focus and structure of Advantech before a crowd of over 500 partners from around the globe at the convention center in Suzhou, China (just outside Shanghai) Oct. 29-30. The theme is going from “Trusted ePlatform” to “Enabling a Smarter Planet.” Advantech is, at its core, an electronics component supplier. It is known for embedded computing, industrial computers, networking infrastructure, displays and data acquisition I/O. But it has discovered business in many vertical sectors. Therefore it is pushing its partners to develop expertise in solution selling to specific verticals in addition to selling volume components.
Liu explained that Advantech will be structured with two major devisions: Embedded Design (trusted ePlatform and services) and Branding & Solutions (Enabling a Smarter Planet).
Quoting from IBM study, the smarter planet is driven by the trends that the world is becoming Instrumented, Interconnected, Intelligent. The point is that Advantech contributes products and services in each of the three areas.
Advantech has identified six major vertical markets in which it seeks to focus. These are medical and healthcare, factory and machine automation, power and energy, transportation, industrial mobile computing and retail and hospitality.
In a later discussion with the press, Liu expressed belief that the new focused embedded services group–dedicated engineering staff to work with major customers on system architecture design and deployment–holds great promise for growth in the near future.
by Gary Mintchell | Oct 13, 2009 | Uncategorized
Yesterday was a company holiday. I did some work, but mostly did husband things and recovered from the weekend conclusion of a three-week marathon. Had both of my kids (along with two grandkids) in the house at the same time for the first time in five years. The two-year-old knows I’ll play with him, so he proceeded to wear me out. It’s a joy. I’ll enjoy the visit to my massage therapist this afternoon 😉
You can join me Thursday afternoon at 2 pm EDT for a Webcast with a slightly different tone than some others. This is software-focused and specifically on Product Data Management–how automating it can speed time to market, reduce costs and improve product quality among other things. There will be a user speaking about the benefits he received. Register at Automation World.
Here are some of the recent things I’ve been reading:
Think you know everything about Search Engine Optimization? Here’s a post saying it’s not something that someone with a brain or a soul should undertake. (I agree with him for the most part.)
Chris Brogan offers tips for a problem many of us have–getting more email requests than we can handle.
Having trouble with your to-do list. Here’s a tip–there’s no task easier than no task.
Here are 34 reminders for a fulfilled life.
Greg McMillan has been at it again with more Exceptional Opportunities in Process Control — Online Metrics. If you haven’t caught the rest of the series, check this one out at least.
So, you see, I haven’t been slacking entirely.
