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Volume 14
Number 7

July 2010

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Yokogawa snubs WirelessHART users at the launch of the “World’s first” ISA100.11a wireless transmitters

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“ISA100 is the standard that has been developed by the user community, and expresses the wishes of the users, rather than the approach imposed by vendors, as exemplified by WirelessHART,” said Joost van Loon, Yokogawa Europe director of industrial automation. “Additionally ISA100 is technologically superior to other approaches, in that it can cover all the wireless solutions that might be required. Users have also requested just one standard, so in the Yokogawa view this should be ISA100.” Van Loon was speaking at the launch of a range of ISA100.11a pressure and temperature transmitters and associated system interfaces at the 5th Yokogawa User Conference, held in The Netherlands from 24-25th June. He was supported by Penny Chen of Yokogawa global marketing, who is also vice chair of the Wireless Compliance Institute (WCI). In response to a query about possible changes to ISA100.11a when the ISA100.12 committee on convergence presents its findings later this year, she asserted that “It is very unlikely that any changes would be allowed to ISA100”. To read the full story take out a subscription to Industrial Automation INSIDER.

“Consolidation and Structural Reform”

Harry Hauptmeijer, president of Yokogawa Europe, gave the update and review of the current Yokogawa Group business position at last month’s user group meeting in Holland, mentioning specifically that Tom Lee, who is MD of Yokogawa Electric International in Singapore, is the first non-Japanese national to be appointed to the Yokogawa board, perhaps reflecting that 60% of sales in 2009/10 had been overseas. In Europe the sales turnover was Euro 325million, of which 80% is now from industrial automation, with 1425 employees: the European operation had received significant recent investment into building the Amersfoort HQ, which also is the production centre for pH and conductivity sensors, and other analytical equipment: plus a new production hall for Coriolis and other flowmeters at the Rota factory in Germany – a business that is now 100 years old. To read the full story take out a subscription to Industrial Automation INSIDER.

Honeywell rides out the
current recession

The Honeywell User Group (HUG) meeting for the Americas will be followed up by a Pacific symposium in the Gold Coast, Australia in August, and another for EMEA in Barcelona in October. With 525 people attending in Phoenix 13-15th June, up 50% on last year, Norm Gilsdorf, president of Honeywell Process Solutions, expressed satisfaction at the way HPS had performed through this latest recession. Despite a 15% drop in revenue, and 20% reduction in income, Honeywell had maintained R&D spending and minimized the loss of people, in contrast to the previous recession where they “lost money for 2 years in a row” and cut head count by 20-30,000. “Honeywell performed very differently this recession” said Gilsdorf: “We introduced more than 600 new products this past year, and hired more than 100 engineers graduated from schools around the globe.” To read the full story take out a subscription to Industrial Automation INSIDER.

Siemens focuses on
power industry

While the Siemens Automation Summit in Charlotte, NC, distinguished itself last month for its lack of communication with the automation press), Raj Batra, president of the US Industrial Automation Division, seems to ahve tried to make amends in an interview with Wes Iversen of Automation World. Batra sees the early signs of recovery in discrete manufacturing and machinery, with sales results 15% ahead of plan for the first half of this year. This was ascribed to a lot of modernization of ageing legacy systems, both in automation and process control, with companies increasingly looking for energy savings, using higher efficiency motors and conducting energy efficiency surveys. Siemens Industrial Automation worldwide results for the first half of 2010 show sales around 5% down on the same period in the previous year, at Euro 2.8 billion, but profit for the period at Euro 436 million up 17% on the previous year, reflecting the downturn experienced in Q2 last year. To read the full story take out a subscription to Industrial Automation INSIDER.

PAS enforces compliance
below the firewall

Almost year after it coined the term ‘Automation Genome’ and launched its Integrity process automation system configuration tracking and management product, Houston based PAS is extending the concept from mapping the configuration of all the process automation systems on a plant/site Process Control Network (PCN), to managing and auditing all of the underlying computing platforms. As such it addresses crucial and proliferating issues at the interface between the different worlds of corporate IT and process automation. These are matters which have only arisen as the current generation of automation systems has replaced proprietary hardware and software with Commercial- off-the-Shelf (COTS) technology and Microsoft Windows based open computer platforms. “IT shares the responsibility for these platforms but typically has no view into the PCN. The automation guys need to become IT guys but they don’t have that kind of expertise,” explains PAS president Chris Lyden. To read the full story take out a subscription to Industrial Automation INSIDER.

Expense of incidents outweighs safety costs

ARC says operating companies in the oil and gas, power generation and chemical industries have moved from counting the costs of safety systems to considering the potential expense from unforeseen incidents, in a report on the world process safety system market. With safety standards now almost universally accepted and enforced and a series of major accidents further raising awareness, growth in the market, which had been slowed by the downturn, is set to rebound in 2011. “The two major Asian economies, China and India, are in recovery mode,” explained report principal author and ARC vice president Asish Ghosh. To read the full story take out a subscription to Industrial Automation INSIDER.

Invensys compounds its
InFusion confusion

In what can be seen, depending on one’s viewpoint, as either a further stage in the integration of the former Invensys Process Systems (IPS) and Wonderware product portfolios or as the latest step in the ‘Wonderwarization’ of Invensys Operations Management and the consequent total confusion of its branding, last month saw the release of Wonderware Information Server version 4.0, described, and here’s the surprise, as a “unified portal and content server for InFusion” which “enables flexible access to applications, reporting and visualization information.” To read the full story take out a subscription to Industrial Automation INSIDER

Version control and change management

UK and Ireland Wonderware distributor SolutionsPT, still better known to many under its former, and also current holding company, moniker, Pantek, is to handle UK and Ireland distribution of Versiondog, an automation software version control and change management solution developed by Landau, Germany based Auvesy. Designed to back up, manage and control PLC, SCADA and robot control software, Versiondog is said to be suitable for use with all leading vendors’ control products, while its binary and ASCII file comparison functionality also supports versioning of MS Word and Excel and PDF documents. To read the full story take out a subscription to Industrial Automation INSIDER.

Where are they now?

Former MTL CEO Graeme Philp is to become non-executive chairman of Cranfield, UK specialist software developer Jemmac Software. Founded in 1988 by a team from SD-Scicon (now EDS), Jemmac boasts such blue chip clients as ExxonMobil, Invensys and Imperial Oil and has developed a number of innovative products including the SapphireTrend real-time process visualization tool. To read the full story take out a subscription to Industrial Automation INSIDER.

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THEY
SAID IT

“There is no significant installed base of
WirelessHART .”
Joost van Loon,
Director of Industrial Automation,
Yokogawa Europe

“Customers can utilize either ISA100.11a or WirelessHART using the same platform.”
Trae Harrison,
VP of Sales,
Nivis

“Engineers are retiring, and new engineers aren’t coming quickly enough.”
Norm Gilsdorf,
President,
Honeywell Process Solutions

“The automation guys need to become IT guys but they don’t have that kind of expertise.”
Chris Lyden,
President,
PAS

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