Monday, September 12, 2005

For those of you who manage critical servers for manufacturing systems, here's a new product from Stratus Technologies. In case you don't know the company, it manufactures fault tolerant servers based on Microsoft Windows, making them a little less esoteric than other fault tolerant servers. It just announced "Active Upgrade" enables online upgrading of the software on the servers. Lets you can the downtime for software upgrades. A new chipset splits the fully redundant system into two independently running servers. While one server continues to run the application without interruption, software updates are applied to the other server. The two sides are then resynchronized and returned to fault-tolerant operation as one logical server. Expected to be available in the first quarter 2006. 10:01:45 AM    comment []

As Jim Pinto pointed out in yesterday's e-news there will be much demand placed on automation suppliers to help restore manufacturing to the Gulf coast. Here's one more response. I've received another response of an automation company to Katrina. ABB North America response to the disaster in the Gulf Coast is structured in stages. First of all, the Task Force has established the phone number in order to log and capture immediate customer needs. The Task Force, as a single ABB team, now is mobilizing logistics to get parts, products and personnel into the gulf coast area. This ABB equipment, along with technicians and service personnel will provide and support the whole breadth of products - from transmission and distribution of power, to commercial industrial electrical automation control. This commitment is immediate and will be sustained. See the full story on Task Force at: document. 7:58:58 AM    comment []

Ford Labor Deal in Canada Includes Job Cuts. The Ford Motor Company is close to reaching agreement with its Canadian union over a new labor contract that will include significant job cuts. By DANNY HAKIM. [NYT > Business] This article from The New York Times indicates the near future for large American auto companies--in three years they will be not-so-large American auto companies. It's an unfortuneate turn of events for workers, but no industry in history has kept good jobs going forever. We know how to make cars with less labor content. Toyota pioneered it. Honda uses it. Ford, GM and Chrysler (the British have also had problems and the Germans are fighting it, too) all had way too much legacy built into contracts. Job reductions in one of the major manufacturing areas in the US will breed another round of dire predictions about the health of the sector, much like a heavy summer rain breeds mosquitos in the Mid-West. But reducing jobs because we've found better ways of producing goods is as old as human civilization. Farming employment plummeted in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but prodution skyrocketed. No less in manufacturing. Other than in manufacturing, we can create new jobs by manufacturing new products. Time for another round of entrepreneurial zeal. 6:06:02 AM    comment []