Had a long day yesterday, no time to blog. I did send a couple of twitters. Travel day from Mexico with an early call. The company transporting me to the airport made a mistake and came at 5 am instead of 6. Apologies to the guy next door to me who undoubtedly heard the phone ring at 4:55, since he had only come back to his room a half-hour earlier ;-) Arriving at Dayton, I stopped by the ISA88 part 5 committee meeting at the Dayton Airport Hotel. That group is making progress as they get ready for a ballot later this year.
Speaking of ISA committees (and shameless self-promotion), I got an email from an ISA SP100 committee member who was upset that I have Ron Helson of Hart Communication Foundation speaking on WirelessHart on today's Webcast. Yes, you can catch me live on the Web at 2 EDT as Automation World kicks off its Wireless Technologies Webcast series. [potential sponsors, call your local rep] Anyway, the person thought I was being "unbalanced and unfair." Well, sorry, but I don't think there is any public news from the SP100 committee. There seems to be continuing bitter division on the committee--with one camp (the email writer must be in that one) not wanting anything to do with Hart even though it is now an industry consensus standard with products being built to its spec. As soon as the 100 committee has something, we'll report it.
Just as the world standards organizations refused to pick a winner from among the competing fieldbus standards, so despite people who think a standards committee should pick winners and losers it will do well to incorporate existing standards within its umbrella.
We still have openings for attendees for the 3rd Packaging Automation Forum. It's May 20 at the Marriott Schaumburg (Chicago area). Featured presentations include those from engineers from Unilever, P&G and Genentech plus more. Weâo[dot accent]ll be exploring how developing technologies can pay big benefits for companies of all sizes. In "Remote Functionality to the Rescue," grout manufacturer Laticrete International and systems integrator PACsys describe a state of the art hardware/software solution that enables Laticrete to make mechanical adjustments to their packaging operations a continent away.
If you come, you can not only tell me what you think about the industry or my blog--you can also network with leading solution providers and other attendees from companies such as PepsiCo, Arpac LP, Kliklock-Woodman, The Wrigley Co., Estee Lauder, Adept Technologies, Coors Brewing, Multivac, Clorox, Kraft Foods, Mettler-Toledo, Nestle, Pearson Packaging, P&G and more.
We have a new opportunity this year. On May 19, OMAC will hold a Make2Pack Workshop with a Connect-and-Pack demo. See you there.
7:40:22 AM 
|
|
