Rockwell Automation once again organized an “Automation University” event in the UK last month, offering training, discussion and demonstration sessions plus an exhibition and press conference, all concentrating on manufacturing and production. Around 480 pre-registered guests were invited for up to two days at the Edgbaston cricket ground in Birmingham, where Rockwell and their exhibiting partners took over the conference facilities.

For a full report on the event see the May 2012 issue of the INSIDER Newsletter

The top management at Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS) has changed. Norm Gilsdorf has moved on, to be replaced as president by Darius Adamczyk, previously president of the Honeywell Scanning and Mobility Division.

Gilsdorf is then the second high growth regional manager to be appointed, and will cover Russia, Central Asia and the Middle East. Honeywell suggests that Gilsdorf’s considerable global business experience following previous international rôles at both Honeywell and UOP make him ideally suited to the requirements of this post.

See the background to this change in the May issue of the INSIDER.

On 19 April, Veli-Matti Reinikkala, president of ABB Process Automation, and Prof Andrew Livingston, head of the chemical engineering department at Imperial College, London, formally opened an industrial scale carbon capture pilot plant, which makes significant use of ABB wireless and control technologies. The result of a three year GBP10m ($15m) project, the separation columns extend up through four floors within the chemical engineering faculty building, and will be used for teaching, research, development work with industrial partners, technology display and customer demonstrations/training. 

The project represents an initial investment of around GBP1m ($1.5m) by ABB, supplemented with a 10 year agreement to support the facility: ABB will also provide a series of sponsorships and summer placements for Imperial’s chemical engineering undergraduates,

This story was featured in the May issue of the INSIDER. Why not subscribe to get the news as it happens?

It was fascinating to be present at the opening of the new P+F factory in Wednesbury, in the UK West Midlands, North of Birmingham, where Pepperl+Fuchs CEO Dr Kegel outlined some of his plans and developments for the future in P+F - which is developing along just as many strands as his external activity. Concrete evidence of one of these strands is seen in the new Wednesbury factory, representing a total project investment of Euro6m ($8m) over three years, into the manufacture of enclosures and hazardous area electrical equipment. 

See the full article in the March 2012 INSIDER

Early in February, FMC Technologies, based in Houston, reported record results for 2011, and predicted that 2012 will be their 11th consecutive year of earnings growth, even anticipating over a 28% increase compared to 2011.

Three days after reporting these results, FMC announced that presumably some of the $344m reported as available in cash had been used in the acquisition of the company Control Systems International (CSI), a supplier of innovative control and automation system solutions for oil fuel terminal automation and information management.

See the full article in the March 2012 INSIDER

Shuzo Kaihori, president and ceo of Yokogawa Electric, has released a new business plan, detailing the Yokogawa aims and objectives through to the end of fiscal year 2015, and restating their long term vision and objective of becoming the global “Number 1 company in industrial automation and control”. This was an ambition that was first expressed as a ten year Yokogawa objective in the year 2000, but this was put on hold after their financial problems in 2008. The plan now presented by Kaihori is called “Evolution 2015”: he describes it as a ‘mid-term’ business plan.

See the full article in the February 2012 INSIDER