Monday, November 20, 2006

Schneider Electric Bob Lewis, who writes an Infoworld blog, says "The lesson is clear, really pretty obvious, and applies to a wide variety of situations: Make decisions based on current information, no what was true a year or two ago. Situations change, and if you don't notice the change, what you 'know' is what used to be true, not what's true right now." I've had a case of "cognitive dissonance" and have been on a several months investigation of the "new" Schneider Electric that relates to the quote above. It started with a couple of interviews with North American CEO David Petratis, then continued  recently with a conversation with Sr. VP of Automation for the US, Andy Gravitt (reported in part here). Then Wednesday I visited the Schneider North American Sensors Competency Center down in Dayton and talked with Vince Lewis, President of the center (and president of Hyde Park Electronics, a sensor manufacturer purchased by Schneider). They still market some ultrasonic sensors under the Hyde Park brand. The interesting thing is the pace of integration of the companies. If you still remember the early acquisitions Schneider made, see the quote at the beginning of this post. It's a new company with some different senior management in France and a host of new management in the US. Management lets the operating units it acquires continue to do what they do well. They integrate at a technical level where it makes sense. I have found none of the intense political infighting that existed in 2000. And none of the other stuff that earned it a bad rep at the time. Everyone is focused on succeeding. My friend Jim Pinto calls it a major factor in the industry. He probably has this one right. One thing I was looking for was an automation strategy. There is no overall strategy of integrated architecture such as you might find in its major automation competitors. There is a market strategy focused on certain verticals and OEMs, though. With a new team in place, that's a start. 8:59:16 PM    comment []

Going home again Thanks to Mani Manivannan for a tour of my old customer--the Ford Lima Engine Plant. From 1990 through 1997 I was in that plant at least one day a week wandering around through the four (then three, then two) engine lines working with engineers and electricians looking for problems we could solve (and I could make a sale). Boy have things changed. There had to be only about 1/3 as many people there as 15 years ago. Several people that I knew back then are still there but are taking the retirement buyouts offered as part of the Ford restructuring plan. On the positive side, machines are totally enclosed now, so the noise level has been reduced considerably. Also, oil from machining operations is contained within the machine. It used to be so loud that you had to shout to talk to someone and walking was a danger with the machine oil covering the aisles. There are no longer huge walls of enclosures blocking the view of the process, either. A couple of things haven't changed. Engineers are still primarily there for maintenance. Electricians are still not given laptops to carry for troubleshooting. (There was a project somewhere around 1996 where laptops were taken away from electricians and replaced by desktop computers secured to carts. This was to prevent "inventory shrinkage" of the computers. It's very awkward for electricians to get from place to place down the line pushing the cart so that they can plug in. I notice this while Wes is writing an article for the December Automation World about tablet PCs and other mobile devices for maintenance. Oh, well.) The third thing still there is the buffet at Fat Jack's Pizza just down the road. And that's a good thing ;-) 2:05:52 PM    comment []