Tuesday, April 15, 2008

ExiderDome Here are more details about the Siemens ExiderDome traveling technology expo. It is built from what are essentially cargo containers that, when disassembled, can travel over the road on semi-rigs or on a barge (which it will from Chicago down the St. Lawrence River to eventually New York City). It is assembled into a three-story structure, with two stories for visitors and displays. about 130,000 people have already seen it in Asia, Russia and Mexico. It will go to Calgary, then on to Chicago for the US grand opening on July 21. Siemens Energy & Automation Vice President Tom Varney introduced the concept to assembled press this morning calling it a huge market changer. Expanding on what was learned from the ExiderTrain of 2004, this 10,000 square foot expo includes much more hands-on experiences with 137,000 products that are constantly updated as the exhibit moves. There is a modern theater and eight product areas where Siemens presenters hope to dialog with visitors about needs and solutions. Look for it in Chicago (July 21-25), Detroit (Aug. 8-15), Boston (Oct. 18-23), NYC (Nov 1-7), Charlotte (Dec 8-12), Orlando (timed with annual ARC Forum Feb 2-6, 2009), Los Angeles (March 5-11), Denver (Apr 6-10) and Houston (May 4-8 with the OTC show). I'm off for lunch and a tour next. 12:57:15 PM    comment []

Got your taxes done? This is Tax Day in the US. Hope you got yours done. I finally fit mine in around the travel schedule and filed online over the weekend. <whew> When I was in Israel last summer, the guide said, "You Americans call the Western Wall (of the Temple) the 'Wailing Wall', but this is what Israelis call the 'Wailing Wall' " as we passed the building housing that country's Internal Revenue Service. ;-} So, you can "wail" today. 10:19:45 AM    comment []

New member category at OPC Foundation The OPC Foundation has created a new program and membership category for systems integrators and distributors. The original focus of the organization was vendors developing shrink-wrap products and providing specifications, technology and certification to facilitate multivendor interoperability. End users leverage system integrators and distributors to build custom systems using products from multiple OPC vendors. OPC provides ways for custom software by developing a custom OPC component to complete the project and needed to provide a mechanism and membership class to facilitate the system integrators and distributors being able to design, develop and certify the custom software. The end-user's expectations are that system integrators should increase their proficiency of the use of the OPC technology, and OPC has deliberately created a program to address this requirement. "Initially, the system integrator makes the end-user happy by putting together a system that consists of certified OPC products from multiple vendors," stated Thomas Burke, OPC president. "However, problems sometimes arise as small pieces of custom software are developed to extend the functionality which then compromise the integrity of the system. Frequently, that simple little OPC component was not developed exactly to specifications, so making things work together is difficult." Often, OPC gets the blame but regardless it's the end user who suffers. "The Foundation wants this to stop, for the benefit of all," he said. "So we are calling on the myriad of OPC system integrators out there who routinely use OPC to solve problems in the field to sign up and help raise the overall quality and reliability of OPC products." OPC Foundation membership fees are traditionally correlated to company annual revenue, but project values tend to be high in the automation business, necessitating a different pricing model. Recognizing this the Foundation is creating a new SI&D membership category with a fixed fee of $1500. "For this the SI&D member gets access to OPC specifications and reference implementations (sample code) on which to base his products. Our free Compliance Test Tools are also available to him so he can self-certify his own custom OPC components. A special listing of SI&D members will be kept and end users will be actively encouraged to use these members for their projects," added Burke. A fresh round of specialist SI&D training events is planned, together with a series of webinars. "We're also developing a certification scheme which will award successful attendees at our training classes 'Certified OPC Provider' status," said Burke. "We are now establishing a network of new Test Lab services to ensure top product quality and reliability, particularly for Unified Architecture components, and our goal is to ensure that all developers, including the new SI&D membership, take full advantage of the services we offer." 10:16:31 AM    comment []

Mexico I'm in Monterrey Mexico getting ready to preview the Siemens ExiderDome traveling exhibit. Details later. You may wonder about the name. In German, it's "ExiderDom". I've always seen the word Dom in connection with a cathedral, but the resident German intern Andreas said that the word is used colloquially to mean something to the effect of gathering together. Sometimes used for forums. So, if you go to see it in its US tour (beginning in July at Chicago's Navy Pier), don't expect a dome. It's more of a building. 10:03:50 AM    comment []