Ah, two days of ISA Expo. It's almost like the old days. There was decent attendee traffic on the show floor, several press conferences, new product buzz and an on-the-go schedule that stretched from 7 am breakfasts to dinners that were over after 11 pm.
For several years, insider talk centered on this trade show as predominantly "instrumentation" and not "systems." Indeed, according to Walt Boyes' blog that I read this morning, the ISA general assembly rejected the proposed name change to "International Society for Automation" to stay with the current ISA, the Instrumentation, Systems and Automation Association. Evidently a substantial minority of voting members (enough to block the name change) objected to devaluing the place of instrumentation. Too bad, this has been a real problem of the association for years--looking to the past instead of the future. At least the leadership seems to be coming into the 20th century (that's not a typo); we'll have to see how long it takes the members to see what's happening to both the industry and the profession.
The show buzz is definitely instrumentation-oriented, though--in the sense of wireless and networking. Most of the products and press conferences centered on wireless sensor networks. The ISA committee charged with developing a standard held two press conferences to say essentially nothing. It will work to build on top of the recently adopted WirelessHart profile, though. Most companies seem to be adopting a low-power mesh network based on IEEE 802.15.4 and championed by technology provider Dust Networks. An Intel spin-off, GainSpan, has sprung on to the scene (it's been behind the scenes for years) with an IEEE 802.11 (wifi) sensor network. I can't tell for sure if this is competitive with or complementary to the other sensor network. My first impression is that it is the latter--another one of those pick the technology that fits the application choices.
Given the emphasis on networking, it's not surprising that several network security solutions gained visibility at the show. One small trend sort of under the radar was PoE, power over Ethernet. This is a technology that holds much promise for the future.
The only systems news I found so far was from Siemens Energy & Automation--added advanced process control functionality to its PCS 7 line.
On a sub-plot, the ever vigilant Managing Editor of Automation World, Wes Iversen, noticed some time ago that ISA has dropped the hyphen when discussing ISA100. Previously, all standards had the form "ISA-XX". I thought maybe it related to the old database problem of configuring for x amount of characters in a field. Apparently the real reason is to assure that ISA gets due credit for the standard so that people won't drop the "ISA" from the "-100". Ah, branding is everywhere ;-)
More this afternoon as I unwind at the President's Club at Bush Intercontinental Airport.
Just realized that this is "Broaderick Crawford Day." For those of you not as old as I am, there was a 50s TV show called "Highway Patrol." Crawford was the star. About 50 percent of his lines in the show were, "Ten-four" as he spoke over the radio.
10:20:07 AM 
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