I'm at Interphex in New York this week. Yesterday was opening day and there was a good crowd of attendees. Expect more today. Tom Varney of Siemens reports that sales are strong and they are picking up marketshare in the US. However, I don't know the breakdown (PLCs, DCS with the Moore purchase, software or all of the above). Rockwell Automation had its life sciences team headed by Bob Honor at the show and is reiterating its commitment to vertical market expertise. It was also showing some advanced sensor technology under development and advanced process control in its RSLogix software. Meanwhile Roy Kok over at GE Fanuc Automation revealed some additional features in iFix 4.0, namely, biometric security functions and a cool-looking change management function with tracking to help with compliance to FDA 22CFR part 11.
After the show, I had probably the best kind of press conference over a glass of wine with Geri Studebaker and Justin Neway of Aegis. Justin is one of those guys who was working in the trenches in pharma and thought there ought to be a better way to coordinate all the information needed by scientists and business people during clinical trials. So he put his Ph.D. to use and invented one. He's also a good teacher and I learned a lot behind what's going on with the FDA initiatives including Process Analytic Technology (PAT, see related Automation World article). The results of that conversation will appear in future articles as we continue to explore that area. The key takeaway is that the pharma industry, which has lived on huge gross margins that cover for various cost inefficiencies, is finally doing what the rest of industry has already done--take steps to improve process consistency.
7:47:17 AM 
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