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Wednesday, January 11, 2006 |
I often write about team collaboration tools to enable project team work across geographic and time zone boundaries. This article from Knowledge@Emory reveals potential problems with virtual team collaboration and some tips on tackling them.
I find a subscription (free) to K@E is worth the time.
9:02:34 PM 
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The second Webcast I did today was from SmartTime. They were showing a demo of their labor tracking software application. It reads from various timekeeping devices in factories and links to ERP, MES and other specialized applications. Plus it performs a number of analytics itself.
Thing that amazes me is that I was working on this kind of stuff 30 years ago. While this product looks good on the demo, I'm amazed that this hasn't already been done. (If it has, I'm sure someone will write and tell me--hint.) I was disappointed when a user asked how they figured a return on the investment made for the software and they couldn't whip out a bunch of metrics. Guys (and gals), take it from an ex-salesman, you gotta have that on the tip of your tongue. But if you are a manager in a manufacturing plant and not tracking all your labor costs with a view to proper allocation and analysis, check out this product.
7:16:34 PM
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I was in Webcast heaven today. First one was on network security brought by the folks at the Wireless Industrial Networking Alliance (WINA). You can download the presentation and also catch a picture of Hesh Kagan of Invensys, president of WINA and moderator of the event.
To whet your appetite, Tom Phinney of Honeywell proposed this list of considerations for wireless networking security: availability, authenticity, integrity, confidentiality, access control, auditability and non-repudiability.
For more, download the presentation.
7:10:16 PM
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This is the first new automation product from Schneider Electric in a long time. The Advantys OTB is a small, distributed I/O platform that includes three communication bases for the various types of fieldbus, CANopen, Ethernet TCP/IP or Modbus RS 485. Each communication base includes 20 I/O, totaling 12 to 24 VDC inputs, six relay outputs and two to 24 VDC solid-state outputs. It's based on the Twido (pronounced the last I heard, tweedoh) nano controller platform.
The release mentions Telemecanique a couple of times and Modicon once. Several months ago, Schneider called a press conference in North Carolina and announced that it was not doing away with the Modicon product name. This was followed immediately by two press releases that mentioned only the Telemecanique name. My friend in England, Andrew Bond, mentioned in his last newsletter that Schneider did a similar event in England last month. However this product is called neither Telemecanique or Modicon, but Advantys. Go figure.
They make good products, just can't seem to figure out how to market them. A couple of months ago, it replaced automation industry veteran Nic Gihl as VP of Industrial Automation after a brief stint with someone from the retail side of the business. My post here.
6:53:36 PM
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I've recently begun receiving research reports from The Aberdeen Group and I like what I see. I took a graduate level class on surveys and research including the mathematical model they use and how to ask questions--so I'm dangerous as they say. But I'm appalled at most surveys that I read. Aberdeen has put a model together and is upfront about its research methods.
Here's one just out about Service Oriented Architecture adoption:
The world's largest companies can save up to $53 billion in information technology (IT) spending over the next five years by implementing service-oriented architectures (SOA), according to a new benchmark report from AberdeenGroup.
Yet the research, "The SOA in IT Benchmark Report," says the business benefits of SOA remain largely untapped. A survey of nearly 300 IT and business executives, which formed the basis for the report, found that only 16% of companies have had more than 24 months of experience with SOAs.
"Companies cannot expect business benefits from SOA before the IT department has been able to assimilate what SOA can do for them," says William Mougayar, VP and Service Director for AberdeenGroup's CIO's Strategic Agenda practice, and author of the report. "The number one cascading effect of SOA's benefits for IT is the development of new products and capabilities, but this is only possible after full-lifecycle SOA implementations."
AberdeenGroup has found that companies that have had experience in the full cycle of SOA implementations have been able to quantify their benefits in three major categories: (1) speed of deployment, (2) easier integration, and (3) faster customization and updates.
9:20:14 AM
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© Copyright 2006 Gary Mintchell.
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