I've been on the road again the last two weeks and I'm facing another two weeks out. That and working on an article on intelligent sensing systems, an article on integrating process and packaging with corporate systems and an article on energy automation.
Last week I was in Chicago for ProMat, the material handling industry gathering. Sort of makes me long for a controls industry gathering of the kind we don't have anymore. Anyway, the show was well attended, but only a small portion of the show was automation related. The controls and automation people I talked with were all upbeat about sales. A good sign for the economy.
This week I visited ABB in Cleveland. I know, it's January and here I am going north twice. Go figure. Anyway, ABB's vice presidents Roger Bailey, Mark Taft and Bob Hausler were on hand to explain the company's newest extensions to the Industrial IT System 800xA that was just introduced last year.
The keyword of the year is "high integrity." This is used in place of "safety." It actually extends the meaning of just a safety system with the thought of being integrated and designed for maximum integrity. The integration of safety instrumented systems with process control was designed with TUV input at all times in order to assure final acceptance. This is a new concept, but seems to be gaining ground within the process industry.
Even though many people think that MES (manufacturing execution systems) pertains only to discrete manufacturing, ABB introduces a module called Manufacturing Management includes inventory, quality, operations, and weigh and diperse management functions--all MES type functions. These are targeted at batch process manufacturers.
The Real-Time Production Intelligence addition is performance feedback function yielding OEE (overall equipment effectiveness) calculations in real time. This should help manufacturing managers make decisions faster, making operations more productive.
In a business review, Bailey pointed to strong growth in sales and earnings over the past year. ABB is a company noted for strong management. It stumbled a little about a year ago, but it seems to be back on track. The company bought a number of process control companies in the 1990s, and the 800xA series was a crucial element in bringing all the platforms into new technologies and meeting modern business needs without requiring customers to trash existing investment. In that goal, ABB appears to have succeeded. When asked about extending this coverage to competitors' platforms, the executives remarked, "Just wait and see what comes out during this next year."
6:12:10 AM 
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