Updated:
Wow, what a week. A little over 2 days in St. Louis at the GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms User Conference followed by a whirlwind trip to Raleigh, NC to visit Schneider Electric's new Automation & Control Innovation Center. In the midst of it all, came the news of Rockwell Automation's purchase of Pavilion Technologies. Wednesday was full of interviews at GE. Thursday was up early, flight to Raleigh, whisked to the Innovation Center for tours and interviews, a little time to get caught up on correspondence, then dinner. Today was mostly spent getting home. Then I'm reading about Walt Boyes' trip to Shanghai and the Advantech user conference there--one of six places I could have been other than where I was. I also have a report from Wes Iversen about the Wonderware user conference in Las Vegas (hmm, Shanghai, Tokyo, Las Vegas--and I go to St. Louis; where's my psychoanalyst?).
First, I wonder if they feel the heat in Austin from that little red laser dot that movies like to show when the sniper has a bead on the protagonist? Who's serious about playing in the process control arena--definitely GE Fanuc and Rockwell. I spent an hour with GE Fanuc's Proficy Process business lead Steve Ryan on Wednesday. I also sat in a technical presentation for another hour on Tuesday. Steve is happy with the progress and orders gained since the launch of the new, improved Proficy Process this summer. They are putting a lot of pieces together.
Meanwhile, Rockwell is also showing its seriousness about the process business--as well as information integration--with the purchase of Pavilion Technology. Pavilion has model predictive control and process optimization products, and according to Rockwell Vice President of Software Kevin Roach, almost 150 patents in those areas. With this purchase, Rockwell gains new technologies, entre into the ethanol market, and a chance at a major enhancement to its FactoryTalk solution. Roach intends to take Pavilion's technologies and make them available to an expanded set of customers in food & beverage, pharma and other such industries. Last year at Automation Fair, Rockwell CEO Keith Nosbusch told Jane Gerold and me that process and information were the major focuses of the corporation this year. I guess this shows they put their money where their mouth is.
In my 45 minutes or so with the GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms executive team, I asked about the branding message meant by the new name. CEO Maryrose Sylvester answered that the company is positioning as a provider of automation platforms upon which customers can build their applications. GE Fanuc has been known as a component supplier in the industry, but there is no mistaking that entire team is focused on looking at automation systems rather than pieces and parts. I have to say that this is the first time I've talked with people at this level at GE Fanuc and found everyone knowledgeable and focused on this industry. Previously, I had the impression of extremely bright people who were more focused on what was happening at the division level. This is a pretty new team that Sylvester has assembled, and I think it's a new day at the company.
Speaking of the GE division level, former GEF CEO, Charlene Begley is running a new Enterprise Solutions division that includes GEF and GE Sensing and others. My impression of division managers at GE was that they were portfolio managers. Begley and the other CEOs such as Sylvester seem determined to change that. Imagine the impact on the automation industry if GE actually brought its instrumentation, security, inspection and automation businesses together with coordinated product development and marketing. This could happen. My mantra is "execution counts" and we'll have to wait and see. But I see a newly energized competitor emerging here.
There is another company seen as a component supplier that is trying to change its spots--Schneider Electric. I'm always amazed at the changes in that company over the past three years. I had a chance at dinner last night to talk with three of the top managers in automation from France (along with blog reader and fellow soccer fanatic Jarrett Campbell and Jeff Jervah who is a business leader in automation in the US, and US vice president of automation Andy Gravitt), and once again I had the feeling of a team coming together with a focused mission to grow the automation business and knock off its rivals. The Innovation Center in Raleigh is the start of a new way of looking at the business at Schneider. They are looking at ways to bundle components into vertical industry specific automation solutions. The Center (along with many application engineers hired from the various verticals) is designed to do proof of concept application engineering for customers and prospective customers. In this environment, they can work in a consultative and collaborative way with customers to design an optimum solution. Schneider has a ways to go, but both the French and American leaders seem to have a clear vision of what it will take for success along with the drive to succeed. Once again, I told them "execution counts" and corporate senior vice president Elie Belbel said, "Write me in one year and we'll see where we are. You'll be surprised."
So, competition in discrete control--especially for the business of OEMs--looks to be getting hot.
Meanwhile in Las Vegas, Wonderware had already unveiled its new software. Wes reports that most of the user conference was given over to showing and explaining the new platform and InTouch 10. An interesting comment from (vice president Marc Davidson) president Mike Bradley in a keynote--Africa is going to be the next competitive arena. That was interesting. I certainly hope so. I think if they could get some business infrastructure and stability it would be so great for the people. So, I wonder what's up Wonderware's sleeve here?
9:35:51 PM 
|
|
