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Smart Grid
Ah, we have a new president and new Congress—but at least manufacturing and automation leaders are trying to enter into the conversation early. NEMA President CEO Evan Gaddis joined federal agency heads and industry representatives in testimony to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on March 3, 2009. Speaking on behalf of the electric manufacturing sector, Gaddis addressed the status of and obstacles to smart-grid implementation. Of particular interest to the committee are the steps the agencies have taken to fulfill smart-grid mandates outlined in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.
Gaddis told the committee that technologies available today were not being deployed because of uncertainty over cost recovery and standards. "If we get grid standards in place before we start building, we will save time and money," Gaddis said.
Gaddis presented a framework for priority standards development, including agreement on time, location, and power measurement. He also noted that the standards development organizations (SDO) had the capability to develop industry consensus quickly, and recommended that accredited SDOs be directed to accelerate critical standards development...."
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Partnering News
I'm getting more partnering news. In this release, Rockwell Automation announced a global agreement with ProLeiT AG of Herzogenaurach, Germany that will allow ProLeiT to more tightly integrate its Plant iT production control and data acquisition product with the Rockwell Logix Control Platform...
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Real and Virtual Worlds Collide
In other partnering news, Dassault Systemes, a supplier of product lifecycle management systems, has taken a minor equity position in Intercim, a supplier of management execution systems, in order to develop a product that will combine the real-time manufacturing information provided by MES with product definition provided by PLM. The goal as explained by executives Patrick Michel of Dassault and Judson Plapp of Intercim I interviewed yesterday is to provide real-time "as is" 3D representations of sub-assemblies and assemblies. This information will help planners and managers make better decisions about process and engineering changes during production of complex products--for example, airplanes...
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Gary's Travels
A few thoughts of my days at the ODVA conference on YouTube...
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ODVA Conference
Today was technical session day at ODVA - the organization to promote CIP (common industrial protocol) networks. I like tech talk, so my eyes aren't glazed, yet.
I had to pick from among many sessions, so what you get is what I saw. My first session, which I reported earlier today, was the Technical Review Board. My takeaway is (lacking major announcements) the organization and development of the specifications is thriving. There is a lot of work by volunteer engineers working on many fronts to further development of the family of CIP standards and applications. By the way, networks covered by the standards are DeviceNet, ControlNet, EtherNet/IP and CompoNet. I have heard that there are about 100 attendees here, and the table set up for tonight's dinner reflects that number. I don't know what was expected...
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