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Saturday, September 22, 2007 |
Here is a press release from ISA about open standards development, something I heartily endorse.
OAGIS Building Business Object Documents in Collaboration with ISA and WBFOAGIS will be building ISA-95 based Business Object Documents in collaboration with ISA95 Standards Committee on Enterprise-Control Integration and WBF's XML Working Group. The goal of the documents is to ensure that no matter which standard a customer or vendor implements, the two standards will interoperate. "We've been listening to customers' needs for years, and the ISA95 content is very important to all of the manufacturing end users I have spoken with," said David Connelly, CEO of the Open Applications Group. "Our work to create these documents brings real solutions to the end user."The decision, made during a mid-August OAGi Manufacturing Working Group meeting involving representatives from IBM, Yokogawa, iBASEt, Boeing, Infor, ISA and WBF and others, reflects ongoing collaboration between ISA, WBF, and OAGi through the OpenO&M Initiative. The OpenO&M Initiative is a venture of ISA, MIMOSA, OAGi, OPC, and WBF, and supports development of business process models for data exchange between manufacturing operations management and business support systems. The Open Applications Group is a not-for-profit open standards development organization building a standard called the Open Applications Group Integration Specification (OAGIS). The OAGIS standard covers data exchange requirements for business systems and applications, including manufacturing and operations management systems. The OpenApplications Group Board of Directors voted earlier in the year to express the work of the ISA95 working group in OAGIS, providing the end user a world class XML solution based on the popular and respected standard. "The documents that will come from our collaboration with ISA and WBF will be the industry guidelines that customers need," said Gary Sullivan of iBASEt. "Harmonizing standards is important work, and the industry will benefit from this ongoing collaboration."With the new initiative, ISA95 will remain the foundation for the documents with OAGIS and B2MML sharing each other's extensions and collaborating on the standards. OAGi and WBF will sign a Memorandum of Understanding, and ISA and WBF will be invited to join the OAGi Partner Council when it is formed. OAGi will also have a representative on the ISA95 committee. "ISA95 has contributed significant data exchange content and models supporting the manufacturing industry," said ISA Director of Standards Services T.S. "Chip" Lee. "Since our standard has historically been used in process manufacturing, and the OAGIS standard is typically used in discrete manufacturing, our collaboration enables the further development of both standards. WBF's XML Working Group's Business to Manufacturing Markup Language (B2MML) completes the package for the end user." WBF's XMLWorking Group recently released V0400 of B2MML. The enhancements in this version of the documentation include support for ISA95 Part 5 Transactions, OAGIS messages, and UN/CEFACT core components, while still maintaining backward compatibility to V0300."The work that the WBF XML Working Group has done, and especially their efforts to incorporate the work of ISA95 and OAGIS into B2MML, makes the inclusion of these schemas a great fit for these OAGIS documents," said WBF Chairman Maurice Wilkins.
3:16:59 PM 
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Members and lurkers (those of us who are not members, but who read the email posts of the committee) of the ISA SP-100 committee charged with developing a standard for wireless networking in process control, have witnessed a flurry of comments sparked by Honeywell's comments in early September. First Jack Bolick released a letter urging a vote against the Hart Communication Foundation Revision 7 standard that included the WirelessHart specification. This was followed by an open letter to the SP-100 committee by Honeywell Wireless Business Development Leader Jeff Becker (which he permitted me to reprint). Walt Boyes of Control Magazine soon posted a long challenge to the committee and the fur started to fly. This is all private communication, which I have no compulsion to try to reprint. But the committee is still somewhat fractious.
I continue to believe that a standard that allows different, but compatible, profiles and that will allow future innovation can come out of the committee. Sometimes I think that there are people trying to make it harder than it should be-not that it's easy.
I cited Dick Caro in his past standards committee work in the post. His comment on the post is instructive.
Thanks for the recognition of my principled move in 1999 when I resigned as Convener of IEC SC65C/WG6 otherwise known as the Fieldbus standards committee. Yes, I am active on ISA100 with a mission to keep this standard single-headed, not the IEC fieldbus standard that now has 15 heads and will soon have 20 -- NONE of which interoperate except for the two that are implemented as Foundation Fieldbus and Foundation Fieldbus HSE. By the way, HART 4-6 will soon become part of that same standard (but not HART 7, yet.) So far, the Fieldbus Foundation has agreed to build a wireless version ON TOP of ISA100.11a. This is good news. We are working diligently to determine if there is some way the wireless portion of HART 7 can be made to flow smoothly through an ISA100.11a stack. To its credit, the HART Communication Foundation has opened their HART7 specification to working members of ISA100 to make this determination. The real controversy is that ISA100.11a has always had HART as one of its key applications. I personally know of at least 2 companies that are planning to build HART interface modules for ISA100.11a that will attach to current installed wired HART instruments and transfer data identified by its HART EDD natively through the ISA 100.11a wireless network. To these companies, a free-standing WirelessHART network is not only competitive, but is a potential source of interference and user confusion. At least these two companies view WirelessHART as unnecessary. Certainly, I would have less work if the wireless features of HART7 had not been approved. But then again, I would have less to write about. #
3:09:29 PM
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I'm beginning to catch up on a bunch of news for September that I just couldn't get around to. I'd do a bunch on the plane to Stuttgart later this afternoon, but my new battery has not arrived from Apple, yet. A laptop battery lasts about a year then its life plummets to about a half-hour.
Here is more ABB news--from the closely watched executive board meeting of early September. My friends Walt Boyes and Jim Pinto, picking up a rumor from Europe, predicted an announcement of a takeover of Rockwell Automation. My feeling is that that is far-fetched. For example, check out this quote from the press release, "ABB continues to assess potential acquisitions that fill technology or
regional gaps, create strategic and financial value and can be
successfully integrated." That integration comment is telling.
I expect ABB to pick up smaller companies to either fill out its core portfolio or to help it grow in Asia. Emerson, Honeywell, Rockwell Automation and Schneider Electric have all made several strategic acquisitions over the past year. I expect all of these to continue to do that. In that vein, I'm starting to interview executives of a number of very interesting small companies. There will be a lot of news of these companies from ISA in Houston. Things could get interesting.
ABB's news is very optimistic. Here is the text of its press release from the meeting.
ABB expects sustained growth and increased earnings from 2007 to 2011
ABB, the leading power and automation technology company, expects sustained revenue growth and increased profitability under its new mid-term strategy for 2007 to 2011.
ABB expects demand for new and upgraded power infrastructure to continue in all regions, and further industrial investments in improved productivity and energy efficiency. The company plans to maintain its current core portfolio of businesses and aims to build on its leading technology and strong market positions - especially in the fast-growing emerging economies - to increase revenues organically at almost twice the rate of market growth and three times the rate of global GDP growth over the period.
Assuming demand remains favorable, ABB expects profitability (measured as earnings before interest and taxes as a percentage of revenues) to increase by as much as five percentage points during the five-year period, compared to 2006. The improvement will be driven by economies of scale, such as strong factory loading, and further operational improvements.
As a result, the company forecasts earnings per share to grow by a compound average of 15-20 percent a year over the planning period and its return on capital employed, after tax, to exceed 30 percent by 2011.
"ABB's market and technology leadership in highly attractive businesses provides an opportunity to achieve sustainable organic growth and increased profitability," said Fred Kindle, ABB President and CEO.
"We will continue our focus on business execution and operational excellence," Kindle said. "Initiatives to optimize our global footprint will continue to bring both cost and growth benefits. At the same time, we will look for value-creating external growth opportunities. We expect our shareholders as well as our other constituencies to directly benefit from this strategy."
"The top of our margin corridor reflects our ambition assuming our end-markets remain favorable, while the bottom is what we believe we can deliver in a more challenging market environment," said Michel Demaré, Chief Financial Officer. "Our aim with the new EPS growth goal is to bring our targets even more in line with the most widely used valuation measures in the investment community."
The company said its existing portfolio of power and automation businesses, and its leading presence in high-growth emerging markets, puts it in a strong position to benefit from expected continuing growth in power utility and industrial automation investments over the next five years. These favorable trends will be further enhanced by the accelerating drive for energy efficiency and efforts to combat climate change.
From 2007 to 2011, global GDP is expected to grow by an average of about 3 percent a year, while ABB forecasts that its markets will grow at approximately 6 percent a year. The Asian market is expected to grow by more than 50 percent by 2011, with Europe up 24 percent, the Americas 25 percent, and the Middle East and Africa 40 percent higher.
ABB continues to assess potential acquisitions that fill technology or regional gaps, create strategic and financial value and can be successfully integrated. Taking possible acquisition financing into account, ABB aims for a maximum balance sheet gearing (total debt divided by total debt plus equity, including minority interest) of 40 percent. The company's growth and profitability targets exclude the effect of major acquisitions.
ABB also published revenue growth and EBIT margin targets for each of its five divisions. The growth targets range from 6 percent in Robotics to 11 percent in Power Systems. The upper end of the divisional EBIT margin corridors range from 10 percent in Robotics and Power Systems to 19 percent in Automation Products.
Investments in technology and R&D will continue to be a pillar of ABB's strategy. In addition, the company has identified a number of large industrial customer segments, such as rail transportation, wind energy and water, where it has a wide offering of relevant products and services but where it has not yet tapped the full business potential. Revenue from these end markets is expected to grow faster than the group average in the next several years.
ABB will continue to drive its global footprint initiative aimed at aligning the geographic scope of its engineering, manufacturing and supply to rapidly changing market conditions. The company said it had increased sourcing from emerging economies to more than 30 percent of total sourcing by the end of the first half of 2007 compared to under 18 percent in 2005, and that low-cost sourcing can increase further.
Included in ABB's 2011 strategy are further initiatives to achieve leadership in business ethics, people development and occupational health and safety.
The ABB Group of companies operates in around 100 countries and employs about 111,000 people.
12:13:53 PM
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I just saw a few Harman International Industries news items. That's where Dinesh Paliwal went when he left ABB. Seems that the public company thought it had completed a buyout with Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and others. The deal just fell through due to "material changes" in the environment. No one is saying if it's something in the Harman financials or just the drying up of junk credit in the current credit market.
Also saw that Brad Hoffman, who has been corporate communications head for ABB Automation, is joining Harman next week. Looks like he'll be busy explaining that situation as soon as he lands. Good luck Brad. I've enjoyed our chats.
8:41:24 AM
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© Copyright 2007 Gary Mintchell.
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