...and on to Rockwell Software...

While I was in Cleveland, I spent the day with Rockwell. In the morning session, I spoke with Steve Ludwig, Kelly Stuart, and Mike Miclot, and in the afternoon, Miclot was spelled by Kevin Zaba. The discussion was far-ranging, but kept coming back to one issue. Rockwell Automation has a problem. It is a huge problem. Granted, it is the kind of problem that if you have to have one, this is the one you want. What is Rockwell's problem? Branding. Say what? Rockwell has a powerful brand. Yes they do. And that's the problem. Miclot showed me more analysis on the CONTROL Readers' Choice Awards than I do. His analysis was fascinating. Everybody can see that Emerson's branding is the strongest in the automation world. You can tell this when they get votes in categories that they either don't actually have a product, or their product is well known to be mediocre at best. But if you look at the data, as Miclot showed me, Rockwell is a strong number two. And, if you add their field instrumentation partner, Endress+Hauser, they become very close to number one, but not quite. So, if you add their entire Encompass partners, they far and away are number one. Very interesting. So why does Rockwell have a branding problem? Because all their brand positives, and they are very strong positives, insist that Rockwell is a company that does discrete and sequential motion automation. Not very many people think of Rockwell, first, as a process automation company. Most people would be astounded to know that Rockwell has been doing process automation almost as long as back in the days when Otto Struger's first relay replacer was first designed. But if you look at the current design of a Distributed Control System (DCS) what you find is a controller (PLC or PAC or dedicated controller with the same or similar features), a digital data highway, usually Ethernet, or nameofaBUS, or Foundation Fieldbus; and a PC running a host software package, with HMI, historian, alarm manager, and other process optimization modules; all connected to the enterprise via some sort of MES link. That sure doesn't sound like a DCS, as DCSes were first designed, does it? So Rockwell has this problem, see...and they need help fixing it. Since I believe in the voice of the customer, particularly the end user, I suggested that they start getting their end-users to start writing case studies, and white papers, and participating in CONTROL Field Tests, where end users talk to end users about software, equipement and systems. It takes time to change brand values, if you want to go from positives to positives. (It takes much less time to turn brand positives into brand negatives, as Rockwell found out a few years ago, when they temporarily lost their minds and started attacking their own channels of distributors and system integrators). Kevin Zaba has been tapped to fix this problem Rockwell has... it is his job now, as newly named director, process marketing, to find those end users and get them to talk openly about what Rockwell has done for process automation. If you've been to Rockwell's Allen-Bradley Automation Fair in the last few years, you'll note that there are lots more process people there, both exibiting, giving papers and attending. You will also note (sorry ISA, Chem Show and NMW) that Automation Fair has been the largest trade event in the automation space in North America for the past three years. Not a bad deal for a "private, by invitation only" show. So, can Kevin Zaba fix Rockwell's problem? We'll be asking end users, and letting you know what they say. Oh, yes. In the late afternoon, I got a chance to see a master at work. I got a tour of the "demo room" from Dennis Wylie, who, if Rockwell could clone, they should. He could sell icemakers in Alaska or Siberia with no difficulty. Fantastic lecturer, Dennis led us through a century of Rockwell progress in about thirty minutes. It was fast, it was fun, it was entertaining, and I sure wouldn't want to be a competitor in a sales situation against Dennis Wylie. Walt