David Greenfield, Editorial Director

Engineering employment outlook

The longstanding lament among engineers for many years, especially in the U.S., has been that jobs for engineers are disappearing at an alarming rate. I have personally heard many engineers say that they would do whatever they could to discourage their children from following in their engineering footsteps.

From the core to the cutting edge

As difficult as 2009 was economically on a global basis, it’s been fascinating to watch how businesses and professionals are adapting to the structural changes that are reshaping the economic world in which we all live. Nowhere has this been more evolutionary than in engineering. I prefer the term “evolutionary” over “revolutionary” because the changes that have oc...

What 2009 can tell us about 2010

Looking back at the top 20 articles accessed at www.controleng.com during 2009 illuminated some clear areas of interest among our engineering audience. (See the full rundown of top 20 articles at http://tinyurl.com/ylbx9zu.) Four clear categories of article types can be seen across the top 20 articles: Educational/tutorial, cutting edge applications, green/sustainable engineering, and contests/...

Researching for insight

A few months ago, Control Engineering was contacted by Morgan Stanley about partnering on an automation industry research project. Morgan Stanley was in the process of determining whether or not to revive its investment advisory service on this sector and needed data to help determine the current and future viability of automation industry investment.

User-generated content

Much has been made over the past few years about the value of and potential for user-generated content—content created by visitors to a Web site. Much of the benefit derived so far from this type of content has been in user reviews. Numerous research projects have shown that Internet users place more credence in user reviews than in those from other so...

What kind of engineer uses Facebook?

Demographic data shows engineers using social media to be highly experienced decision makers working across a variety of industries.

Social experiment update

Last February I announced in this column the launch of Control Engineering’s first social media foray—the “Automation & Control” group on Facebook (http://budurl.com/2nfe). As we began this experiment, there were already several other such automation-related groups on Facebook hosting anywhere from several dozen to a few hundred members.

What good are economists anyway?

Yes, I borrowed that headline from BusinessWeek. But I did so with a reason. The BusinessWeek article I’m referring to focused on how wrong so many economists were recently by saying either a recession wouldn’t happen or, if it did, it would be short and mild. With that in mind, I thought I would point out one economist who called it right—Alan Beaulieu of the Institute for Tr...

Energy efficiency ready for the dustbin?

Have the industry efforts so recently begun toward achieving greater energy efficiencies already become passé? Is it already oh-so-five-minutes-ago? Listening to one industry analyst group in particular, one might think that to be the case. According to Frost & Sullivan, “Energy Efficiency was the buzzword of 2008.

Sustainability evident in product innovation

Innovation is often more about developing a new use for an existing technology than it is about creating a new technology or product from scratch. Recently, I've come across two new innovations—both of which grew out of initiatives to help companies save energy and money—that really grabbed my interest.

Efficiency improvements a recession breaker?

Though it came a bit later to the automation industries than to much of the rest of the economy, the recession has definitely settled in and doesn’t appear to be on its way to lifting any time soon. Everyone in the industry knew this inevitable slowdown would come, but what surprised many was the swiftness with which it arrived.

Control Engineering launches Facebook “Automation & Control” group

Online social media has quickly become an important tool for many people as a means of staying in touch with their professional community. As such, I’d like to extend a personal invitation for you to join and take part in Control Engineering’s “Automation & Control” group on Facebook.

Are you being social?

For someone who has spent a great deal of time working with the Internet (I was setting up Web directories and posting articles on Websites as early as 1995), I feel like I have come incredibly late to the whole “social media” thing. Sure, I’ve visited YouTube and have LinkedIn and Classmates.

Practical energy efficiency

It’s ante up time. By clearly stating that we had an education agenda in mind when initiating regular coverage of sustainable engineering in November, Control Engineering made a commitment to provide readers with critical how-to information on the topic of sustainability—just as we’ve done for more than five decades for control and automation technologies...

Economics and engineering careers

There has been grim news on the manufacturing front: Total orders in September declined 2.5% after a 4.3% drop in August, with non-durables falling 5.5% (the biggest drop in two years); and though factory inventories decreased 0.7% (the biggest decline in five years), the drop in demand caused the inventory-to-sales ratio to rise to 1.

Engineered for sustainability

The topic of sustainability is quickly becoming a reality for manufacturers of all types. A majority of you are implementing sustainability initiatives for reasons related to your own operations as well as because of partner and customer requests and requirements, according to a Control Engineering subscriber study conducted this summer.

Ideas in Automation

As you can see, Control Engineering has undergone a bit of a redesign with this issue. Our reasons for doing this are three-fold: give the content a brighter, cleaner appearance, thereby making it easier to navigate through the issue; provide improved ways to spotlight the vast amount of online content we create daily; and to highlight new areas of coverage.

Offshore all manufacturing?

Sounds ridiculous, right? And it is. But a few readers thought my July column (“Rise of the Rest”) called for exactly that. Obviously, as editorial director for a magazine focused on the manufacturing industries, I am nothing if not an outright proponent of manufacturing in the United States.

The persistence of U.S. engineering

With the rest of the world rising in economic stature and assuming many of the commodity manufacturing roles formerly performed in the U.S., some are nervous that manufacturing in America will disappear. Though the role of the U.S. manufacturing industries will continue to change, it will still play a vitally important role in the global production economy because of our strengths in engineering.

Rise of the rest

In June, I touched on the issue of China’s ascendancy into the global economy and how, though it is both a credible partner and competitor, it remains a long way from being America’s equal economically. But China is not the only country growing in economic stature and performing much of the manufacturing formerly performed in the U.

China catches up?

With the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing approaching and the round-the-clock construction of the modern China regularly trumpeted on news programs, it’s difficult to not believe that China will assume economic predominance in the near term. But the difficulties China faces in making the leap from a low-cost offshore manufacturing center to a global economic entity are building.

You can go home again

I’m going to take issue with Thomas Wolfe and the title of his novel “You Can’t Go Home Again,” because this column is evidence that you can, in fact, go home again. For those of you who may not remember, I was the editorial director of Control Engineering from 2003 to 2005. While much has remained the same since I was last at the editorial helm of Control Engineering, ...

Global perspective

Industry's globalization is an undeniable fact of 21st century business. Following this trend over several years, Control Engineering has extended its brand abroad to follow these developing global trends and to help the world's engineers better understand their roles in the ever-changing manufacturing industries.

Engineering revisited

Not long after I came onboard as editorial director of Control Engineering, I wrote a column titled "Change engineers," which dealt with the increasing influence of corporate directives and information technologies on the engineering profession in the manufacturing industries. This has been a theme I've revisited several times since as more evidence to support the shift taking place in enginee...

Inflection point

The current economic upswing is tangibly different for manufacturers, with some of the most dramatic effects not only being felt by low-skilled production personnel, but also by highly trained engineers. Though prospects are dim for low-skilled workers, engineers should realize the potential future for engineering is decidedly rosier, if you pay heed to marketplace signals.

Research value

Control Engineering has a long history of researching the industrial automation market. What began years ago with our monthly Product Focus feature (now known as Product Research to underscore the articles' research component) has blossomed into regular surveys of our readers on nearly every topic relevant to the industries we cover.

Security update

Are the warnings working? Much has been written in the past few years about the state of industrial security and what manufacturers can and should be doing to protect business and control systems. With so much focus on prevention and remediation steps, here's a good news/bad news update on the state of industrial security.

Engineers and the law

It's always been editorial policy at Control Engineering to keep a close eye on topics that have the potential to impact our readership and adjust content appropriately to keep up with relevant trends. Based on a number of key issues ranging from regulations to intellectual property, we are launching a new, quarterly column in this issue—Legalities.

Bring a tax credit to the table

As an engineer, you're always on the lookout for ways to reduce costs associated with your company's products and processes. But what if you could help deliver a significant tax credit that might positively impact your company's bottom line as much as a new source of revenue, just for doing what you already do? Virtually any manufacturer has the potential to qualify for federal research and dev...

Upturn insight

General media outlets have been buzzing with news that manufacturing is back as a major economic driver in the U.S. Recent reports on this "trend" could be found in the Wall Street Journal citing U.S. Census Bureau data about increases in domestic manufacturing capacity, backed by numbers from the Institute of Supply Management stating that June marked the 25th straight month of expansion in th...

Straight from the source

If you're not yet familiar with the term "blog," which is short for Web log, here's a simple, yet direct definition from Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English: an online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page. Blogs are all the rage on the Web these days. Business Week recently ran a cover story suggesting that businesses of all types should use blogs a...

Positioning for the shift

For some time now, Control Engineering has devoted considerable ink to the convergence of engineering and IT in manufacturing. Now it appears that vendors are doing more than simply offering products, such as intelligent devices, remote monitoring, and manufacturing execution systems (MES), to address this merger of technologies and departments.

Manufacturing by the numbers

To highlight the launch of Control Engineering's newest editorial department, "By the Numbers" (page 32), I decided to devote this month's column to a little number crunching. What began as a focused search to determine U.S. manufacturing productivity numbers quickly became a study of global manufacturing economics.

Competition breeds control

Manufacturing activity remains strong well into the first quarter of 2005. Institute for Supply Management's PMI (purchasing manager's index) was at 56.4% for January, indicating that the U.S. manufacturing sector is still growing—for the 20th consecutive month. Growth in manufacturing, however, is a term that now applies worldwide.

Security: a national priority

By saying, in February 2003, that the protection of control systems had become "a national priority," President Bush set off a flurry of security activities in the industrial sector. We remain, however, a long way from reaching the goal of secure industrial infrastructures. So that an appropriate layer of security can be added, most of the past few years' security efforts have been spent simply...

Engineers and Sarbanes-Oxley

Control engineers need to be more aware of and involved in automation system integration with higher-level business systems. The long-promised intersection of these two areas of technology will actually begin taking place at companies of all sizes over the next five to 10 years and it will have a lasting effect on engineers, not just because it will impact systems they use and the level of info...

What a year!

Assessing all I've seen and heard over the past year leads me to one conclusion—2004 is the year we've all been waiting for, economically, since the manufacturing industry began to decline in 2001. Looking at the numbers broadly, U.S. manufacturers' after-tax profits reached $82.4 billion in second-quarter 2004 (the most recent quarter for which data is available)—a level higher tha...

Beginner-colored glasses

Recently, I've had the opportunity to speak with a number of people in the industry about where things look to be headed considering that, at press time, we had just entered the sixteenth consecutive month of growth in the manufacturing sector and some rumblings were beginning to be heard widely about dissatisfaction with the outsourcing process.

Fieldbus jump predicted

When it comes to industrial communication, one mostly hears about the various fieldbus flavors produced by automation vendors. But market reality is quite different. According to Edgar Kuester, chairman of Profibus International, the majority of the installed base uses HART (highway addressable remote transmitter) or 4-20 mA signal communications.

Why we’re here

This issue marks our Golden Anniversary—the first issue appeared in September 1954—and honestly, we couldn't be more proud. Not just because we've endured this long as a publication, but because we continue to be the preferred magazine for manufacturing engineers and operators. The high opinion our target subscribers have of Control Engineering tells us that we're meeting and exceed...

Pin-up controls

As we gear up for our 50th anniversary celebration next month, we decided to start the party a little early with a special gift to subscribers—a super-sized poster depicting key advances in control, automation, and instrumentation over the last 50 years. That's right; controls and automation have now achieved pin-up status.

Too many jobs?

"There are plenty of manufacturing jobs to be had in the U.S. The problem is that Americans don't want these jobs because manufacturing jobs have no social status," said Dick Morley (known to many as the "father of the PLC") during the most recent CSIA (Control and Information System Integrators Association) meeting in May.

On top of trends

To say that current industry trends affect the trajectory of your business or career is a "sky is blue" statement—an obvious or apparent claim. Though many trends are obvious once well under way, catching them on the upswing can increase your advantage in numerous ways, instead of forcing you to deal with after-the-fact impacts.

Building a soapbox

Since I came to Control Engineering more than a year ago, numerous changes to content and presentation have been made. Starting in May 2003, we introduced a new order to editorial content to make navigating the magazine easier. In June, we re-designed our look for a cleaner, up-to-date, easier-to-read publication.

Why the integration push?

Since my arrival at Control Engineering, I've dedicated considerable column space to advocating the notion that engineers should notice all the talk surrounding the integration of plant-floor controls and automation to enterprise-level systems. For many engineers, this issue was put aside in the late 1990s after numerous failed attempts at such linkage.

Convergence of purpose

For the past several years now, I have attended annual ARC Advisory Group meetings in Boston and Orlando. At the Orlando show in January an interesting convergence occurred, a parallel that some people may have missed. Those who have been to these conferences in the past know that the Boston event has been more manufacturing-enterprise-focused and the Orlando show more plant-floor-oriented.

The flexible core

As the manufacturing sector continues to reflect the overall economy by showing regular, positive gains, some wage a battle of words over how the dark forces of unbridled capitalism are slowly but surely killing U.S. manufacturing. To them I say: baloney. Capitalism brought U.S. manufacturing to its apex in the 20th century and keeps it as one of the strongest factors of our country's power ...

Golden

2004 is shaping up to be a special year for Control Engineering in many ways. For starters, it is our 50th anniversary and we will be celebrating it throughout the year. 2004 is also the first full year of publication under our new design and guidance, and we will be debuting new columns and sections.

A taxing consideration

Looking at U.S. manufacturing industries since 1975—with imports exceeding exports in many areas and a continuing account deficit—it's clear that the past few years' downturn is more than just a cyclical happenstance. A definite economic shift is underway. It can be argued that this shift parallels one that occurred in the mid-19th century, as the economy shifted from an agrarian ...

Preparation for integration

Coursing through the ISA Show in Houston, I got the distinct impression that things are picking up in the controls and automation universe. There was definitely a certain— though I hate to use this word I will—"buzz" that was palpable in both attendees and vendors. I believe much of the "buzz" centered on a general feeling that the manufacturing part of the economy may finally be tu...

Better than payback

In the August 2003 issue, I discussed why it was so important for engineers to start "looking at things like an accountant." My point was that engineers today can no longer satisfy management by ensuring that their decisions are keeping operations running. Today, engineers have to do that and "show the money" to upper management to gain support for their projects.

Action/reaction

Though I received a good deal of feedback from a variety of sources to my "Change Engineers" column in the July issue, it was Mark J. Nelson, an engineering product manager at Hilliard Corp. in New York who brought home the impact of the control engineer's shifting job requirements in an email that drew from his experiences.

Monetize controls

For the past few months now I've been using my column to discuss the use of real-time information for improved processes, better decision-making, and increased company value. I've also made clear the paramount importance of control engineers to the real time initiative. Now that I've laid this groundwork, I plan to examine the role control engineers play in advancing the competitive value of th...

Change Engineers

The world of the control engineer has remained remarkably constant for much of this century. Certainly there have been many new innovations, tools, and technologies that have spurred change in the profession over the years, but the control engineers of today often bear a great resemblance to those of the 1950s.