The proliferation of digital networks in manufacturing has resulted in a job description change for most, if not all, automation engineers.

 End-users are often looking for the latest and greatest technologies that are so easy to install that anyone, or most anyone, can do it. But engineering easier factory-floor life requires vendors to listen to users.

  Whether training comes by downloadable Web-based study-at-your-own-pace videos, one-hour Web-based seminars called Webinars, single-day classroom sessions or week-long intensive classroom courses, trainers’ goals remain essentially the same: Be effective, impart what students need and get feedback to improve the training.

  The Web standard for communicating information, the eXtensible Markup Language or XML, is more than eleven years old. Its use in automation is still in infancy, however.

  Expand a single-node system by a couple or more nodes, or change topologies, or connect computers to another server—and “things get complicated,” states Rashesh Mody, vice president of human-machine-interface (HMI) and supervisory-control-and-data-acquisition (SCADA) services for manufacturing software vendor Wonderware (www.wonderware.com), Lake Forest, Calif.

  Current trends in robotics will enable better human-robot interaction, making robots easier and safer to use.

  “Six Sigma is absolutely about changing a company’s culture,” declares Mark Sessumes, of the Texas Manufacturing Assistance Center (www.tmac.org), Fort Worth, Texas. “[And] that’s all the way from top leadership down to the workforce—to make decisions based on data, not intuition.”

 ILS Technology Inc. (www.ilstechnology.com), of Boca Raton, Fla., leverages 25 years of experience in device-and-automation-to-enterprise connectivity through its deviceWise platform.

 Jeff Lytle has some unique bragging rights. He entered manufacturing-excellence record books by recently receiving the first-ever Lean Gold Certification. 

  You would presume companies realize that customers are treasured assets. You’d expect companies to know that first-rate customer relationship management (CRM) promotes success. You’d think companies would view CRM as a business strategy, not just a technology fix. You would suppose that companies strive, up and down the supply chain, to balance operational flexibility and customer relationships. But you might be wrong.

  You would use flow-through conductivity sensors in “any application where the measurement of liquid conductivity or the percent concentration of a liquid is required,” states Nick Nichols, product manager at vendor Yokogawa Corp. of America’s (www.yokogawa.com/us) Analytical Business Unit, in Newnan, Ga. 

  Service-oriented architecture (SOA) visionary Ron Schmelzer thinks businesses create most of their own problems.

  Regardless of why people interact, when they do, someone’s selling or buying.

  Is it easier today to install vision appliances and systems than just four to five years ago?  Ben Dawson thinks so. Reasons include “advancements in underlying technology and the focus we’ve had on ease-of-use. Also, expert systems, ‘vision-engineer-in-a-box’ and proper human-machine interface,” states Dawson, director of strategic development for Billerica, Mass.-based vision systems vendor ipd (www.goipd.com), a group within Waterloo, Ontario-based Dalsa Digital Imaging (www.dalsa.com).

  Because of the power to analyze numbers for all manner of uses from accounting to engineering, companies have needed to live in spreadsheets. Oftentimes, though, that lifestyle has produced pain and agony when one tries to verify a single point of truth.

  Jim Gray says the most important thing about electronic device description language (EDDL) is that it makes managing process instrumentation easier.

  Training of automation technicians, technologists and engineers should encompass mechatronics’ four facets mechanical engineering/technology, electronics, process control and computer science states Keith Campbell, principal of Campbell Management Services, Palmyra, Pa., and former director of automation and integration for The Hershey Co., the Harrisburg, Pa.-based chocolate and snack food manufacturer.

 One of the hottest topics in industrial networking these days is Ethernet-based motion control. Protocols may run solely on Ethernet—Layer 2—of the International Standardization Organization’s (www.iso.ch) Open System Interconnection (OSI) 7-layer Reference Model. Some use the model’s transmission control protocol (TCP)/Layer 4 and Internet protocol (IP)/Layer 3. Some bypass those two to get real-time responses. Regardless, they’re all unique.

 While Microsoft Corp.’s Visual Studio is an integrated development environment for general Windows and Web-based applications, the “automation studio” focuses on industrial automation applications, explains Donald Mack, senior marketing specialist in the Process Automation Systems group of automation vendor Siemens Energy & Automation Inc. (www.sea.siemens.com), in Spring House, Pa.

 “The use of robotics has and will continue to be a worldwide phenomenon,” declares Abdo Bashar, Cartesian robots product manager for, automation vendor Bosch Rexroth Corp. (www.boschrexroth-us.com), in Charlotte, N.C.  “This phenomenon will continue to cause a worldwide change in the way we manufacture goods, and will continue to produce improvements, lead time reductions and quality goods.”