Product category:
Magazines, Publications, Textbooks
News Release from: SPECIAL REPORT by the Editor | Subject: After 50 years of Control Enginering
Edited by the Processingtalk Editorial
Team on 29 September 2004
After 50 years of Control Enginering
This year Control Engineering magazine in the USA celebrates its fiftieth anniversary: Michael Babb, the Editor of Control Engineering Europe, reviews what has happened over these 50 years
"After 50 years, some mixed feelings - The decade of the 1950s was a new era of automatic control
This article was originally published on Processingtalk on 3 Aug 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
The 2004 Manufacturing Excellence Conference
In its sixth year ME has matured into a balanced event, a real process industry forum for discussion and learning about operational benefits from modern automation systems, writes Nick Denbow
Read-out Forum at IRCHEM in Cork
Andrew Bond, Editor of the Industrial Automation Insider, recently chaired the Read-out Forum at IRCHEM in Cork: his summary of the event is entitled: "Vendors circle the wagons as users turn nasty"
Automatic pilots in aircraft, pneumatic PID controllers, and electric servo motion had already proved the value of feedback control.
As time went on, it became clear that the world couldn't get along without control engineering.
It was impossible to produce and operate highly complex and unstable devices such as modern aircraft and hard disk drives without the discipline.
Further reading
Fieldbus and its benefits
The conclusions of the ARC study are worth reviewing: "The value proposition of fieldbus has changed from the initial perceptions of the marketplace...."
'Industrial Marketing on the Internet' Seminar
Earlier this year Pro-Talk held two seminars helping explain to industrial companies how to develop their internet presence, aimed at marketing managers from industrial and scientific manufacturers
Review of Wyeth new Grange Castle biopharma plant
The new Wyeth plant at Grange Castle in west Dublin is the world's largest biopharmaceutical investment: a report by Gerry Byrne published in Business Plus, Ireland
No chemical or pharmaceutical plant could possibly be run manually today, the way things were done in the 1930s.
Distributed control has changed the course of industry and we'll never go back to the old methods.
So with this parade of success and advancement, you'd think everything would be rosy for the modern control engineer.
Alas, I hardly think so.
To be sure, control systems are the backbone of process automation, where they have to be used simply because there is no alternative.
But many consultants have publicly stated that in most companies, the control systems are vastly under-utilised resources.
This should not come as a surprise: there are far fewer control engineers working in industry these days.
Downsizing in the 1980s and 1990s produced massive layoffs of staff, and control engineers were not spared.
The trend to lower costs began in the US, but it has spread to Europe.
Glen Harvey, who retired as executive director of the ISA (Instrument Society of America, as it was then known) in 2001, said that the instrumentation engineering disciplines upon which the ISA was founded "have all but vanished".
"You are the end of the line," he told his audience at the ISA conference in 2001.
"When you retire, your responsibilities will either be transferred to another department or be out-sourced to a firm that provides engineering services".
Control engineers may think they have done some clever things in their time, but unfortunately, at the end of the day, it is fair to say that management has not been impressed.
There's so few control engineers left today, about all they have time to do is keep the systems running.
Putting out fires leaves too little time to study the operation, analyse data, and propose ways to optimise the process - which might actually bring economic benefits to the company.
In manufacturing plants, it's much the same.
One engineer may have good knowledge and understand PLC programming, but if he and his colleague have to look after 250 machines, what chance does he have to 'tinker' around with any one of them, to try to improve performance?.
Companies who do not view manufacturing as a strategic weapon to differentiate themselves from their competitors are not going to spend much of their resources to improve it.
For some, manufacturing is just another operation to be outsourced.
Maybe increasing global competition will force companies who make things to look for ways of making them better, and maybe they'll look to control engineers to provide the answers.
But I'm not holding my breath".
Michael Babb, (Email michael.babb@imlgroup.co.uk).
Control Engineering Europe is published by IML Group plc under license from Reed Business Information.
• SPECIAL REPORT by the Editor: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Processingtalk email newsletter
• Processingtalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
