Managing Automation - September 2007 - (Page 10)

managingautomation FREE news managingautomation.com maonline Go online for daily news updates in perspective will. “The question is whether they will be used.” He predicts a brighter future for WSHumanTask than for BPEL4People, mainly because the latter depends on BPEL adoption, which has been slow. — Chris Chiappinelli Alliances, Executive Appointments, Mergers & Acquisitions, Products Online Membership Transform your business through technology FREE Membership includes: • Award Winning Editorial • Web Exclusive Articles • Whitepapers & Webcasts • Improved Online Tools and Expert Forums • Product Comparison Engine • Targeted Newsletters • Special discounts for Executive Conferences • My “MA” which allows you to save products, comparisons and more N EW the nearest location for shipment, assessing the weather for possible flight interference, etc. Nestled in the middle of that chain, however, is the question of the customer’s standing. A manufacturer may jump through hoops to deliver for a client that purchases $10 million worth of merchandise each year, but not for one that spends $100. Those extremes are pretty simple to account for in an automated process, Baer notes, but what about customers in the middle? “In borderline cases, that may not be an obvious decision. You may need a person in the process,” he says. BPEL4People, he explains, essentially states, “In this orchestrated process, here’s a placeholder because we’re going to have a human process here.” The second spec, WS-HumanTask, specifies what that task is. Once a person has intervened to make a decision, the chain of automated processes resumes. A parallel example in the financial services industry, Baer says, involves a credit card company that receives a request for a credit limit increase. Prior to this summer’s subprime lending debacle, a certain credit score might have sailed through an automated process to approval. Now, the need for greater scrutiny may compel the lender to divert some transactions to a person to make a judgment call. Although observers disagree on the need for such standards, the real question, according to Baer, is not whether OASIS will ratify them — Baer expects that the organization WIRELESS: USERS STILL APPROACHING WITH CAUTION W ith the cost of installing new wire for networking as high as $2,000 per foot in some older plants, it’s easy to understand why many manufacturers believe it makes sense to invest in wireless networking technologies to tie together plant floor devices and systems. Still, the lack of products supporting established industrial wireless standards, combined with the relative novelty of the technology in plant environments, is forcing many manufacturers to take a cautious, incremental approach to deploying wireless networks. “We’ve deployed wireless technology in support of a few isolated applications, but mostly for device monitoring so far,” says Ronald T. Morris, senior engineering associate at DuPont Chemical Solutions Enterprise, who spoke at a recent Wireless Summit conference sponsored by the ISA in Vancouver, B.C. “We’ve looked at wireless for some closed-loop control applications, but right now we’re holding off.” In fact, a recent survey of 500 manufacturing UPCOMING SIMSCI ESSCOR USER MEETING Oct. 1-3 Omni Galleria Houston www.simsci-esscor.com DELMIA WORLDWIDE CUSTOMER CONFERENCE - NORTH AMERICA Oct. 3-4 Dearborn, MI www.delmia-cc.com BIGMACHINES’ BIGIDEAS 2007 Oct. 7-9 Hard Rock Hotel Chicago www.bigmachines.com/bigideas07 PROCURI EMPOWER 2007: GLOBAL SUPPLY. GLOBAL IMPACT. Oct. 8-10 Intercontinental Hotel Buckhead Atlanta www.procuri.com/empower EVENTS IFS WORLD CONFERENCE 2007 Oct. 15-17, 2007 Berlin Estrel Hotel and Convention Center www.ifsworld.com 2007 APICS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE & EXPO Oct. 21-23, 2007 Colorado Convention Center, Denver www.apics.org/education/conference /index.asp 2007 CSCMP ANNUAL CONFERENCE Oct. 21-24, 2007 Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia www.cscmp.org TRICONEX TECHNICAL CONFERENCE 2007 Oct. 22-23, 2007 Moody Gardens Galveston, Texas www.triconex.com directly connects you with vendors www.managingautomation.com Visit Today! ® http://managingautomation.com http://www.simsci-esscor.com http://www.ifsworld.com http://www.delmia-cc.com http://www.apics.org/education/conference/index.asp http://www.bigmachines.com/bigideas07 http://www.cscmp.org http://www.managingautomation.com http://www.procuri.com/empower http://www.triconex.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Managing Automation - September 2007

Contents Take 1 Europe’s Automation Chiefs Upbeat on ’08 Business Prospects Vendor Coalition Pushes Human Element of SOA Wireless: Users Still Approaching with Caution One Year Later, IBM Shows Plan for MRO’s Maximo Study: More Work Needed to Lure Next-Gen Talent Executive Q&A Notes Cover Story: 2008 Companies to Watch Special Report: The 2007 Progressive Manufacturing High Achievers Progressive Manufacturer of the Year Business Model Mastery Innovation Mastery Customer Mastery Supply Network Mastery Data & Integration Mastery Education & Training Mastery Operational Excellence Mastery Leadership Mastery Transformation: Orchestrating the Multi-Tier Supply Network Integration: The Timeless Quest for Accurate Data Industries: Maintenance No Longer on Schedule Product Scan Advertiser Index Next

Managing Automation - September 2007

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