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Get your information-to-go via Podcasts:
Check out Automation Minutes with Editor in Chief Gary Mintchell. Taking its name from Apple’s iPod, this is an Internet-based audio program. You can go to http://automation.libsyn.com and listen on your Windows Media Player. Or, you can go to iTunes (or your Internet music source) and subscribe to the RSS feed (http://automation.libsyn.com/rss) to directly download to your iPod. Now you can catch some automation thoughts while you work out in the morning or on your drive to work.

New Level of Competition?

Carl Jung called it "synchronicity," the experience of having two (or more) things happen simultaneously in a manner that is meaningful to the person or persons experiencing them. So last week when I was in Boston I found a bookstore nearby and went in looking for a copy of a Geoffrey Moore book. They didn’t have Crossing the Chasm, but there was a copy of Dealing With Darwin. It’s a study of innovation in large companies. Later during the reception following the Invensys InFusion announcement, Mike Bradley, president of Wonderware, asked me if I had read it. Hmmm, a pattern. So, I’m reading it. Read more

3:41:05 PM comment []

Tips for Living Well

Here are Don Miguel Ruiz’s Four Agreements (thanks for the link to Robert Scoble, Microsoft Geek blogger, the Scobleizer).

In short form: Agreement 1--Be impeccable with your word.
Agreement 2--Don’t take anything personally.
Agreement 3--Don’t make assumptions.
Agreement 4--Always do your best.
7:13:52 AM comment []

More on Invensys InFusion

Received a comment on a previous post on the InFusion announcement.

Here's the post: I've got some news for Invensys, any SAP integration strategy predicated on SAP NetWeaver (as theirs claims to be) is going to neither "easy" nor "cheap". Today, SAP has 110,000+ SAP R/3 installations of which only 2,500 are reference-able NetWeaver installations - do the math. Even if SAP gives NetWeaver away for free, it's a long, costly and complicated process to implement it. In general, throwing XML at SAP R/3 and calling it an integration strategy is like trying to get into a building by smashing thru a side wall. If you try hard enough you'll probably get in, but to qualify as a "strategy" you probably ought to figure out how to use the front door. Read more

5:01:42 PM comment []

Baltimore

I can't believe it's the end of the day on Wednesday already. It's taken me three days in my office to get the desk straightened out, email answered and a bunch of interviews for my June story on new manufacturing strategies. I'm learning a lot that I'll be sharing later.

After three days in Boston for the Invensys announcement, I got one night at home, then drove to Baltimore to take a few days of vacation with my wife. The Baltimore Inner Harbor is a great place to visit. Although we're not baseball fans, we spent an enjoyable (well mostly except for the guy who couldn't hold his beer, lost track of the times he needed out) evening at the ball park. Read more

4:53:20 PM comment []

Manufacturing blogs

Here are links to a couple of other industry blogs.

Jim Cahill of Emerson always is informative.

The Opto 22 blog offers a white paper on programmable automation controllers, a term coined to reflect the convergence of PC technology into the world of PLCs. There's also an opportunity to engage in a discussion on the topic. I wonder what you all think of the concept.
7:03:28 AM comment []

Invensys New Infusion

I've had many conversations last night and today with people trying to understand just what Invensys has really done with its new product InFusion. I’m on the plane home from Boston and finally have some time to type.

First, InFusion is a software application that runs on a server/PC. It can be applied to a small process or scale up to an enterprise-wide multi-plant capability. It incorporates all the drivers that Wonderware has developed over many years such that it will connect to just about any hardware control platform. By the way, it's not a process control software application, but is an "enterprise control platform." And, the I/A series is still its control platform. Read more

8:25:31 PM comment []