Sunday, October 22, 2006

Education for technicians Keith Campbell's resume includes engineering at Hershey (retired), work with Louisiana Center for Manufacturing Science and early leader of OMAC Packaging Working Group. He is now working with educational institutions in the area of industrial maintenance training in mechatronics. He has a couple of challenges for us. I don't know the answers, but I'm willing to publicize them. First, his group is trying to locate some pilot-plant-sized generation 3 packaging machinery for use in schools. He writes, "We would like to be able to package things like beef sticks, display the use of automation technology and use the machines for technology education. Do you know of anyone who might make something like this or who might have plans for something like this that they may have made for a trade show booth or their own pilot plant? I am envisioning a small flow wrapper or vertical bagger, a cartoner and perhaps a robotic palletizer." Anyone out there willing to help educate some of our future manufacturing professionals? The other area of need is to reach high school guidance counselors and high school students in order to inform them of the need for "gold-collar" jobs in manufacturing and the benefits of these jobs. I'm looking up my contacts in the area. Anyone know how to reach guidance counselors? I don't think they read Automation World. Adds Campbell, "We want to be able to show people how mechatronics is used in packaging and need a relatively portable gee-wiz demonstration. We don't want to show robots shaking hands or cut another part out on a midget CNC machine. We want to show something in an area like food processing that people value and can relate to and give them something to take home. The beef stick idea would tie together the food service program at the school with the industrial maintenance program. I see potential for multiple systems in our area and probably in other areas as well. Maybe there is a business here for someone." Any ideas welcome. Ping Keith or me. 8:36:16 PM    comment []

ISA Day 3 The last day of the show was very slow with few attendees. That means editors get undivided attention at booths. I was still trying to get to the bottom of a couple of rumors that people stopped by and left behind. I just discussed the one regarding Emerson and Dust Networks and entry into the wireless fray. Let's try another. Someone caught me at the Automation World booth and said, "You know, there is no such thing in reality as EDDL." That's enhanced electronic device description language and marks an improvement in the way device descriptions are displayed in engineering and operations software. I knew that that would get the interest of Rich Timoney, executive director of the Fieldbus Foundation. Not being one to let such an opportunity pass, I went directly over to the FF booth. That netted me a discussion with Rich and then a great demo of EDDL (the best I've seen so far). They were showing renderings of devices communicating over Foundation Fieldbus (which we'd expect), Hart and Profibus. Also on Thursday, I went by the Hart Communication Foundation booth. I didn't have time for a demo, but I did look at the various devices shown communicating Hart over a wireless communication. People affiliated with the foundation are optimistic that a specification will be finished in a couple of month and wireless Hart products will be available shortly thereafter. By the way, that's a great example of a trade show. Everyone is around so that you can get to the bottom of questions and see and compare demonstrations of various products and technologies. 8:34:37 PM    comment []