Thursday, October 5, 2006

Emerson Exchange I didn't do a general roundup of the Emerson Exchange--partly because Monday was so filled with wireless information. There were about 2,000 user/customers in attendance. Add in Emerson employees and there were lots of people and lots of energy. I was able to sit in on only a few sessions, but they are always high quality. Editors might occasionally whine about the tremendous growth in travel because of the proliferation of users groups and the relatively recent wish to allow (or even encourage) press coverage (and yes, I've done my share), but these have to be a tremendous benefit to both the supplier companies and their customers. The level of training and feedback--not to mention networking--are invaluable. One Emerson person related a Monday morning break time conversation among users. One person was talking about a problem using some software (I don't know the details). Another engineer at the table gave him a simple tip. That advice probably paid for the trip and then some. By the way, there are a couple of companies that are favorite targets by their competitors for one supposed "evil" or another. Emerson is one of those. For example, it is often accused of paying mere lip service to standards. After thinking over several conversations I had this week with people deeply involved in standards, I think perhaps Emerson has evolved tremendously over the past 5 years or so. Sounds like a lot of it is customer driven in that customers want their suppliers to adhere to standards so that things are easier for them. I believe that some of that must come from John Berra who seems to push developers to research technologies and standards and then tightly integrate the entire product line around the ones they determine to be the best. Hence, the use of wireless mesh rather than point-to-point or other technologies. One editor (at least) perceived a "conspiracy" theory about Emerson trying to take over the SP100 committee with some sort of proprietary technology. But then when you see what they finally released, it's standards based and chosen because of customer real-world research that narrowed the field. Now was the fact that Honeywell is a proponent of a different technology a factor? I'll never know. But I'll be surveying the whole area in my November Automation World article on wireless. 8:08:46 AM    comment []

Here is some really good advice on dashboards from Computerworld. How to use dashboards effectively. They're everywhere, but do you really need them? And if you do, what's the best way to use them? [Computerworld Breaking News] 7:50:53 AM    comment []

Integrating MES with PLM Last May, I wrote about a visit to Chicago from Tim Davis and Mitch Vaughn of UGS/Tecnomatix/USData to discuss an upgrade to the platform that integrates MES into PLM (product lifecycle management-the core offering of parent company UGS). Well the announcement was made last week of Tecnomatix Production Management portfolio. This software is said to bridge the gaps between product design and production processes. The complete suite from Tecnomatix includes: Tecnomatix FactoryLink (HMI/SCADA) Tecnomatix MES (formerly Xfactory) Tecnomatix Production Management Portal (for manufacturing event reporting and shop-floor intelligence) These products are now integrated with UGS' Teamcenter software. The product and process definitions in Teamcenter are tightly linked with the execution systems in Tecnomatix bringing a consistency between planning and production. 6:58:15 AM    comment []