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News Release from: Industrial Automation INSIDER | Subject: Insider January
Edited by the Processingtalk Editorial Team on 22 January 2007

From wireless boloney to fibre-optics

The Emerson launch of their 2.4GHz wireless system availability at last in Europe is the lead story in the January issue of the Industrial Automation Insider

The main stories in the January 07 issue of the Industrial Automation Insider newsletter are as follows * Emerson says battery life criticisms of its network are 'boloney' as 2.4GHz Smart Wireless launches in Europe

Emerson Process Management duly brought its in-plant wireless technology to Europe, and indeed to the rest of the world outside North America, in the second week of January when it summoned the European press to Bologna in Northern Italy for the launch of the 2.4GHz version of the "Smart Wireless" solutions it unveiled in the US last October (See INSIDER, October 2006, page 1).

Why Bologna? It's the birthplace of Guglielmo Marconi and, to put everyone in a suitably wireless mood, proceedings commenced on the Wednesday evening with a tour of the Villa Griffone, the former Marconi family seat where young Guglielmo conducted his experiments which is now a wireless museum.

Bologna is also widely regarded as the food capital of Northern Italy and, while some may have found two hours of early wireless technology, much of it in Italian, somewhat indigestible, few would have had problems with the 10 or so courses of Italian country cookery that followed.

To read the full story take out a subscription to Industrial Automation INSIDER.

* Closing migration window could freeze DCS rankings.

Confirmation that Distributed Control System (DCS) vendors are currently riding an almost unprecedented wave of demand comes with the latest "Distributed Control System (DCS) Worldwide Outlook" from ARC.

Last year ARC had to admit that the global market grew by more than 6% between 2003 and 2004, against its own prediction of average growth for the forecast period of less than 4% (INSIDER, December 2005, page1) and this time around it's reporting growth of close on 9% for 2004-2005 against last year's prediction for the forecast period to 2009 of average growth of 6%.

However, it covers any consequent embarrassment by pointing out that this is the strongest growth for a decade but prudently, given that there's little sign of the pace letting up in the near future, upgrades its forecast for the period to 2010 to approaching 7% compound.

To read the full story take out a subscription to Industrial Automation INSIDER.

* CONTROL magazine has abandoned its annual attempt to draw up a North American Top 50 of process automation vendors and instead expanded the latest league table, published in the December 2006 edition, to cover all automation equipment.

Editor in chief Walt Boyes and ARC's Larry O'Brien, who assisted in the preparation of the listings, explained that, in an increasingly global market, it is becoming progressively more difficult to distinguish between process, batch and discrete automation.

To read the full story take out a subscription to Industrial Automation INSIDER.

* Ejected Incuity COO seeks soft landing.

It's hard to believe that the departure of John Nichols from Californian 'real time business intelligence software developer' Incuity Software in early December was entirely amicable, despite the best efforts of those involved to give that impression.

To read the full story take out a subscription to Industrial Automation INSIDER.

* With Dormann gone, will ABB return to its old habits? ABB has announced that Jurgen Dormann is to retire from the ABB board at the end of his current term as chairman in May of this year.

His departure will be widely seen as marking the final stage of the company's recovery from the dire position it found itself in at the beginning of the decade.

Dormann joined the ABB Board in May 1998 and had already been chairman for the best part of a year when the combined effects of 9/11 induced recession, the asbestos claims against its Combustion Engineering subsidiary and the indigestion precipitated by its late '90s acquisition spree threatened to bankrupt the entire enterprise.

When in August 2002, the ABB then president and CEO Jorgen Centerman reported a USD13m loss for the second quarter instead of the return to profit that he had predicted, Dorman took over all three roles which he held until the appointment of Fred Kindle as president and CEO in December 2004.

"Jurgen Dormann made a historic contribution to the successful long-term development of ABB," commented Kindle: "His courage to take responsibility in very difficult times for the company and his exceptional leadership as ABB chairman and CEO were essential for the ABB successful turnaround".

To read the full story take out a subscription to Industrial Automation INSIDER.

* Uchida-san beats fibre optic drum again.

Yokogawa president and CEO Isao Uchida reiterated his view that the future of process automation lies in networking technology when he gave the keynote address at the Yokogawa Technology Innovation Fair and Users Conference in Houston at the end of November.

At the same time, however, he once again added fuel to the ongoing wireless debate by playing down the importance of wireless in comparison with his own particularly favoured technology, fibre optics.

To read the full story take out a subscription to Industrial Automation INSIDER.

* Users get their say in SP-100 deliberations.

The ISA SP-100 committee on Wireless Standards for Automation has, somewhat belatedly some might think, formed a user working group to provide input to and feedback on the work of its technical working groups.

The aim of the User Working Group (UWG) is to act as the single, global voice of the end user community and ensure that the eventual standard is consistent and provides maximum benefit to the market.

To this end it will review, comment on and provide recommendations for the work of all the technical working groups, focusing on both current and future industrial applications and helping to drive the development of standards-compliant devices from multiple suppliers.

To read the full story take out a subscription to Industrial Automation INSIDER.

* ProfiNet gives leverage into process automation.

Any suggestion that last year's agreement between Siemens and Emerson on the exchange of Profibus and Foundation fieldbus technology might herald some kind of a rapprochement between backers of the two rival fieldbus protocols in the process control arena seems to have been dispelled by a sudden surge of activity in the Profibus camp.

To read the full story take out a subscription to Industrial Automation INSIDER.

* Invensys capitalises on its LNG strengths.

Invensys closed 2006 with the announcement of a string of LNG and natural gas contract wins in the Middle East.

In Qatar the company has been awarded the automation contract for the Ras Laffan 3 (RL3) LNG Trains 6 and 7 onshore expansion project; in Yemen it is to provide DCSs, safety systems and fire and gas systems for the country's first LNG - plant at Balhaf; and in Saudi Arabia it has won a contract from Saudi Aramco to upgrade the existing Foxboro DCSs at its Shedgum and 'Uthmaniyah Gas Plants.

To read the full story take out a subscription to Industrial Automation INSIDER.

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