|
 |
Thursday, January 11, 2007 |
Emerson Process Management held its European wireless solution press conference today in Bologna, Italy. They were expecting 43 editors from across Europe, including two from North America (I was one, of course). Much of the announcement was information I had heard at Emerson Exchange last October and blogged it here and reported here in Automation World. The situation is that the 900 MHz band that the network uses in the US is not available in Europe as it is dedicated to emergency services. So, Emerson had to work on products with radios in the 2.4 GHz band--which they did and released this month.
One new thing, the wireless training course at Plant Web University is up and running. People can obtain wireless training at no charge (just have to give them your email address to register, of course). Also, for those skeptics who still maintain that the Emerson system doesn't work, Tasos Anastasiou who is project leader for the refinery of the future at BP talked about its success in trial runs of both the 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz products. While much of the installation is straight-forward and requires little engineering or training for the wireless part, configuring for power management to assure adequate battery life for the sensors such that they will last from shut down to shut down requires some "clever thinking." And the physics of the shorter wave form on the 2.4 GHz models requires a little more cleverness in set up. But Tasos implied to me that it wasn't that hard--you just had to think about it.
Emerson had made a big deal of no site survey required. Other suppliers rebutted that site surveys were good (and necessary for their systems). Emerson responded today with the idea that site surveys are often obsolete during the time between doing it and then implementing the system. Things get built, tank cars move, other things change, and so on.
When asked about current sales of 900 MHz product, Mark Schumacher, vice president and general manager for pressure and CPS business unit of Rosemount division, responded that he didn't have numbers but that they are shipping every day.
The main benefit was reinforced--with the ability to add more data points in a plant at relatively little added expense can reward the plant with improved operations (and profits).
Here's my Flickr photo set from the event and the city.
12:04:40 PM 
|
|
Reading Guy Kawasaki's blog this morning I added a new book to my reading list--"Made to Stick" by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. In fact, I just ordered it from Amazon.com. The post is quite long, so I am just putting in the link. He asks the authors 10 questions (Kawasaki's trademark). This appears to be a "must read" book for all you marketers out there. They discuss why some ideas "stick" and some don't plus the intersection of ideas and products.
2:26:08 AM
|
|
© Copyright 2007 Gary Mintchell.
|
|
|
