Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Invensys wireless strategy We had visitors from Invensys at the Automation World headquarters on North Wabash in Chicago today. Hesh Kagan, strategic technology director, Brian Courchesne, marketing manager performance services, and Paul Miller, marketing communications, stopped by to talk about the company's wireless strategy. The crux of the strategy is that Invensys is taking a plant and enterprise view of applications along with the development of a professional services offering that blends IT and process expertise. These two prongs of the strategy are designed to help customers achieve maximum benefit of a wireless implementation that fits their specific needs. Talking wireless, the discussion is far broader than simply a sensor network for hardware asset management. In fact, the company touts seven areas where wireless technologies have the potential to help customers get more performance from their total assets. These are: Mobile workforce Field data logging Condition monitoring Asset tracking Physical security Personnel safety Communications The company has added 15 professionals over the past 6-8 months located in offices around the world who can work with local Invensys engineers and customers in assessing wireless needs and possibilities plus guiding specifications and projects. One last point made about Invensys' strategy is its openness. The various products and services are designed to be able to work with many platforms and applications that already exist in the customer's plant. My take on this is that the strategy fits very well with the overall Invensys Process Systems strategy first laid out with the big InFusion Enterprise Control Platform launch. It's a strategy of looking at the big picture with focus on optimizing the customer's performance. This is an interesting strategy. The company's new CEO seems to be a perfect fit for the strategy. Now we'll have to see if they can make money implementing it. 4:18:43 PM    comment []