Phoenix, AZ— Approximately 540 technology users and 500 staffers attended the Honeywell Users Group (HUG) Americas Symposium on June 9-13 with the theme of "Creating Value through Networking." The user-focused event had an international flavor because more than one-in-four attendees came from outside the U.S.

Committee update reports made up one segment of the program. For example, the 10-year-old User Input Subcommittee (UIS) continuously improves products and processes, working with customer inputs, prioritizing suggestions, and supplying feedback, explains Lee Swindler, UIS co-chairperson and principal engineer at Lyondell-Equistar (Channelview, TX). UIS votes on scores of product enhancements during its meetings. "The resulting 'enhancement releases' apply to both legacy products and new product developments," says Swindler. "Users also can become beta sites for new products."

The Uniformance Advisory Board (UAB) is a forum for customer support, as well as a feedback path to Honeywell's management. "Uniformance" includes Plant History Database and various other process software tools offered by Honeywell. UAB's objectives include identifying industry priorities and defining strategic and tactical enhancements for its underlying products. UAB handled more than 300 proposed suggestions involving tactical enhancements and over 120 strategic enhancements during 2002-03, according to Cliff Pedersen, UAB chairperson and manager of Operational Support Systems at Suncor Energy Products Inc. (Sarnia, ON, Canada).

Peter Zornio, director of product marketing for Honeywell Industry Solutions (IS), presented an update on a new board—Experion PKS Advisory Board. Led by Honeywell and customers, this board provides perspective on the strategic roadmap affecting the Experion Process Knowledge Solution (PKS) industrial automation system.