Control Engineering

Peter Welander

Emerson Global Users Exchange, Day 3
September 12, 2007

As I mentioned yesterday, working on the Exchange Today doesn't give us much time to get out and mingle. That's unfortunate, especially as I work on topics to discuss here. We're still hoping to have some guest bloggers to add some other opinions, but people at this event don't exactly have time on their hands.

We are also trying to dispell the notion that this is a "all wireless, all the time" event. There are many interesting topics being discussed, but the wireless buzz is hard to ignore. Which brings me to the point of the day.

One discussion that almost became a side topic in my interview yesterday with Messrs. Berra, Zornio, and Tinker related to the interaction between industrial automation engineers and their counterparts with IT. This struggle has been going on to some extent since the first time somebody suggested networking the DCS to the larger enterprise network. Implementation of Ethernet and now wireless brings it to the fore again.

This snippit of the interview brings out some interesting points that can apply whether you're talking about Ethernet, wireless, or other means of integration.

Tinker: Emerson and Cisco have a large number of mutual customers. However, historically, Cisco was working on the IT side and Emerson on the production side. Our customers have been saying that they want to deploy pervasive high-speed plant Wi-Fi networks throughout their organizations, and understanding what are the applications and services they want to be able to do that. We’re following our customers lead in that they believe there is a business case and a technical case to do that. Frankly, partnering with a company like Emerson that has the right relationships and expertise to understand the applications is our acknowledgement that we don’t know everything, and we need to join forces to deliver the right solutions to our mutual customers.

Zornio: I think it’s an exact reflection of where customers are. Their organizations are the same way. Their IT groups say “We think we know how to put these systems in but these automation guys want to do all this stuff and we really don’t understand what they’re trying to do,” and vice versa. The automation guys say, “We want to put this instrumentation in but the IT guys are asking all these questions that we don’t know how to answer.”

Tinker: I don’t know if this is a word, but we’re sort of a macrocosm of our customers.

Zornio: It’s a reflection of our customers as they try to figure this out. It’s not clear to them if you provide them with “the big wireless vision.” Who owns that in the plant? It can’t be just the automation guys, and it can’t be just the IT guys. The joke we use there is “air is a shared medium.” It’s not like how we solve problems in the wired world. "You run one cable down there and we’ll run another one next to it."

Tinker: Customers are beginning to think about their RF spectrum as a corporate asset and thinking about it such. Thinking about what they want to do with it, and who owns it. How do you make decisions about what gets done and what does not?

Since the relationship of Cisco and Emerson reflects the relationship of IT and plant automation in many companies, it might be helpful for those companies to look at the synergies created by Cisco's and Emerson's cooperation and endeavor to duplicate those in their own contexts. A little cooperation can go a long way in advancing the overall goals of a company.

Posted by Peter Welander on September 12, 2007 | Comments (0)