A select group of industrial equipment companies are executing a formula for success that peers may want to take note of, if they plan to remain competitive in the emerging global market.

  We have not changed our outlook—the economy should avoid slipping into a broad-based recession for most, if not all, of 2008.

 New and less-expensive technologies for electric-power measurement using wireless mesh networks should be on the market in the near future.

  In the past, corporate environmental plansvwere mostly cost burdens relating to regulatory compliance, with perhaps a touch of the public relations image of being socially responsible. In the past few years, this has changed dramatically—“green” is becoming a business profit opportunity.

  This month, we are covering two issues very important for the profitability of manufacturing companies—and that have potentially far-reaching consequences.

  “There are only two problems in life,” says productivity guru David Allen, in a white paper titled “Make It Up and Make It Happen” (found at www.davidco.com). So, what are the two problems?

  As I write my New Year’s column, I’m in “booming Bangalore,” India’s software capital. This is a city of some 6.5 million people, which makes it India's third-most populous city and fifth-largest metropolitan area.

 Our general outlook, as measured by the U.S. Industrial Production Index, calls for a growth rate for 2007 of 2.0 percent above 2006, down from 2.7 percent predicted in the October Automation World.

  In response to criticism about his famous saying, “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing,” American football coach Vince Lombardi eventually offered a repudiation, implying that what he meant to say was, “Winning is not everything—but making the effort to win is.”

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

  When I wrote my July editorial on wireless sensor networking, “Hype or Reality,” I was somewhat frustrated trying to discover what was happening after the release of products into users’ hands following a year of talk.

 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.

  The industrial automation environment holds the potential for installation of wireless products throughout a factory or plant to yield vast arrays of information that can improve operations and profitability. Already widely deployed in commercial and business applications, industrial wireless adoption has been stalled, purportedly because process control users are slow to change and are paranoid about security. The real reasons for slow introduction are a combination of old-paradigm thinking, compounded by paralysis analysis through standards committees.

 “Computing technology has advanced to the point where we can deploy virtual equipment to simulate the production process and generate control code.”

 Economic Order QuantityEOQ = √ ã 2*P*S/CP = Production in Units/monthS = Set-up and Ordering Cost per LotC = Inventory Carrying Costs $/unit/month

 Electric power supply is the single most difficult constraint for industrial wireless sensor design. Present-day commercial products rely on chemical batteries.

 “I suddenly realized that almost the entire ‘Who’s Who’ of automation was in that room today,” said an industry marketing vice president to Jane Gerold and me during the recent Manufacturing Strategies Forum put on by Andy Chatha and his ARC Advisory Group, held in Orlando Feb.

 “Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns.” — J.M. Clark.

 Every ten years or so, a technology comes along that completely changes the way we do business. Sometimes it’s a brand new technology; other times it’s a technology that has finally reached critical adoption.