The times change and so do preferences. Technology advances and morphs so fast, and so much so that keeping up with customer needs, user preferences and emerging trends is a full-time task unto itself. This is especially true in the world of industrial process control where automation and control systems have altered – for the better, mind you – the way facilities operate across a plethora of industries. These days, environmental concerns, worker shortages and a supply crunch make the needs of process automation professional a bit different today than they were even a year ago.
Over the past three decades, Control has brought you the preferences and choices of industrial automation professionals through our annual Readers’ Choice Awards, and this year is no different. But the awards themselves? Well, they’ve changed a bit to keep up with the times and those ever-changing needs of the users.
As you’ll see on page 36, the program has grown to 80 categories representing a wide range of instrumentation and control technologies. That’s a far cry from the 50 categories at its beginning. In addition, we recognize the application expertise that transcends any one product category. That’s why, this year, we added leadership by discipline to the mix.
What’s important to understand is that these awards are all about you, our readers, and your choices among the many products and companies working in this space. The rankings are the result of your responses to our annual survey. To be sure, the responses come from an industrially diverse group of respondents from across the process industries. They include everyone from end-users to those working in engineering firms. While the majority come from North America, many are spread across the Asia-Pacific regions, as well as Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and South America. They come from upstream oil and gas, water and wastewater processing, food and beverage manufacturing, and much more.
As it is every year, the Readers’ Choice Awards are expected to be among our most popular features. While you can flip through this magazine to the results, you’ll also be able to access them on our website, ControlGlobal.com, at any time to reference just what your peers are thinking and whose products they are flocking to for process control and operational efficiency at their plants.
We hope you enjoy reading and studying this year’s survey results. As always, I look forward to discussing the changing state of industrial automation technology.
