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Friday, June 29, 2007 |
After at least a half-dozen pre-announcements, GE Fanuc made the official announcement about the launch of its Proficy Process solution. I got to chat with Craig Thorsland, product marketing manager, about what was significant with the launch yesterday afternoon. Essentially there are two things. But first a little background. I think it was the 1999 ISA show when I attended a press conference at the GE booth where a process control initiative was announced. Then there was deep silence for years until I ran into Steve Ryan (former Rockwell Automation process leader) and Kam Yuen (also from Rockwell) at the last GE user conference and he told me that GE was seriously investing to bring out a new process solution.
Anyway, what GE Fanuc has done is bundle all of its disparate process related components--garnered from acquisitions over the years of Intellution, Mountain Systems and VMIC--into several SKUs where a customer can buy an integrated solution rather than piecing together several components to form a system. In addition, it has partnered with Softing for Foundation Fieldbus connectivity and Pepperl + Fuchs for Profibus connectivity, Allied-Telesis for Ethernet switches (not for I/O, just for controller to computer connectivity), and [ControlSoft's] InTune for advanced loop tuning capability. Further, its sales channel will be its system integrator channel.
The biggest challenge for GE Fanuc (much the same as for rival Rockwell Automation) is getting its own sales people up to speed on how to sell the solution, to whom to sell it and how to call in experts.
The systems will be available for delivery "we hope by the end of July" says Thorsland, who adds "we have a couple of sales now, with thousands of components out in the field."
A safety system is in the works with no public timetable for release.
My earlier take on the new process industry competition is here.
7:27:05 AM 
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I'm back from vacation and trying to get organized. We had a great time visiting Israel and Jordan, although I couldn't work out a time to visit Netanya to see Sharon Rosen and didn't get to the potash plant on the Dead Sea that my colleague Mark Rosenzweig from Chemical Processing magazine recommended. I posted pictures on my Flickr page mostly for people in my church who were following us that way. I haven't had time to tag them yet, but if you're interested, click the link.
I always take at least two books on vacation--one on philosophy and one technical. This year I decided to re-read a collection of essays called Liberty by Isaiah Berlin. I was greatly influenced by these essays while in grad school. The first essay, "Political Ideas in the 20th Century," is a penetrating look at the various ideas floating around in mid-century. Perhaps the most important idea to digest from this essay is that people don't think anymore. Do you ever just sit and contemplate a topic? Earl Nightengale used to talk about sitting with a pad of paper and pencil. Think about a topic and list as many things about it as possible--aiming for a list of 20. By the time you're done, you will have come up with one or two good ideas about the topic. I use a variation of that approach to figure out what we should cover in each issue of Automation World--and also to plan out the next year, which I'm doing right now.
The technical book was Loosely Coupled: The Missing Pieces of Web Services by Doug Kaye. If you want to get an overview (non-programming) of the world of Web Services and the use of XML, SOAP and other popular Web technologies, this is the book to read. It should help you, for instance, get an idea about the potential power of OPC-UA, the XML implementation of OPC. And more...
7:00:27 AM
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© Copyright 2007 Gary Mintchell.
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