ARC Collaborative Manufacturing Forum
This annual gathering of automation industry professionals in Orlando had its first full day today. Andy Chatha, president of host ARC Advisory Group (http://www.arcweb.com), kicked off the day's sessions with his usual overview of manufacturing. Perhaps the highlight presentation was Will James of Toyota who discussed implementation of the famed Toyota Production System in its Kentucky plant. The presentation had a lot of meat in it with a clear story about the requirements of improving manufacturing performance.
Sandwiching the day was a late afternoon interview with Mr. Uchida, president and CEO of Yokogawa (http://www.yokogawa.com). Mr. Uchida was very personable and frank giving Wes Iversen and me a discourse of his plans for leading his company to a leadership position in the process control industry. His analysis was very persuasive. For those in the United States who think of Yokogawa as just an instrumentation company, you'd better look again. Already the market share leader in much of the world, I would not be surprised to see the company soon acknowledged as one of the world-wide market leaders.
Unfortunately, the filling between the slices of bread did not hold up. While all the rest of the presentations held the potential for great ideas, too often they stopped at generalities and thinly veiled marketing pitches. Looks like tomorrow will be better. More then.
9:39:52 PM 
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