Friday, August 15, 2008

Schneider Electric User Conference I had barely finished one conference, then a couple of soccer meetings, then another conference. I'm now in Las Vegas and just finished up with the Schneider Electric user conference. I'll finish up thoughts from NI in a later post. But there was one major theme that cut across both weeks--green engineering (NI) or energy savings (Schneider). Two phrases but very similar meaning. Schneider's business is only about 20% automation. Needless to say I spent quite a bit of time with Andy Gravitt, vp of automation and control and Jarrett Campbell, head of the packaging competency center (forgot to assure that I had his latest title). Overall it looks as if the automation part of the business is coming together. Gravitt is providing excellent leadership and the team seems to have focus. Those would be the two key ingredients for getting things going. I know most about the packaging machinery/control team, but there are several others with more coming. They are well aware of their market position and are realistic about where their growth will come -- and who the challengers are. It has been historically very strong in several segments of the US automotive industry. That's not a good place to be in 2008. They know that and are focused on other industries for growth. The editor to editor panel came off. The PR people morphed it into an editor and executive panel. It was a good roundtable from my point of view, but I don't think any of my competitors will be quoting my remarks ;-)  They did shoot a video of one of my responses. I haven't previewed it yet, but we'll probably put it on a Web site. Much of Schneider is focused on electrical power and distribution not necessarily specific to manufacturing. So the topic became almost too wide to handle. But all contributed. The gist of it--people are becoming aware of the need to conserve resources and that the cost benefits are starting to amount to "real" dollars. 5:47:26 PM    comment []