CSIA highlights achievements at executive conference

In a word, the past year was all about 'achievements' at the Control and Information System Integrators Association," said Norman O’Leary, CSIA’s executive director, during his annual review to members at the organization’s recent Executive Conference in Palm Desert, CA.

By Control Engineering Staff June 3, 2004

“In a word, the past year was all about ‘achievements’ at the Control and Information System Integrators Association ,” said Norman O’Leary, CSIA’s executive director, during his annual review to members at the organization’s recent Executive Conference in Palm Desert, CA. The conference was attended by the most visitors in CSIA’s 11-year history.

“The achievements of the past 12 months included impressive membership gains; outstanding growth in support by our associate members; significant membership expansion globally; an important milestone in CSIA’s Register Member program; participation in the organization’s landmark system integrator insurance program, and more,” added O’Leary. “Most important is the recognition we’ve earned from some of the industry’s leading professional and trade associations, major industrial automation product suppliers, the print and electronic media, and, more important, the end-user community that is increasingly seeing CSIA as‘the standard’ for excellence in control and information system integration.” Highlights of CSIA’s past 12 months include:

The addition of a Technical Management section to the association’s Best Practices and Benchmarks Guideliness. As part of CSIA’s Registered Member program, this new section asks integrators seeking registration to examine how they come up with technical solutions for their clients, and requires them to show they have the capabilities, management and infrastructure needed to successfully implement those solutions.

The widely recognized Registered Member program achieved its goal of Gold Tier participation by 51 members, and began moved toward the Platinum Tier of 75 registered members.

CSIA’s overall membership is approaching 250 companies from throughout North America and from South America, Europe, Asia and Australia. These members consist of regular members, which includes control and information system integrators, and associate members, which are companies that manufacture and market industrial automation products, control hardware and software to integrators.

The organization’s associate members also increased in the past year, according to O’Leary, who adds that these members also are “marked by their enthusiastic support of our programs and mission.”

O’Leary adds that one of the past year’s most exciting developments was “the growth of our insurance program, which was created to respond to our members’ need for responsible, affordable, and accurate coverage. This was a necessity based on the insurance world’s longstanding inability to understand the operations of control system integrators. Many of our members believed their insurance arrangements were inappropriate; that they were either paying too much for their insurance coverage; or were simply not properly protected. CSIA was able to construct new and unique general property/casualty programs, underwritten by major insurance firms, and available only to our members.”

O’Leary concluded that, “With the brighter spotlight on our association, comes the responsibility and obligation inherent in leadership. I call on our members to demonstrate to their customers, their community, and the manufacturing world that we are proud to be seen as the‘standard.’”

CSIA adds that its member provides manufacturer internationally with more than $1 billion annually in industrial automation systems, which incorporate $400 million worth of hardware and software automation products. They provide integrated control and information systems for clients in the automotive, chemical/petrochemical, electronics, food/beverage, material handling, metals, petroleum, pharmaceuticals, rubber/paint/plastic, water/wastewater, and other industries.

—Jim Montague, news editor, Control Engineering, jmontague@reedbusiness.com