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Tuesday, August 8, 2006 |
Here's a post from N.L. Belardes from ProSoft Technologies. The only reason I'm posting this is to show the difference between the automation geeks and the technology geeks. Among the latter, there are bunches of people linking to each other and generating a cool conversation. In our world, there are about 6 of us. Maybe 7. And not everybody links to everybody else. Nick and Jim (from Emerson) and I link together. Other blogs are Sharon at SCADA 2.0, Opto blog, Walt Boyes and Greg Hale. Sharon has linked back a few times. The others don't. But the more of us who blog and converse (even poke fun at each other occasionally) make things more interesting. Don't you think?
Arming both sides in the Fieldbus Wars? I read some interesting pieces in the July 2006 edition of Control Magazine. As soon as the magazine was plopped on my desk I saw the entire issue looked like a global superpower stand-off, what with the theme of [base "]Fighting the Fieldbus Wars.[per thou] Editor-in-chief Walt Boyes pulled out all the stops in his [base "]Vendor vs. Vendor[per thou] piece where he all but called the Fieldbus Wars a MAD war of Spy Vs. Spy advantage, where end-users lose and the market is all but shattered because two sides can[base ']t get along.
Gary Mintchell of Automation World Magazine takes a different approach suggesting it[base ']s no longer a war, just competition. After all, perhaps business rules the day (hear his podcast).
Makes you wonder if the real Fieldbus War is one of opinion between the medias who give shape to the Fieldbus phenomenon[sigma]
Whether competition among vendors, or all-out industrial automation jungle warfare, the reality is that a company like ProSoft Technology doesn[base ']t have to play the passive Switzerland of the marketplace. ProSoft Technology holds itself in a unique position to take advantage of gaps in the markets where division can sometimes open up lucrative avenues. Is it just arming one side or another? Perhaps ProSoft arms the end-users with products that they might not get because of such division in the marketplace.
Maybe it[base ']s just competitive market know-how for a company that makes connectivity solutions for more than one automation channel. It[base ']s a tightrope at times. But then that[base ']s the kind of business ProSoft Technology chooses to believe in. We[base ']re a connectivity solutions company, not an embittered soldier of products in a war of protocols and standards.
Either way, while the big boys battle it out over issues like FTD/DTL vs. EDDL, ProSoft Technology is still coming out a winner because of multiple channel connectivity solutions.
Oh, and a big shout out to new blogoshpere pal Jim Cahill of the Emerson Process Experts blog. Thanks for linking up[sigma]
N.L. Belardes
- nlbelardes [ProSoft Technology Talks Industrial Automation]
10:14:13 PM 
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I'm still at the Mindstorms press conference. Several questions on how to get teachers and kids motivated to do this. Well, the answer is both simple and hard. The simple part is that motivated and enthusiastic champions have to pass that enthusiasm on to others. It's a one person at a time, not a sudden coversion of millions. The hard part is that each of us has to dedicate some time to do this. [Everyone who has had sales training-and I've had a bunch-has learned that sales is "the transfer of enthusiasm", same idea here.]
Walt Boyes from Control magazine wondered about the lack of traditional robotic companies involved in the announcement. Actually, there are some robotic companies helping on the education part according to a speaker. On the other hand, this isn't, per se, a robotic process. It's much deeper than that. It's a thinking process that drives learning on both mechanical and programming skills. That, and the concept of robotics even for us in industrial applications must move beyond 6-axis and SCARA movements. Think Roomba. Break the mold.
12:05:34 PM
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James Trouchard (Dr. T) president and CEO of National Instruments, led the keynotes today at NI Week before the usual packed house (first estimate is that attendance will be around 2,000 paid users). Embedded systems design is the future for NI, actually called Graphical Systems Design, where Dr. T says that NI thinks this is the new frontier bringing to embedded systems design what the PC did to the desktop. The new NI mantra is "design, prototype, deploy."
Trouchard's keynote was followed by the usual display of technical expertise and the power of LabView for systems development.
I'm now at a press conference promoting the relationship of NI to Lego and the new Mindstorms NXT. This extension of the popular educational toy is even more powerful and easier to use. To exemplify the latter, three children of VP John Graff demonstrated robotic systems they had developed. There are home use and educational use products. [Get one and take it to your local school to help educate a new generation of geeks, er, engineers.]
11:41:23 AM
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I'm in the ballroom of the Austin Convention Center waiting for the traditional Dr. T keynote at NI Week - the National Instruments Users Conference.
NI has a couple of primary news releases for the week:
First is the release of LabView 8.20 (for 20th anniversary). This edition takes the graphical programming language even deeper into embedded design--a path I first saw several years ago.
Included in the release are:
Open connectivity with The MathWorks MatLab software
Improved algorithm execution speeds for simple PID and advanced control
A Modulation Toolkit that gives engineers the ability to develop models to simulate communications systems and evaluate parameter and design decisions.
An FPGA Wizard that helps create custom data acquisition devices.
The second news item is the release of LabView Toolkit for Lego Mindstorms NXT.
More later.
9:20:32 AM
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When I went to Boston last April to cover the launch of Invensys[base '] InFusion, I stopped in a nearby bookstore looking for a Geoffrey A. Moore book and walked out with a copy of [base "]Dealing With Darwin.[per thou] The subtitle is telling[~][base "]how great companies innovate at every phase of their evolution.[per thou] This book is about existing, and probably larger, companies and how they can continue to grow and survive. Later, I was talking with Wonderware President Mike Bradley who asked me if I had read the book. His subtle challenge was to see how Moore[base ']s theories applied to what Foxboro and Wonderware had been up to.
First a brief synopsis of the book. The free market operates like organic systems in nature: Competition for scarce resources (customers) stimulates innovation; customer selections form a natural selection; each new generation starts from a higher level; over time, successful organizations must evolve competence or be marginalized.
There are two basic parts of a company. The [base "]Core[per thou] is any aspect of a company[base ']s operations that create differentiation leading to customer preference during a purchase decision. [base "]Context[per thou] represents everything else. It may be important, but it does not add competitive advantage. It does play host to the forces of inertia. Innovation should be in service to competitive advantage.
To tackle innovation and inertia simultaneously, managers must extract resources from Context and repurpose it for Core.
Innovation is valuable only if it helps achieve competitive advantage. As categories mature, customers reward different forms of innovation. Innovation must be aligned with the category[base ']s prevailing dynamics. Tactics of innovation must be aligned with the company[base ']s business architectures.
You should commit to an innovation type appropriate to the maturity of your category.
Inertia is the legacy of your last innovation. If your innovation is successful, in the future inertia will help it stay its course. Inertia, in short, is not the enemy of innovation, but it does resist it at the point of change. Therefore, at every point, management must learn to deconstruct inertia in order to reconstitute it elsewhere. Extract resources from Context in order to repurpose them for Core.
The Crucial Question:
What do we do that creates competitive advantage?
So, in context to Bradley[base ']s question, I responded:
[base "]I[base ']ve spent some time thinking about Moore[base ']s [base "]Dealing with Darwin[per thou] and Invensys. It certainly appears to me as an outside observer that you have done just what Moore says good companies do[~]divert resources generated by [base "]context[per thou] and invest in [base "]core.[per thou] My analysis is that the HMI/SCADA business (which has been very good to Wonderware) is now a mature market. A cash generator, but not a huge growth opportunity. A potential source of inertia. By moving first strongly into MES then following with performance management, Wonderware is poised for continued growth. Of course, that[base ']s just the product/technology innovation side. This must be followed by innovative marketing, sales and general execution of the plan. The sales cycle and targets are different, so sales and marketing efforts must evolve to match. That probably also impacts company financial planning.[per thou]
Bradley called and we chatted about these thoughts for a while. He contests my remark about HMI/SCADA[~]a little. There are still some opportunities in that area. And he recognized my challenge that the proof now is in the implementation. We[base ']ll see how Wonderware and Invensys do with their initiative.
We have a number of large companies in the industry with a dire need to innovate. Moore lays out a good model based on empirical evidence as a way to do that. Let[base ']s look for evidence of others.
7:27:50 AM
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© Copyright 2006 Gary Mintchell.
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