Miscellaneous

An activity that benefits process manufacturers and process automation suppliers is the research conducted by the trade analysts and trade press. These groups have a broad base of people across many industries and geographies to which they can reach out to uncover unmet needs and open issues.

I've been closely following the blog of ARC Advisory Group's Larry O'Brien and their recent ARC World Industry Forum in Orlando. In one post, Larry highlights a new study they are conducting, Process Automation System Lifecycle Management Survey. The survey opens:

Users of process automation systems have struggled with the issue of determining when the useful life of their system is over. Since these systems are crucial to the success of operations from so many aspects, having a strategy based on best practices is essential. Modern process automation systems are comprised of many components that each have different life expectancies. Suppliers have worked in concert with their clients to provide replacements for obsolete components that in many cases have extended the life far beyond the original expectation. This survey will help determine what the current state of the industry is and how it relates to best practices. We will be happy to send you a consolidated copy of survey results when the survey is complete. Thank you for your cooperation. All of your information will be kept confidential.

The results from this type of research can be beneficial to the technologies, services, and programs developed by automation suppliers to better meet the expectations of their customers. The Emerson SureService team is one example of an organization that is interested in the results and analysis that flows from automation lifecycle management-related research.

I know many like me feel they are surveyed to death, but it's a pretty good deal to get the consolidated copy of the survey results to see how your peers answered the questions you answered.

If you are a process manufacturer and have some thoughts to share about the lifecycle of your automation equipment you may want to take the survey and see the results when they become available.

MP3 | iTunes

As I announced at the blogging close of 2007 with the post, Feeding that Inner Geek, today's post is the final one for 2009. My sentiments expressed then, remain the same:

As much as I enjoy finding stories to share about Emerson's experts in action, I also enjoy reaching that part of the year where it's time to use up unused vacation, unplug from the day-to-day, and spend time with family and friends.

I encourage each of you who have upcoming holidays to consider doing the same. In today's world where creativity and innovation are everything, finding time to unplug and think about things outside your day-to-day work is paramount in recharging your creative juices.

Deb Franke has been a driving force in our advances in social media over the past several years. Deb has a great post today, Beyond Fear: Hope for 2010. In getting past the "hunker-down" mode of 2009 and into a thriving mode in 2010, here are three hopes from her post for you to consider as we look forward to 2010:

My hope for 2010 is that we all wake up to our personal power. The visionary leader has arrived and it is you (and me). Let's unleash our excellent minds to solve problems and share our strengths and talents with the world.

In 2010 let's see how many problems we can solve from action. Let us all take the focus from our mouths and instead use our ears and hands. Our ears to listen to others and our hands to create solutions.

My hope for 2010 is that we each experience more times when we realize our own blessings and have the courage to ask others "What is it that you need?" Let each and every one of us experience the joy of providing the answer through service to another.

I hope you find that time to relax, refresh, and recharge so you can discover those creative ways to thrive in 2010.

ISA's Intech magazine editorial staff asked me if I'd be interested in writing the Executive Corner column for this month's issue. The topic was to be about social media and what it means to companies. After a nanosecond of consideration, I eagerly agreed.

The premise of the article, Surface key to social network success, is that companies will be more successful the more their people move out to the surface of their organizations using social media applications such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, wikis, and blogs. I wrote:

It is at our organizations' respective surfaces where talented people need to connect with one another to more quickly solve problems and advance our businesses.

Our expectations on the time it takes to get answers have changed dramatically:

Google and the other search engines have changed our expectations of how quickly we should be able to get answers to questions. These search engines provide a list of possible answers in seconds amongst the estimated 22.8 billion pages they crawl. If only the expertise in all the great minds in our automation business were part of this index.

So what's in it for individuals to make their expertise more accessible to others? I borrowed many of the thoughts that Deb Franke and I shared at the past Emerson Exchange meeting in our Gamechangers: How to Thrive in Chaos presentation. These points include: increase visibility for the company and the individual, demonstrate listening, develop thought leadership, and find answers faster.

On the last point, Robert Metcalfe postulated Metcalfe's Law, "The value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system (n2)." As you grow you social network through these social media applications, its value grows exponentially.

On what social media means to companies, my conclusion:

With the turbulence in global economic conditions, the comfort of the status quo might seem like the safest path. In reality, the organizations first to recognize and act on the importance of getting their experts to the surface will be the ones who not only survive but thrive.

I'd love to hear your thoughts about this article on either the Intech web site or here on this post.

MP3 | iTunes

You may have seen the Sound Off! blog post, Welcome to the Process Automation Usability Project-- #PAutoUP. It announced:

We have been working on a Web 2.0 Social Media enabled way for the process automation community to discuss, teach and learn about usability issues in process automation for some time. It is called the Process Automation Usability Project, and you can find it here.

The post also points to Emerson's sponsorship:

We're grateful to Emerson Process Management for their sponsorship that allowed us to come up with what we think is a revolutionary way to communicate between ourselves about the issues we all face in making our process control and automation systems function as envisioned, as designed, and as installed. Those can be different, as we know well.

As you might suspect, as self-proclaimed "Chief Blogger," and social media advocate, I am a big fan of this initiative. We've all seen great advances in usability with other technologies such as mobile devices, interactive web-based applications, and social media sites to name a few. It seems like a good idea to have a public water cooler to have conversations between process manufacturers, automation suppliers, industry press, engineering contractors, etc.

Making step changes in usability requires insights into the existing challenges that may not be readily apparent. I'm hopeful these conversations in forums across all aspects of a plant's lifecycle, can be a major source for these insights.

There are a number of ways you can subscribe to forum topics or categories of interest. You can subscribe by RSS to an individual post or by email for the forum topic, forum topic by individual, forum category, or forum category by individual. Emerson's Mike Boudreaux even created an OPML file for importing all the usability-related feeds into RSS readers such as Google Reader or other favorite. The OPML file contains subscriptions to all the forum categories, the Flickr photo group, the YouTube video channel, and all Twitter tweets tagged with the designated forum tag- #PAutoUP.

A number of folks and I here at Emerson will be closely following the posts and comments and circulating some of the ideas exchanged with my friends around the Emerson organization to help spark these conversations.

Give the Usability site a visit and help break the ice by putting a new post or comment to an existing post to see if we can spark up a great conversation.

MP3 | iTunes

Update: The OPML import file was missing the Security Forum RSS feed and has been updated. Also, it's great to see some of the early conversations going such as best practices for deriving operator graphics from P&ID drawings.

Like many of this blog's readers, I'll be off and enjoying the holidays this week and next and not posting again until January.

For those also on holiday, enjoy the time spent with family and friends. Let's get rested, get refreshed, and be ready to roll up our sleeves upon our return to take on the global economic challenges of 2009.

Happy holidays!

As someone who has been in the throes a time or two with product naming, I've been an interested bystander in the latest thoughts on renaming the ISA organization, specifically on the acronym's meaning. You'll note that I didn't add a parenthetical on what it stands for because I lost track after it changed from what I originally knew it to be--the Instrument Society of America. This, I'm sure, is not because my mind's agility has slipped, but rather due to one of positioning guru Jack Trout's laws, minds hate to change.

This all began on Monday with an email from John Prince, an ISA delegate in the Los Angeles section, to the ISA fieldbus email list:

I'd like to find out what you folks think about the proposed name change from "ISA - The Instrumentation, Systems & Automation Society" to "International Society of Automation."

This proposed change will be put to a vote by the Council of Delegates in Houston this October.

The fun of course begins when you open something like this to a group. Imagine if you're expecting a new addition to the family and throw the naming of the child to all the close and distant relatives. You'll probably get more arguments than any closer to a solution.

The email responses I've seen so far are one of three variations. Keep it as is; agree with the new proposal John cites; or my favorite, "Why does it have to stand for anything?"

I like the third approach because of all the minds that may be like mine and refuse to change. ISA is much easier to say than what I originally knew it by so I'll continue to say and use ISA, because it's shorter.

It's like IBM. For folks that have been around a while, they may think International Business Machines, but will always say and use IBM because it's shorter. For younger folks, it's IBM and they likely don't care what it stands for. If they are really curious, they can visit the history page on the website.

That's my two cents on playing the name game and I guarantee my mind is not likely to change.

Update: Welcome readers of Gary Mintchell's Feed Forward blog! What do you think the ISA name should stand for, if anything?

This one was too good not to highlight. For those not familiar with the look of DeltaV controller and I/O subsystem, here's what it looks like when it's a chocolate cake:

Emerson's DeltaV team is honored to be a part of Professor Atanas Serbezov and his Advanced Process Control class at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology's Department of Chemical Engineering in celebration of completion of another successful semester.

For all the engineering students in all the great educational institutions across the globe, process manufacturers and automation suppliers look forward to those of you who choose to join our ranks!

Update: I received a note with yet another example of Rose-Hulman cake mastery, this time with the DeltaV character, Duncan. Very nice!

My colleague Deb Franke and I have again submitted abstracts for the Emerson Global Users Exchange, which will be in Washington D.C. September 29 through October 3. Our topics are both on the use of social media technologies, with one being a hands-on session. Last year we did a Web 2.0 discussion, which we archived here.

Now, there is no guarantee that the presentations for this year will be accepted, since they are chosen by the Emerson Exchange Board of Directors, which is a mix of process manufacturers, Emerson, and Emerson local business partners. We'll find out in April if none, one or both have been accepted.

One of social media applications I've started to use is Twitter. You basically have 140 characters to say whatever it is you want to say at the moment. Think of it as instant messaging, except that anyone in the world can follow your posts. My twitter page is twitter.com/JimCahill.

I was prompted to write about this when I saw Gary Mintchell ask the question on his blog today, Any manufacturing twitterers out there? I responded, and if you have a Twitter account, I hope you'll respond, too so that we can begin to build a circle.

The Twitter application seems to be gaining momentum. Participants at the recent SXSW Interactive conference here in Austin used it extensively. People used it to say what they were doing or planning to do, to ask questions of their circle, to answer others questions, etc. With only 140 characters to work with, you have to be brief or use something like TinyURL to squeeze down the size of a long URL at which to point. You can post from your mobile phone and if it has mobile web capabilities, you can view posts from Mobile Twitter.

I bring all this up because I think there would be applicability for automation professionals. Not only might this be useful at trade shows and events like the Emerson Exchange for impromptu gatherings and updates, but also in your daily course of work.

For example, if you have responsibility for working with a particular automation system and you have an application question, you could post it and see if your circle knows the answer. Of course, this only works if the circle, or extended circle, grows sufficiently large. Unlike instant messaging, the circle expands beyond who is in your list, i.e. friends of friends. This expanded circle is one of the benefits of these social media-based applications.

Please let me know if you give it a try and establish an account so I can follow you. I'd like to see how this might be used in our industry, so I can share some of these findings in the possible Emerson Exchange presentations, as well as future blog posts.

Update: This was too good not to share. Thanks to local Austin author and About.com Entrepreneur Guide, Scott Allen for pointing out this great Lee LeFever YouTube video explanation of Twitter (with apologies to those with repressive IT departments):

I of course found out about this video from a Twitter tweet from Scott.

Let's end this week highlighting a new book by ModelingAndControl.com's Greg McMillan. The book, The Funnier Side of Retirement for Engineers and People of the Technical Persuasion, is a very funny look at those entering their golden, post-work years.

When I saw this news on my DeltaV News RSS feed, I rushed up to Greg's office to see if I could get my hands on one of the books, which I did (score!) I'm a big fan of Greg's top ten lists, his marriage of humor and our technical world of process control and of course the illustrations by Ted Williams.

As Greg mentions in his post about the book, Now for Something Completely Different:

About every year since 1985, I wrote a book whether I needed to or not. Some of the books were written to entertain myself and hopefully others by adding a humorous view point to what is normally a very a serious profession.

Imagine writing a book a year for over 20 straight years... wow! And I think a few blog posts a week are tough...

For his older books where Greg has received back the copyrights, he's generously offered these free to the world on the Modeling and Control blog. You can get a sample of this humor and fun illustrations in the eBook, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Control Room.

My guess is that you'll enjoy this book whether you're approaching these golden years yourself or even if not.

As much as I enjoy finding stories to share about Emerson's experts in action, I also enjoy reaching that part of the year where it's time to use up unused vacation, unplug from the day-to-day, and spend time with family and friends.

As such, this could well be the final post for 2007. I won't absolutely commit to it in case something comes up that I can post.

I'll use some of the holiday time the time to feed my inner-engineering-geek side by catching up on my technology and podcast RSS feeds and see all the amazing things some of the best technology minds are sharing with the world. Here's my OPML file of these feeds if you want to import them into your RSS reader.

If that last sentence made as much sense as some your least favorite politicians' comments do, then I encourage you to check out this "silent-movie" Google Reader OPML demo screencast on Deb Franke and my Web 2.0 Exchange Resource page.

The resistance I hear in reading RSS feeds (beyond the technical hurdles for those with older versions of operating systems and web browsers) is that people are already overwhelmed with information from email and other sources.

My response is that the beauty of RSS feeds is that you have absolutely no obligation to read them. You are in control. You pick what you want to subscribe to. If you're too busy, ignore them. When you have time read them, do. If too many have queued up, mark them as all read.

Hopefully I'll learn some more cool stuff like the awesome work that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is doing with their Scratch graphical programming and sharing program. If you have kids and some free time in the coming weeks, you'll want to check this out. I found about this through a Phil Windley Technometria podcast. You just never know what pearls you'll find...

Happy holidays to all!

If you've been following this blog for a while, you know that from time to time I extol the virtues of Really Simple Syndication (RSS). Examples are here, here, here, and here.

I thought I'd pass along one of my RSS tricks around persistent RSS searches. First, if you're not already using RSS, the latest versions of the web browsers all support it natively. Also, web-based readers like Google Reader and Bloglines are easy to use. Client-based ones you install on your PC include Outlook 2007 email, and applications like we recommended a while back with our RSS Starter Kit.

Personally, I use Outlook 2007 for my most frequently read feeds, and Google Reader and Bloglines for the occasional reading when I have some time.

My trick is doing searches on "Jim Cahill" emerson with Google's blog search (or Google News or Technorati) and it helps show if anything has been written about me (good, bad, or indifferent.) I include the company name because there are a few other prominent Jim Cahill's out there that I must compete with for search engine visibility supremacy.

These searches are good one-time things, but what if I always want to know? What if I want my RSS Reader to let me know if somebody has written something new? That's where persistent RSS search come in.

In the Google example, there is a left side area where I can subscribe to this search (or any other ones of interest) and add these to my RSS reader. The Google searches also allow emails for those of us who feel they are not already getting enough email (not too likely!)

I pass this along this because last Friday my persistent RSS searches dutifully informed me that Forrester Research senior analyst, Peter Kim wrote a blog post entitled, Introducing: Top Marketer Blogs (alpha). Lo and behold, our Emerson Process Experts blog was on the list. My first reaction was, "cool!" Then I thought how Forrester researches the broad space of technology well beyond our world of process automation so my new reaction was, "way cool!" A week later, I'm still sticking to that reaction.

So there you have it, start your day with that check of your persistent RSS searches and you could be pleasantly surprised.

Update: In the comments, Pete had a great suggestion for you fellow bloggers. Use a search of your blogs URL with Technorati's "blog reactions", For this blog,the persistent RSS feed for this reaction is: feeds.technorati.com/search/www.emersonprocessxperts.com.

One of the innovations taking hold in the Information Technology (IT) community is services oriented architecture (SOA). As stated by the SOA entry in Wikipedia:

There is no widely-agreed upon definition of service-oriented architecture other than its literal translation that it is an architecture that relies on service-orientation as its fundamental design principle. Service-orientation describes an architecture that uses loosely coupled services to support the requirements of business processes and users. Resources on a network in a SOA environment are made available as independent services that can be accessed without knowledge of their underlying platform implementation.

To understand better the state and needs of the adoption of SOA in process manufacturing, the ARC Advisory Group is conducting a short 25-question survey, SOA for Manufacturers and Owner/Operators. The survey:

is designed for, and should be taken by, end users, owner/operators, etc. in process and discrete industries - as well as those with similar needs in other industries, such as utilities - with knowledge of their company's interest, goals, and experience with Web services and SOA.

As with ARC's other surveys, your participation earns a free copy of the results when they become available. This can help your organization better learn what other manufacturers are doing and possibly help advance your efforts.

I bring all this to your attention because I am also keenly interested in the problems you see SOA addressing and the business results you are seeking to achieve. It can have impact all the way to your process instrumentation and devices in your manufacturing processes.

If your organization is applying or investigating the application of SOA, consider investing a few minutes of your time taking the survey.

Today is the last day to share your thoughts with Intech Magazine on their fieldbus survey. From their email to me:

Fieldbus has been in the industry for just over a decade and is an important part of the automation solution package. InTech magazine is conducting a survey to determine what readers see as challenges and opportunities for the protocol. InTech's editors will report on the answers in the InTech Market Study on buses in our April issue.

If you have experience with one of the fieldbuses, please take a moment and add your thoughts to this survey.

It was one year ago today that we launched the Emerson Process Experts blog. This welcome message began the journey into the blogosphere for us here at Emerson. From rereading the initial post, I think we managed to stay pretty true to the mission:

...to use a blog to create a shorter path between process manufacturing professionals seeking solutions and the experts around Emerson Process Management who have valuable industry, application, and technology expertise.

As I did in the welcome message, I continue to thank Deb, Ed, Maryann, and Lisa for their help and innovations along the way with this blog.

Surprises after a year? The biggest by far is the sheer number of folks I've met along the way, from fellow automation and process industry bloggers to even some of the A-list bloggers as defined by the Technorati Top 100 (I've got a ways to go at 25,600!) A week does not go by where I don't get an email, phone call, or Skype message from someone around the globe from plant managers to engineers and plant operators, looking around and happening upon one of the posts.

It's really the best part--hooking folks up with folks here at Emerson who can help them. And even as long as I've been here at Emerson, meeting all the folks featured in these posts has been great.

The worst part? Starting a week with no prospects or leads for blog posts and trying to scratch and claw to find something to post. I now have a much greater appreciation for my friends in the publishing business!

Thanks for this brief indulgence, and now on to year two!

It's that time of year to visit with friends, family, and loved ones. This will be the last post for 2006.

Enjoy your holiday season and I look forward to sharing more stories as 2007 comes rolling in.

For those of you in the northern hemisphere where the snow falls, here's a happy holiday wish to you.

For those in more temperate climates and in the southern hemisphere, here's a happy holiday wish to you.

Do you ever get the feeling you have to know more and more to do your job?

Control magazine editor-in-chief, Walt Boyes, nails it in a recent blog post when he writes:

We need to be interdisciplinary generalists (wow, there's a mouthful for you) that can do field devices, final control elements, loop control, advanced process control, networking and IT, cybersecurity, safety instrumented systems, plant security and after we master all of that, we're going to find that it still isn't going to be enough.

As process manufacturing plants become smarter and more efficient as more systems and software are integrated and digital technologies are deployed, they also need the planning, engineering, commissioning, and ongoing support to get the most out of them. Most of the posts have discussed aspects of areas Walt mentions with the part of the plant lifecycle where experts have helped.

Now more than 100 posts into this blog, the offer from the inaugural welcome post stands:

Please email me, Skype me, or call me if there are particular people or topics that you would like in this blog.

The final 2006 fiscal year (Oct '05-Sep '06) numbers were released today by Emerson and they showed record net sales. Overall the company grew to $20.1 billion from $17.3 billion USD in fiscal year 2005. Our Emerson Process Management division led the way. From the release:

Process Management's strong performance continued in 2006 as sales increased 16 percent to $4.9 billion. Underlying sales growth was 13 percent, led by 15 percent growth in the United States and Asia and 20 percent growth in Latin America.

These experts responded to strong global demand for process automation products and services to help process manufacturers become more efficient and competitive. And, they helped to deliver these strong financial results.

Now on to 2007!

If you've been reading the Emerson Process Experts blog for a while, you know that every once in a while I'll jump on my soapbox to extol the virtues of RSS, RSS searches and blogs. Some examples of my enthusiasm on these topics include:

• Moving to More Efficient, Focused Information
• Greater Efficiency through RSS and Blogs
• Putting Your Expertise Out There
• RSS and Efficient Information Collection Coming Quickly

I keep writing about this because I do believe that you can find out about things more quickly than the "seek and find" world of today's web browsing.

Today is a great example. Even before I opened my email I saw that my RSS searches for "Jim Cahill" and "Emerson Process Experts" had returned numerous results. They were pointing to sections of a Northeastern University and Backbone Media Blogging Success study.

My colleague Deb Franke and I participated by agreeing to be interviewed earlier this year. The researchers did a great job of capturing the essence of our interview.

What I really like about the way they did the study is that each section is done as an individual blog post, so that conversations can continue long after the study is posted. For my fellow automation bloggers, please consider adding your experiences to the conversation.

My point with all this is that you should consider using RSS searches for areas that interest you or advance your knowledge to be more successful. For automation professionals in the process industries these searches could be around emerging standards, government regulations, automation technology advancements, etc.

Now that all the major web browsers support RSS (even Microsoft with its just released Internet Explorer 7), the time is now to use RSS and join the conversation.

For those who have seen some of my prior posts, you know I've been harping on why I think RSS (really simple syndication) is great.

Last Friday, Microsoft's Internet Explorer version 7 (IE7) blog confirmed that we will all be receiving IE7 with embedded RSS capabilities this month via automation update (dribble downloads as I call them.) As a friend in Switzerland reminds me, that is, unless your nefarious IT organization blocks this and allows this update only when they are good and ready (2009 he estimates!)

For both a presentation I gave to the Houston American Marketing Association and another at last week's Emerson Exchange, I showed a video clip of how easy it is to subscribe to an RSS feed using IE7. Since 87% of this month's visitors use Internet Explorer, take a look. For those 11% who use Firefox (which already handles RSS) feel free to ignore this whole post.

Basically, this video describes me subscribing to the DeltaV News feed using IE7, shows how the RSS feed is in readable form, and shows how to easily subscribe to the feed. Finally it shows how it's integrated with Outlook 2007 if you prefer to read your RSS feeds and RSS search feed posts as you would emails. This is my preferred way, since it's the application I spend the most time with, and the RSS posts (the full text feed ones) can be read offline.

As Walt Boyes recently reported in his coverage of the Emerson Exchange, a successful year has brought on the need for additional experts throughout Emerson Process Management.

Here in Austin, Texas where our Process Systems and Solutions organization is based there are quite a number of job openings for IT Professionals, Software Developers, and Project Engineers. There are even some Marketing Product Manager positions which I don't see yet posted. And even more as you look at the various divisions within Emerson Process Management.

Take a look and if interested respond directly to the opportunity or email me and I'll route it in the right direction.

Thanks to the safety expert who found the Emerson Process Experts blog and emailed me for giving me the idea for this blog post.

UPDATE: My friends in our Calgary-based Hydrocarbon and Energy Industry Center want me to also mention that the great Oil Sands projects in Northern Alberta require talented project engineers and managers.

As blogs have brought self-publishing to individuals and their growth has skyrocketed, the next wave--self-published videos--have arrived and even come to our conservative world of process automation.

YouTube and Google Video are two examples of sites where you can upload your videos to share with the world.

I bring this up because I received an email this morning of a video done by Pennsylvania Cable Network with their PCN Tours series. The 52:35 video features a tour of American Refining Group in Bradford, Pennsylvania in the U.S. They are celebrating 125 years as the United States longest continuously operated refinery.

Take a look at 17:45 and 20:15 and you'll see Emerson's DeltaV system in their crude unit control room and reformer control room. It's great that PlantWeb technology could play a role in their success.

As we continue to move forward in this new age of communications, please let me know if your process automation work is highlighted in one of these newer self-publishing mediums like blogs, podcasts, or videos.

Last Friday, I mentioned how RSS is speeding up the process of finding information. Podcasts are the way to receive this information in an audio format, typically via MP3 file or AAC file popularized by the iTunes Music Store.

Unlike reading text, I find it impossible to listen to a podcast on my PC, since it is such a visual medium. Podcasts are perfect for listening on my MP3 player while exercising, playing on the car stereo, or performing mindless chores. Since I'm a bit of technology geek, I enjoy listening to the Gillmor Gang and This Week in Technology.

Even in our conservative space of process automation, podcasts have emerged. You might want to check out:

• AutomationWorld's Gary Mintchell
• Control's Walt Boyes
• Futurist Jim Pinto
• Industrial Automation Insider's Andrew Bond

And I even came across a podcast interview with BMS on the On Pharma blog.

Now your company may not go as far as manufacturer, National Semiconductor, who gave each of their 8,500 employees 30 GB iPods, but you may want to take matters into your own hands, grab your personal iPod or MP3 player, give these pioneers a listen and see if this form of communication is useful to you.

I'm presenting a paper at our customer user group meeting, Emerson Exchange this fall. The presentation, Finding What You Need Faster via RSS and Blogs, will describe and demonstrate how reading RSS feeds, RSS search feeds, and blogs, helps me better understand what's happing in automation and technology faster than I ever could by going out and visiting websites.

The premise is that this subscription-based method of collecting information flips the model around. Instead of going and seeking, I subscribe to what interests me, and new content comes to me for me to read (or listen in the case of podcasts) when I have the time to read (or listen to) it. Often this is on the weekend or when I'm sitting on an airplane.

In an earlier post, I cited a Yahoo study that said RSS adoption is quite low. I believed then and still do believe this due to the fact that most of us use Internet Explorer as our web browser. When we click on the little orange buttons we see cryptic XML code... hardly something that would appear to be useful in any way.

Our attempt to help people with the current hurdles of RSS adoption is the RSS Starter Kit. Or you may be a Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc. web browser user and have no issues at all.

If you're a Microsoft user, these hurdles go away when Internet Explorer and Microsoft Outlook 2007 become available where RSS is native in the applications. No more cryptic XML-gibberish displayed. In preparation for the Emerson Exchange presentation, and to get a better feeling for Microsoft's implementation, I've been running Microsoft Office 2007 beta and Internet Explorer version 7 beta. In fact this blog post is being written in Word 2007 which has added a blog post template which connects to the blog server software running http://www.EmersonProcessXperts.com. Microsoft has done a nice job in integration, where I can subscribe in the Internet Explorer and the RSS Feed is also added to my Outlook RSS Subscriptions folder where I can read the information offline, much like I can with emails. Once these products hit the mainstream, I think more people will see the benefits of the subscription model where their content of interest finds them to better do what they need to do.

If you're planning on attending the Emerson Exchange, please do consider visiting my presentation. For those of you with blogs, bring your PCs or PDAs and live blog it, so I can get feedback on how to improve in future sessions. Also, if you have any examples of how you're using RSS/RSS searches/blogs to your advantage add a comment or send me an email.

I read a fascinating piece about methods of estimating software project schedules. It was written by Shenling Yang, a senior software engineer for the DeltaV system. I bring it up here because many project managers and project engineers are faced with similar questions of how to best estimate project schedules.

Shenling starts by citing an InformationWeek magazine piece entitled, To Err is Human, To Estimate, Devine from several years ago which states:

A recent study of 100 companies found the average company completes only 37% of major IT projects on time, while only 42% finish on budget.

Shenling attributes much of this to the difficulties in gathering accurate estimates of software development effort. The quality of the estimates directly affects whether or not the project team can meet scope, quality, and schedule commitments.

A common method of estimation is the bottom-up, task level approach, relying on the judgment of the team members in performing the tasks. This method, coined "Expert Judgment" by Robert Hughes in an Information and Software Technology article is subject to human biases. There are many biases that have an impact on project estimates, and Shenling cites prudence bias as one of the biggest.

This bias is the accumulation of padding all the tasks which can result in overly cautious project schedules and uncertainties across the project schedule. In our nature there is a tendency to procrastinate or delay the start since of the task knowing this padding exists.

A better approach Shenling points to is project schedule-based padding to handle risks and uncertainties. A great analogy she uses is a local store with 5 checkout counters. If there are individual lines for each counter, your chances of getting stuck in a slow line are greater. If there is one line feeding the 5 counters your risk of "getting stuck" is reduced since the uncertainty of the speed of checkout at a particular counter is reduced.

To minimize the schedule risks of your project it's better to apply the padding at the project level, and not at the individual task level. The overall project manager should clearly communicate this padding to all the team members in order to keep everyone on the same page and going in the right direction. Great words of wisdom, I'd say.

Many industries such as oil and gas production, gas distribution, and LNG processing have the need to communicate over long distances without having readily available communications infrastructure. These manufacturers require voice, data, and/or video communications to operate reliably all day, every day.

I caught up with Gavin Jacobs who manages the telecommunications and network technologies project team for Emerson's Hydrocarbon and Energy industry organization.

Gavin's team works with the process manufacturer by starting with a conceptual design which analyzes and defines the requirements for the project. From this point, the architecture and technologies are recommended along with a project plan and schedule. The key to the design is to use the latest, proven technologies, and build upon the group's best practices standards.

In putting together the plan, the team draws upon their individual experts in local area networks (LANs), wide area networks (WANs) and the methods of transport including radio, satellite, microwave, telephone leased lines, fiber, spread spectrum, and traditional copper cable. They also work with the various LAN/WAN and data acquisition protocols required including TCP/IP, UDP, MODBUS, BSAP, and DNP3. And the group works closely with the suppliers of switches, routers, wireless, cables and other equipment required for the communications networks.

Beyond the upfront consultation and planning, Gavin's team performs detailed engineering, and follows it through with the implementation, integration, installation, and commissioning. One of the most common causes of LAN communications issues is improper cable installations. This is a critical part of the design, and it should be well documented to minimize installation issues. Also, having equipment and cables rated for their operating environments is critical to reliable and safe operations.

The commissioning process involves validating the communications throughput, monitoring and trending the physical layer, validating packet routing, validating security, and monitoring the protocols to eliminate sources of potential service disruptions. Some of this diagnostic information is often integrated with the manufacturer's maintenance management system to provide a central area for managing any issues with the network.

Gavin's team often provides ongoing operational support to help these manufacturers take advantage of communications improvements and cost reductions in these technologies.

For those not already subscribed to CONTROL magazine's Editor-in-Chief Walt Boye's blog, you're missing a great post entitled, Why Does Emerson Win?

OK, OK, you may think this somewhat self-serving of me to point out this particular post and it would be tough for me to argue the point.

Actually I'm also using this opportunity to promote your adoption of Really Simple Syndication (RSS) by giving our RSS Starter Kit that I mentioned in an earlier post a try.

If you try it, you'll be subscribed to Walt's blog, this blog, and other topics of interest. It can also serve to help you find what you need faster than by not adopting RSS.

Over the past 10 years, we've all benefited from the speed at which knowledge can be attained using the web and search engines to rapidly find things.

One of the fairly recent innovations has been really simple syndication (RSS) technology, which provides us a way to subscribe to information to have it come to us, rather than the mode of seeking and finding.

An October Yahoo! study indicates that the adoption rate is still quite low:

Awareness of RSS is quite low among Internet users. 12% of users are aware of RSS, and 4% have knowingly used RSS.

One of the things limiting adoption is that the Internet Explorer browser does not deal well with the cryptic XML looking code that is RSS. Anyone who has clicked on the little orange XML, RSS buttons sprouting all over the web see this gibberish looking code. This will change when Microsoft releases Vista and the next version of Office, but for now it takes some doing to use RSS.

In the spirit of helping process manufacturing professionals see the value that we see with RSS, we have just published an RSS Starter Kit.

The RSS Starter Kit gives you a quick what, why, and how to give it a try.

I even narrated a demo to show how you could be up and going in 2 minutes with a number of feeds about our industry, hot topics, and even a couple of fun feeds. I believe you'll find the time investment worth it. Give it a try!

Also be sure to check out how you can get a customized feed from Emerson Process Management based upon your preferences. With your RSS reader already in place, it's easy to add.

UPDATE: Welcome visitors from Steve Rubel's, Gary Mintchell's and Toby Bloomberg's blogs!

There was a thoughtful critique on the MoonWatcher blog of the customized RSS implementation on the Emerson Process Management site. I had a chance to catch up with Emerson Process Management's Global Director of Marketing Communications, Bill Morrison. His team put this together for all the the divisions within Emerson Process Management.

Bill sees the model followed closely resembling Apple iTunes where folks can state their preferences and receive targeted information based on these preferences. Meaning, you are subscribing to the same individual RSS feeds, but Emerson pre-aggregates the information into one channel...instead of requiring you to set up a different news feed for every Emerson subject of interest.

Folks can still subscribe to individual feeds on some of the sites, much like the DeltaV News RSS feed.

I think it's more a matter of preference. Some folks would like a bunch of orange buttons to choose from (like this New York Times example) or some would like their feed aggregated, as ones like iTunes, FeedShake, and Gada.be.

What do you think?

A while back we set up a site called the DeltaV Bookstore in order to feature Emerson experts and other great minds in the world of process automation. The site links into the Amazon.com bookstore.

The first book we featured was Advanced Control Unleashed, by Emerson's Terry Blevins and Willy Wojsznis, as well as Greg McMillan and Michael Brown. We've added many other books including many more from Greg McMillan and Chairman Emeritus Charles F. Knight's Performance Without Compromise: How Emerson Consistently Achieves Winning Results.

I bring all this up because we recently received an email from Dr. Thomas Edgar of the University of Texas at Austin who identified a shortcoming we had with the bookstore:

The leading process control textbook in North America is not in your list; it is "Process Dynamics and Control" by Seborg, Edgar, and Mellichamp. Wiley, 2nd edition, 2004. You should add it to your bookstore, in that the authors have also worked with Emerson on research projects and with DeltaV.

If you have come across a book that has influenced your thinking on process automation, please add a comment.