Industrial Automation and Information Technology

Industrial Automation and Information Technology

Last week was where industrial automation and information technology met along with my vice–soccer.

Emerson Automation Solutions–Digital Transformation, IT/OT collaboration, corporate acquisitions (GE Intelligent Platforms, once known as GE Fanuc, joins the fold), WirelessHART applications expand, flow control data becomes an integral part of digital transformation.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)–Refinery of the Future tour of the Texmark refinery that I’ve written about before and CenterPoint Energy where digital boosts the electrical utility industry.

Marketers may still talk of IT/OT convergence as something coming. In many forward thinking plants it is here. Texmark CEO Doug Smith talks freely about the kick in the pants delivered by his insurance carrier that propelled him and his team toward finding innovative solutions to operations challenges.

I sometimes joke that “I’m the point of convergence of IT and OT”, or at least my blog and writing are.

Don’t believe hype or nay-sayers. The collaboration is real–among suppliers, partner ecosystems, managers, engineers. And real benefits are accruing.

Have you joined the 21st Century?

Industrial Automation and Information Technology

Personal Update On Business of Manufacturing Connection

If I haven’t seemed my usual prolific self, business has gotten in the way. Next week I’ll be at Emerson Exchange and life will start getting back to normal.

We constructed this Website to support advertising, but I decided not to directly sell advertising. That despite the fact that page views and click throughs are not bad relative to other sites.

All of a sudden, I got swamped.

Part of my work (hint) is individual research and analysis of pieces of the market. People seem to like my analytical capabilities. I have a couple of contracts that have kept me busy.

My long-time part-time job is assigning soccer referees to high school contests. This year has seen more changes and problems than ever before. I’ve always dealt with sportsmanship issues, but this past week has just about seen a record.

I also work with companies on various aspects of marketing–social media, inbound ideas, messaging, focus points (another hint). Some of that picked up.

Finally, I began to do a little angel investing. One of my investments needed marketing help–so, there I am learning the consumer side of Facebook for marketing. Check out High Grounds Cafe on Facebook.

Looking forward to some good industry news from Denver next week. Maybe I can try stirring up something that I didn’t from Sacramento a couple of weeks ago. I also have a pile of stuff to digest, analyze and report on. Coming soon!

Have a great fall weekend (or spring for my Brazilian friends).

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