Managing Automation - September 2008 - (Page 15)

news managingautomation.com maonline Go online for daily news updates in perspective drives, and motors, and in process and discrete automation; it is also an attempt to convey the message that the Siemens brand itself is strong, persistent, and very, very real. But those messages may be just the most obvious ones. The underlying message that Siemens wants people who visit exiderdome to walk away with is that Siemens is different, and that that difference can have great value to them. And that perception means more to Siemens than just about anything else. As Heinrich Heisinger, CEO of Siemens’ Industry Sector, said when asked about the costeffectiveness of exiderdome, “It gets translated into growth. We have a convincing business case.” — David R. Brousell Quote of the Alliances, Executive Appointments, Mergers & Acquisitions, Products MONTH “traveling technology expo and learning laboratory” called exiderdome. A two-story, modular building with 10,000 square feet of exhibit, office, and gathering space devoted to showcasing what Siemens claims is 137,000 products, exiderdome first got under “We are operating in a bifurcated world economy.” — Rockwell CEO Keith Nosbusch, explaining strong financial results despite the slowing U.S. economy. For the Continued from page 10 Record FINANCIALS automate data mastering across its enterprise systems. Solaicx, a manufacturer of silicon ingots and wafers for the solar industry, chose to implement SYSPRO’s ERP solutions. Exiderdome on its way to Chicago way in 2005 in Shanghai and has been traveling the world ever since. It is scheduled to visit nine U.S. cities through next year. After Chicago, the exhibit was scheduled to visit Detroit and Toronto last month and will arrive in Montreal and Quebec in September, Halifax and Boston in October, and New York and Charlotte, NC, in November and December. In 2009, the “World of Automation,” as Siemens also calls it, will travel to Orlando, FL; Los Angeles; Denver; and Houston before heading to South America. Exiderdome will travel by barge to most of these locations, but will be transported in a 57truck convoy to its final five destinations, Siemens said. Siemens expects roughly 9,000 people to visit exiderdome, which will cost about €40 million to run over the next three years, while it is in the United States. Siemens said exiderdome is the biggest marketing effort the company has ever undertaken in the United States. But this is not the first time Siemens has launched an unconventional marketing campaign. Preceding exiderdome was exider train, a 12-car traveling exhibition that toured the United States in 2004 to showcase Siemens’ engineering prowess. That year, Siemens airlifted the entire train into Chicago during the National Manufacturing Week conference. At a time when much of the conventional thinking about marketing is centered on the Internet and the Web, exiderdome could be viewed as either a throwback or a reaffirmation of the idea that direct, person-to-person contact still has its place in our increasingly virtual world. For Siemens, of course, exiderdome is an attempt to demonstrate not only the breadth and depth of its offerings in power and energy, controls, THE OMAC GROUP ATTEMPTS TO WIDEN ITS INFLUENCE EDS, a provider of business solutions, earned $173 million in its 2008 second quarter on revenue of $5.62 billion. JDA Software Group Inc. recorded second-quarter revenue of $91.8 million and EBITDA of $20.4 million. PTC reported Q3 revenue of $273 million and above-guidance earnings per share of 33 cents. ThingMagic Inc., a developer of RFID technology, landed $9.5 million in additional funding from its investors. O MAC may have a new name, but not an entirely new objective. The organization, dubbed the Open Modular Architecture Control (OMAC) Users’ Group when formed in 1994, was established as a way for manufacturers — primarily in the automotive industry — to find ways to drive down the cost of automation via PC-based control. Through the years, the goal has moved more toward driving technology standards across discrete and process industries. That mission remains under the new nomenclature, the Organization for Manufacturing Automation and Control (OMAC). And while the direction remains intact, the organization said the name change is the first step toward expanding its scope. “The name change is aimed at better aligning what we are really trying to do,” said David Bauman, OMAC’s technical director. The Open Modular Architecture Control moniker was too closely tied to hardware, he said. “We are more about trying to drive industry standards and how they should evolve so [manufacturers] can pick and choose what they want to use, and more easily interchange things. It also helps drive competition.” OMAC, for example, has come up with the Connect-and-Pack guideline, a framework that leverages the ISA88 standard, Packaging Machine Language (PackML), and PackTags, a naming convention for how packaging equipment communicates with other programs, such as manufacturing M&As Fluensee, an RFID-enabled asset management solution provider, purchased TrenStar Tracking Solutions, another RFID company. Enterprise software company Oracle acquired Global Knowledge Software LLC, a provider of self-service training automation software. PA R T N E R S H I P S Cambridge Solutions Ltd., a global business process outsourcing firm, is teaming up with VSS, an SAP Channel Partner, to provide SAP solutions. Innotas is collaborating with Boomi on SaaS integration for Innotas’ on-demand project portfolio management products. Invensys Process Systems, a global technology, software, and consulting firm, joined Motorola’s PartnerSelect Program. JVKelly Group, Inc., a professional services firm, is partnering with Business Objects, an SAP company, to integrate the Business Objects business intelligence platform into on-demand dashboards. Serck Controls Inc. licensed Kepware Technologies’ manufacturing-oriented device communications for use with Serck’s SCADA software products and services. Photo courtesy: Siemens 15 September 2008 http://managingautomation.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Managing Automation - September 2008

Managing Automation - September 2008 Contents Take 1 Letters Tech Vendors Defy Economic Slump by Plugging into Developing World Growth New E2open Chief Outlines Plan to Accelerate Growth Is This Marketing as It Used to Be or Something New? The OMAC Group Attempts to Widen Its Influence Automation Federation Names Chief, Plots Growth Notes Cover story: The Innovation Gap Special Report: Meet the 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 Leadership Mastery Operational Excellence Mastery Special Report: Catching the Wireless Wave Part 1: No Clear Infrastructure Winner Part 2: Wireless Apps Take Wing Part 3: The Human Side of Wireless Product Scan Advertiser Index Next

Managing Automation - September 2008

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