A metal plating company relies upon independent drivers to transport its finished goods to customers.

  In order to improve your manufacturing performance, you should put in a manufacturing execution system (MES) system and integrate to your enterprise resource planning (ERP)—right?

  In order to reach their maximum potential, manufacturing companies must be efficient at coordinating and controlling personnel, materials and equipment across different operations and control systems.

 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.”

 Strong operating performance drove strong equity market results, as several leading industrial automation companies reported banner years in 2007 and project even brighter futures in 2008.

  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.

  Automation, compliance and reporting functions are unlikely candidates for centralization.

 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 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.

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

 Automation professionals are a pretty smart bunch of people. For decades, control system vendors packaged automation solutions in black-box configurations—open them and make changes at your own risk.

 “Sometimes I don’t speak too bright, but yet I know what I’m talking about.”If you went to high school in the mid-1970s, you’ll recognize those lyrics to the song, “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” from War’s album of the same name.

 The robots are out of control. As assembly line operators scurry to get out of their way, plant managers rush to the control room to take charge.

 Security assessments of plant networks and audits of production equipment reveal that manufacturers are using a wide range of methods to support remote access to their equipment.

 The business pressure to bring isolated systems into corporate networks is steadily growing. As a result, security is now a corporate-wide issue, and is permanently changing the economics of production system maintenance.

 What will the factory of the future look like?

 While “Big Brother” may not be watching you, it’s a sure bet that someone is. Almost all aspects of our lives are exposed to scrutiny, from security cameras to Internet links to Google searches.

 A couple of months ago, I attended a conference at which the keynote speaker, David Kepler, chief information officer of Dow Chemical Co., discussed the Law of Unintended Consquences as it relates to cybersecurity.