Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Shows I just saw a blog post from Walt Boyes over at Control who quotes ISA saying that total attendance (less exhibitors) at the recent Expo was 8,500. He thought that was good. I did some quick calculations from memory and I think this probably is a similar number to the total customer attendance at all the systems vendors' users conferences combined. That doesn't count this month's gatherings of Wonderware and GE Fanuc users conferences. Not to mention Rockwell Automation's Automation Fair that will probably draw at least that many. I have no numbers for the recent amalgamation of trade shows at Rosemont, but exhibitors and suppliers who were there said most of the attendance seemed to be at the Assembly part of the show and that the old National Manufacturing Week part of the show was weak. So, on the plus side, ISA Expo is the largest open industry event for automation and control. Also, with all these people gathered, conversations and compromises among the competing wireless factions were more readily facilitated--a strong reason for preserving these general industry events. And among those in attendance, most seemed to be leaders and decision makers. But with major suppliers emphasizing closed customer events rather than broad industry events, these shows are not likely to grow. Question to all of you--is this because there realistically isn't a lot of competition right now in North America? That is, customers are reluctant to change their entire automation infrastructure? Or, does that describe the recent past with change coming on the horizon? What do you think? You can comment or send me a note. 8:23:04 AM    comment []

New Products from Opto 22 There are a couple of significant items in this series of releases from Opto 22. First, there are still a lot of serial devices and networks in use (note the serial Brain boards released). Second, Opto supports distributed control for machine control applications. This is a much talked about trend that is slowly gaining traction. Opto 22 has updated its PAC Project development software and released a number of new hardware products. PAC Project version 8.1, the company's flagship automation software suite that includes control programming, HMI development, OPC connectivity, and enterprise database integration features new distributed control functions and support for several new hardware offerings. The new PAC Project 8.1-part of the SNAP PAC System-offers an architecture where control functions like analog scaling, digital counting and PID loop control are distributed to local I/O processors. This architecture simplifies programming, increases control system performance, and reduces single points of failure. New control functions include frequency measurement, period measurement, analog totalization and digital totalization. Additional HMI functions are also included. Version 8.1 includes support for new SNAP PAC Serial I/O brains (the SNAP-PAC-SB1 and SNAP-PAC-SB2), a new standalone programmable automation controller (SNAP-PAC-S2) and new 8-channel analog input modules (SNAP-AIV-8, SNAP-AIMA-8, and SNAP-AICTD-8), along with support for concurrent serial and Ethernet I/O networking. According to Opto 22 Vice President of Marketing Benson Hougland, customers continue to have many serial devices and networks in operation but want the latest control technology to drive them. PAC Project Basic is free for download or with purchase of any SNAP PAC controller. PAC Project 8.1 Professional is available at a list price of $999 US. 8:05:37 AM    comment []