Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Just chatting with Kevin Roach at the MESA conference about how it is going. I told him that there was a lot of energy and buzz here. It reminds me a little of the days in the control space when PC-based control advocates were touting a new vision and breaking the barriers among DCS, PLC and motion control. Look today at how the control platforms have morphed and become integrated. I think there is a similar movement going on here. That is, breaking down the barriers among traditional MES applications, ERP, control and maybe even finance. I think that collaborative technologies like XML and RSS will help speed this along. 2:49:16 PM    comment []

I blogging live from the MESA Conference. Wireless Ethernet is great, but the Rosen Plaza charges $12.95 a day for it. Kevin Roach, vice president of Rockwell Automation, head of Rockwell Software and chairman of MESA, gave a true keynote--that is pointing out the good points of the organization and pumping up attendees about the importance of what they are doing. We could even understand him through his Boston accent. Maybe living in Milwaukee is toning it down. The key stat is growth. Membership in MESA is up 183% 2005 over 2004. In the past the organization was an industry association so the conferences were "insider" meetings. When GE Fanuc, Siemens and Rockwell Automation purchased MES vendors and joined the association, an infusion of new leadership is turning it around. Last year, they promised to become more end user focused. The result? Last year's meeting had 130 total attendance, 30 were end users. This year--220 registered with 80 end users. Theme this year is P2E -- Plant to Enterprise. This idea of information, networking and collaboration was a foundation of Automation World when we started it. MESA's focus fits us. Let's see how they do the job. Just to show how far everyone must come from where we are today, here are some statistics Kevin shared comparing IT adoption in China vs. the US. ERP adoption, China 45%, US 35% CRM, China, 64, US 16 Asset Management, China 53, US 37 and astoundingly MES, China 45%, US 16% We have a ways to go. 7:49:21 AM    comment []