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News Release from: Industrial Automation INSIDER | Subject: October issue
Edited by the Processingtalk Editorial
Team on 17 October 2007
October INSIDER for further industry
insights
Common sense in the wireless wars: Emerson steals the HPS clothes: ABB leads in the DCS stakes: Gensym is acquired, and Invensys gets moving with Cimnet - all are reported in this month's Insider
The Industrial Automation INSIDER October issue features the following industry reports, with a full commentary 1) Rumours of wireless war prompt automation industry into uncharacteristic outbreak of common sense
This article was originally published on Processingtalk on 8 Aug 2006 at 8.00am (UK)
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Summaries of the main stories in this month's Insider are presented below: further information is presented on the website, and in the Insider Podcast, downloadable from the website
Last month's attempt by Honeywell Process Solutions president Jack Bolick to delay release of the HART 7 specification and with it the WirelessHART standard seems to have concentrated the collective mind of the automation industry wonderfully.
Bolick's objection to WirelessHART was, ostensibly, that it was unnecessary, duplicating the provision for communicating with HART devices that will in any case be included in the forthcoming ISA100 standard.
Such duplication, said Bolick, "creates confusion and slows innovation".
Further reading
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
Honeywell acquires Enraf - an 'Insider' report
The July issue of 'Insider' reports that Honeywell is in acquisition mode, "looking for portfolio expansion" after the agreed acquisition of Enraf, the oil and gas terminal automation system suppliers
ICS Triplex teases the competitors
The August issue of Insider from Andrew Bond has commentary on the latest version of the NI LabVIEW, a viewpoint on the latest MTL acquisition and notes how ICS Triplex is teasing their competitors
2) Emerson steals the HPS OneWireless clothes.
It's little more than three months since Honeywell announced its OneWireless solution at its Honeywell User Group (HUG) meeting in Phoenix.
OneWireless was, claimed HPS president Jack Bolick, the "the only wireless network a plant needs," the implication being that users who were rash enough to adopt other vendors' solutions, particularly those based on the then putative WirelessHART protocol, would rapidly find themselves having to manage a plethora of potentially conflicting wireless networks with unspecified but undoubtedly dire results.
While competitors' names were scrupulously excluded from such utterances, it doesn't take a genius to work out that the principle target of this approach has been Emerson which has been selling its HART based 'Smart Wireless' device networking solution since last Autumn in North America and last January in Europe, although in quite what quantities is less than clear.
3) Embedded solution opens up Wireless HART for all.
WirelessHART, as embodied in the newly released HART7 specification, adopted the concept of self healing mesh networking but didn't swallow the Dust Networks proposals, as originally used by vendors such as Emerson, hook, line and sinker.
So it's all the more remarkable that, within days of the release of HART7, Dust was able to announce a WirelessHART compatible Wireless Sensor Networking (WSN) solution based on its TSMP (Time Synchronised Mesh Protocol) technology which ARC's Harry Forbes has described as "a foundational building block of the WirelessHART standard" and "a catalyst for the industrial market".
4) ARC confirms ABB leadership in the DCS market.
ARC guards its market share data jealously as we've noted in previous years but that hasn't prevented ABB from trumpeting the news that its continued leadership of the global DCS market was confirmed in the latest 'Distributed Control Systems Worldwide Outlook', released last month.
What ABB didn't say however was that while, according to ARC, the worldwide DCS market grew by an unprecedented 14% between 2005 and 2006 to reach US$13.4bn, the word on the Houston street during the ISA Show - sorry Expo - was that its own growth failed to keep pace, with the result that its market share actually fell.
5) When is a safety user not a safety user?.
When a press briefing is given by two safety system vendors and two consultants, even if one of them was until recently Head of Electrical and Control Systems at the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE), you'd think it was stretching a point to describe it as a presentation from the 'Safety Users Group'.
And to an extent you'd be right.
It's true that the one group notably absent from the briefing in London in mid-September - other than the editor of INSIDER who was unaccountably on holiday - were actual users of safety systems, but that was no doubt primarily because of a reluctance on their part to discuss their own safety issues in any kind of open forum, least of all one which includes the press.
That said, however, and with perhaps one notable exception, the presenters managed to avoid making any overly partisan pitches and to stick reasonably closely to the theme outlined by Safety Users Group founder and president Didier Turcinovic, which was to emphasise the business case, as against the more obvious scare-you-out-of-your-wits case, for safety.
6) Gensym finally throws in the towel.
Struggling real time expert system pioneer Gensym has signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by privately held enterprise software provider Versata Enterprises.
Versata, which is itself a subsidiary of Austin, Texas based Trilogy, is paying US$2.35 cash for each Gensym share, a premium of nearly 60% on the price back in June when Gensym announced that it had retained a financial advisor and was in the process of reviewing its strategic alternatives.
Versata says that that it intends to continue to run Gensym as a stand-alone corporation within its existing portfolio of software businesses which already includes Versata Software and Artemis International Solution Corporation.
7) Professionally developed toolkit for cyber crime.
Latest edition of the Symantec (cyber security specialist) biannual Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR) reveals cyber criminals becoming ever more professional and commercial in the development, distribution and use of malicious code and services.
ISTR Volume XII, which covers the six months from January 1st to June 30th 2007, specifically reports an increase in cyber criminals leveraging sophisticated toolkits to carry out malicious attacks.
It quotes the example of MPack which is described as "a professionally developed toolkit sold in the underground economy".
Purchasers of MPack are able to deploy a collection of software components to install malicious code on computers around the world and then monitor the success of the attack through various metrics on its online, password protected control and management console.
8) Avery Weigh-Tronix exits retail to focus on industry.
Birmingham, UK based industrial and retail weighing specialist Avery Weigh-Tronix has sold its food retail weighing business, Avery Berkel, to Glenview, Illinois based ITW (Illinois Tool Works).
The sale comes almost exactly a year after Avery Weigh-Tronix itself was the subject of a management-buyout backed with Euro 123m of funding from private equity fund European Capital.
9) Benchmarking tool focuses on value.
The ARC Benchmarking Consortium has been maturing since its formation in 2005 and now consists of a range of global process and hybrid manufacturing operations.
Participating companies have been using the data to compare their own performance with that of others and, with the introduction of a new on-line Benchmarking Analysis Tool, ARC claims that they can take the analysis of metrics data a step further.
The tool offers on-demand reporting and allows companies to create their own reports and view benchmarking data in the way which best suits them, breaking down the complexity of the various measures and determining the actions needed to improve operations.
10) Invensys sees the first fruits of its Cimnet acquisition.
The first fruits of the Invensys acquisition of MES software developer Cimnet have emerged in the form of a new release of the Wonderware Equipment Performance Module (EPM) or, for those who can cast their minds back to pre System Platform days, what used to be called DT Analyst.
To read the full stories for all the above reports, take out a subscription to Industrial Automation INSIDER.
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