This column has previously discussed the underlying causes of the credit squeeze, as well as automation industry performance; equally relevant, however, is the impact on individual small business owners and the precautions they should be taking to help their companies successfully weather the storm. 

  Somewhere between enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) you will find the manufacturing execution systems (MES) layer.

 Successful automation companies would be expected to be on the hunt for strategic acquisitions that fit with their core competencies.

 Network security expert Eric Byres pulls no punches when speaking about information technology (IT) security. Hacking on control systems is serious, “a problem that costs companies millions of dollars,” says the chief technical officer of Byres Security Inc. (www.byressecurity.com), located in Lantzville, on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. “That’s usually kept very quiet. So no one believes it can happen until it does happen.”

 Future robot systems cannot be a mere extrapolation of today’s technology, but should generate whole new application arenas.

 When we started Automation World, my mantra was that we covered intelligent use of automation. Our marketing people devised the tag line “intelligence for the business of automation.” When I was meditating on the technology trends in automation along with this month’s theme, it struck me as interesting that intelligence was the recurring theme.

 “Baby Boomers”—those born after the Second World War and into the boom years of the 1960s—are starting to reach retirement.

  Not all application software comes on a CD-ROM, or Compact Disk read-only memory.

  Low power consumption is a critical product differentiator for all types of battery-powered wireless devices.

  While hedge funds and private equity investors who had taken advantage of the lending practices of the past few years may be reeling from the huge swings in the financial markets, the automation industry should be able to survive the credit squeeze.

 Radio frequency identification (RFID)-based asset tracking in a manufacturing setting may encompass automated tracking of fixed or capital assets, engineered assets such as process instrumentation, information technology (IT) assets or reusable containers.

 Sometimes, progress in the automation market takes a while.

 The stock market is soaring, the money supply is expanding, the key leading indicators are positive, more Americans are employed than ever before (currently over 146.9 million of us have jobs), and Disposable Personal Income is 3.4 percent higher than it was at this time last year.

  What is hype? I guess one definition would be when someone is promoting a product of one sort or another as real, when in fact, its reality is far down the road.

 Industrial instrumentation and control have always been a hotbed of new products—sensors and actuators and all the “stuff” in between, including signal conditioners, displays, recorders, controllers, valves and actuators. Because industrial markets are relatively specialized and rarely generate high volume, products are usually high-priced, with limited applications in other markets.

 What’s coming? 2007, of course. As we begin our fourth full year of publishing, I am contemplating where the various aspects of the automation business have developed and where they might be going.

 “The chip combines some old, familiar features with some new and pretty innovative features.”

 As the innovation center-of-gravity shifts, the long-term economic implications are enormous.

  People who think about technology always wonder what “the next big thing” will be.

  Automation World has put a powerful Internet tool in the hands of our readers, with our newly designed Web site.