|
 |
Saturday, July 22, 2006 |
I was chatting with Opto 22's Benson Hougland a couple of days ago and the subject of Ethernet came up--as it always does. We were wondering whatever became of the IAONA organization. It was established with great fanfare around 1999 to champion the development and use of Ethernet as a "fieldbus."Benson was initially involved, and I was considering ways that I could get involved back then. But the organization just never seemed to get focused. Neither of us had heard anything for a long time. I guess that's going to continue--the "not hearing" part. Just did a Web search out of morbid curiosity and discovered that the organization is disbanding See the press release. It says that it succeeded and is thus no longer necessary. I think that there was just so much common sense, as well as good engineering, behind the concept that most companies and fieldbus consortia jumped on the bandwagon. Pretty much all the industrial fieldbus technologies have a way to go to Ethernet, as well. That drove some critical mass that has brought a lot of market acceptance. So, to paraphrase our old chess mantra, "IAONA is dead, long live Ethernet."
11:39:03 AM 
|
|
I'm writing an article for the August issue of Automation World (yeah, I know, I'm three weeks late, that's what vacation and an annual business meeting will do to your timing) on global manufacturing. There are many aspects to the situation. Here's a take from the latest Business Week. That article discusses the fierce competition coming from multinational companies from countries that you may not expect. I think a key idea from the article is from this quote:
"What makes these upstarts global contenders? Their key advantages are access to some of the world's most dynamic growth markets and immense pools of low-cost resources, be they production workers, engineers, land, petroleum, or iron ore. But these aspiring giants are about much more than low cost. The best of the pack are proving as innovative and expertly run as any in the business, astutely absorbing global consumer trends and technologies and getting new products to market faster than their rivals."
Get it? It's not all about driving the lowest employee cost. It's also, or even more, about good management and business leadership. Look at the key words--innovative, expertly run, absorb customer trends, abosorb technologies, faster to market. Gee, we could all do that if we tried, couldn't we? Maybe even Ford and GM?
7:26:40 AM
|
|
© Copyright 2006 Gary Mintchell.
|
|
|
