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Tuesday, April 10, 2007 |
Remember I told you that I was alerted to several major announcements in networking coming from Hannover. Here's one that sprang a little early. And it is pretty significant.
This is significant because it represents some convergence in industrial networking. Schneider Electric is raising its profile in ODVA by becoming a principal member and will help the effort toward interoperability of Modbus/TCP and EtherNet/IP (or the CIP networks).
Then I was just opining last week about who was who in networks and saw a brief announcement about FDT Group and the EDDL Group. Just after the post, I received an FDT newsletter from Europe. Many interesting things there. Among which, the ODVA component standard network, CompoNet, is coming under the FDT umbrella. Plus it appears that there is tremendous convergence occurring within the process side of industrial networks. We'll have to see what really happens--but this all looks to be a gigantic win for users.
I have interviews with Katherine Voss of ODVA and Andy Gravitt and Geoff Walker of Schneider coming up. Stay tuned. If you have any questions I should ask, let me know.
Here's my news writeup from the ODVA/Schneider press release:
Schneider Electric, the Rueil-Malmaison, France supplier of electrical power and control products, has become one of the principal members of the Open DeviceNet Vendors Association (ODVA) joining other principal members Cisco Systems, Eaton Electrical, Omron Corp. and Rockwell Automation. Schneider Electric's increased participation in ODVA coincides with ODVA's plans to extend the CIP Network specifications to provide compatibility of Modbus/TCP devices with networks built on the Common Industrial Protocol (CIP). This extension will give existing Modbus/TCP users a clear path to CIP Network architectures while protecting their automation investments.
Schneider Electric's increased support of ODVA reflects the company's plans to deploy EtherNet/IP as a foundation of its network strategy. The release by ODVA states, "Users will benefit through significantly increased interoperability between the largest installed base of industrial Ethernet networks-EtherNet/IP and Modbus/TCP-as well as between automation products from a growing number of vendors. Combined, these benefits will reduce cost, time and risk for users deploying and maintaining their network architectures."
"Our customers want the interoperability and seamless integration of the factory floor that networks using standard, unmodified Ethernet can provide, and one network for control, information, configuration, safety, synchronization and motion," said Adrien Scolé, senior vice president of Innovation for the Automation Business, Schneider Electric. "EtherNet/IP is the answer to meeting our customers' needs by providing compatibility with existing Modbus/TCP products and systems in combination with the complete suite of services contained in CIP. For these reasons, we are eager to team with ODVA to help make EtherNet/IP the most widely used industrial network available."
Katherine Voss, executive director, ODVA, adds, "ODVA is delighted Schneider Electric is increasing its support of the organization and our technologies, most notably EtherNet/IP. Schneider Electric is an industry leader in driving adoption of standard, unmodified Ethernet technologies on the factory floor and throughout the enterprise. ODVA looks forward to leveraging the vast experience of Schneider Electric in automation and their expertise in Ethernet and Internet technologies to continue to expand the capabilities of ODVA technologies."
EtherNet/IP was introduced in 2001 and has more than 1.125 million installed nodes. EtherNet/IP and Modbus/TCP are the two most popular industrial Ethernet protocols, representing over 50 percent worldwide market share, according to the most recent market study from ARC Advisory Group.
"This is a big development in the automation industry," said Harry Forbes, Senior Analyst at ARC Advisory Group. "It is unusual to see several automation majors joining in such close collaboration, especially in a strategic area such as industrial Ethernet, and it adds to the value of ODVA and its CIP Network technologies in the automation industry. Automation users of Modbus/TCP can now look forward to benefiting from CIP Networks. Schneider Electric products will also benefit from the many capabilities of CIP, but end users will be the real winners here because future CIP Networks will offer an even broader range of choices."
Schneider Electric plans to have its next generation of EtherNet/IP products, incorporating connectivity to existing Modbus/TCP devices, in 2008. ODVA will provide an overview of the concept planned for The EtherNet/IP Specification to support Modbus/TCP devices on EtherNet/IP networks at its press conference scheduled for Monday, April 16, 2007 at 15:00 hr in the Dresden Room of the Convention Center at the Hannover Fairgrounds in Hannover, Germany.
9:08:22 PM 
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I took the weekend off to visit "the newlyweds" (my daughter and her husband) and had only intermittent Internet access. Also visited the Chicago Art Institute and saw a good Impressionist special exhibit. The CAI is a great place to visit if you have a little spare time during a Chicago stay. I did catch up on a little reading. There's a nice article on GE's retiring HR chief, Bill Conaty in Business Week. You may remember GE's famous policy under Jack Welch of identifying the bottom 10% performers ever year and letting them go. Conaty says they are not so anal about the exact number any more, but that leaders should always know their poorest performers and do something about them. This goes at every level. "There's nothing like a bit of anxiety and the knowledge that you're being measured against peers to boost performance. We want to create angst in the system."
Here are a few other tidbits worth noting:
"The one reason executives fail at GE is they stop learning. The job grows, the accountability grows, and the people don't grow with it."
Have a great succession plan. "If they kill two or three viable successors along the way, you have to start looking at the person who's doing the killing." At GE, leaders are judged on the strength of their team and are rewarded for mentoring people throughout the organization.
Simple messaging. "You can't move 325,000 people with mixed messaging and thousands of initiatives." Leaders succeed by being consistent and straightforward about a handful of core messages.
Deal with adversity. "If you can't take a punch and you don't have a sense of humor, you don't belong in this company. Everyone experiences failure now and then. It's how you handle it that matters."
7:53:20 AM
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© Copyright 2007 Gary Mintchell.
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