German Documentation

One of the few "instrumentation" companies exhibiting at SPS was JUMO Process Control. Almost certainly, JUMO was attracted to SPS because of the German connection. JUMO is little known in the USA, but they make a very large portfolio of recorders, analytical instruments, pressure and temperature sensors. Sitting on the table were three bound books, published by JUMO, which I was very interested in. The first was "An Introduction to Process Control." You don't find North American companies writing and publishing their own textbooks very often, but in Germany and other Western European countries it is not at all uncommon. For example, Wika publishes a hardbound "Pressure and Temperature Handbook" that, if you can get your hands on one, is one of the best desk references for automation engineers in process industries I know of. And you can pry my copy out of my cold dead fingers, thank you. Joshua Lee, of JUMO, mentioned that he had studied under this year's Process Automation Hall of Fame inductee Bill Luyben at Lehigh University. Nice to see that somebody actually studied controls before working in this industry, since it is a very rare occurrence. I'm hoping that JUMO will be willing to let me post PDF copies of their books on the ControlGlobal.com website.