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Raising Automation to the Business Level

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Walt Boyes Answers the Following Questions: How Are Automation Professionals Going to Survive and Prosper in a Changing World, and how Will They Raise Automation to the Business Level?

The world is changing. We can see that constantly. The manufacturing industries are changing rapidly, too. Almost a hundred years ago, Alfred P. Sloan could say, “What’s good for General Motors is good for the Country!” and not be laughed at. Today, GM is locked in a death struggle with Toyota for supremacy, which GM is likely to lose. We do business, and we do automation so differently now that my late father, who joined Brown Instrument Company (later Honeywell) in 1940, would be completely lost. Over my career, I’ve gone from selling panel mounted instruments to integrating control systems and now I write about connecting entire enterprises, from field sensors to financial analysts in real time. Like many changes, adoption rates differ, and things don’t usually go smoothly. We can communicate in real time worldwide, yet our financial managers still use weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual financial rollups to make critical business decisions. Our control systems, and our IT systems are already in the 21St Century, but our enterprise guidance and control systems are firmly rooted in the 18th Century, and deeply resistant to change. Whether we want to be or not, as automation professionals we are on the wave front in this tsunami of changes.

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