PlantSuccess Newsletter
Volume I, Issue 5
8/8/01
Welcome to the PlantSuccess
Newsletter. My apologies to those who read last week’s “Chemical Industry Today
Report” summary and then tried to get a copy of the full report. I have had
good luck with the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) in the past;
not having a complete title and listing a phone number that is not in service
won’t do. I will try to track it down; if anyone has been successful, please
let me know.
While searching for the
report, I couldn’t help but notice the claim: “The Technology Administration
(TA) is the only Federal agency working to maximize technology's contribution
to America's economic growth.” Hmmm.
Previous issues are
available at www.PlantSuccess.com
If you'd like to share this
newsletter with a colleague, just forward a copy; he or she can request a
subscription by e-mailing carl.howk@plantsuccess.com
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please send a request to carl.howk@plantsuccess.com
Carl Howk,
Chairman, PlantSuccess
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This Week's Links
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At PlantSuccess 2000, Vince Guess, founder and
president, Institute of Configuration
Management (ICM), spoke to us about his passion – communication for the
effective management of everything. His watchwords are: Communication must be
Clear, Concise and Consistent. Many would add Current.
The ARC Advisory Group brings Current to the
PlantSuccess website in the form of its ARC Newswire. Click on the button: REAL-TIME PLANT SYSTEMS NEWSWIRE for
the latest from this Boston-based consultancy, a leader in providing strategic
planning and technology assessment services to manufacturing companies,
utilities, and global logistics providers, as well as to software and solution
suppliers worldwide. While there, look into their comprehensive
newsletter.
As a newsletter editor and publisher for many years,
I enjoy the written works of others, none more than those from Buddy Cleveland,
senior vice president, Bentley Systems Inc. I was a fan of his newsletter for
several years when most of his time and energy went into the running of Jacobus
Technology Inc. I was pleased to find his editorial column at The Construction
Sciences Research Foundation, Inc. (CSRF) website; I share his views and
believe many of you will as well.
Most everything about the
process of engineering and construction calls for collaboration, yet we hear
calls for more all of the time. Does it work? How has it been documented? For
several industries, the answer is yes, according to 375 IT managers in an
InformationWeek Research report: Information Sharing & Collaboration: A
Matter of Trust.
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Does collaboration with
partners, suppliers or customers in the supply chain help organizations |
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Grow revenue? |
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Industry |
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Percent Yes |
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Percent No |
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Information Technology |
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83 |
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17 |
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Financial Services |
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80 |
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20 |
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Manufacturing |
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67 |
|
33 |
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Retail/Travel |
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85 |
|
15 |
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|
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Health Care |
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52 |
|
48 |
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Base: 75 sites per
vertical market |
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Is
there design collaboration for the process industries?
Speaking of collaboration….
This article begins: “When it comes time to compare
adoption rates in discrete and process industries for the new collaborative
technologies, one might liken the situation to that of the tortoise and the
hare.”
Olin Thompson, a principal of Process ERP
partners LLC, offers: "The benefits [of collaborative applications] have
been proven, but the product technology available in the past didn't allow
process manufacturers to take advantage. There are solutions available now that
allow process manufacturers access to the same benefits that discrete
manufacturers have enjoyed." Read on …
A new metric provides the
basis for a comprehensive measure of effective information use that also
predicts business performance. This article, from Accenture, addresses the
management of information, not just information technology. Why don’t we make
more effective use of information? The authors claim:
“The problem is that, until
now, patterns that contribute to information use have been largely invisible.
Managers could isolate and calculate their IT expenditures, but they could not
grasp or measure the qualitative human aspects of information use—the
management systems and practices developed by people within the organization
and the behaviors and values that shaped their actions regarding information.
And until they could measure information use, they could not manage it.“
Of course, they claim their research has filled that need.
To learn more …
Gartner
Surveys IT budgets for e-Business
Most companies still devote a small fraction of their
information technology budget to e-business, and this isn't likely to change
soon. A survey of 600 firms shows that e-Business accounted for 11 percent of
their IT budget. For the details…
America’s
surge in productivity will be followed by Europe and Japan.
… claims this report from the Royal Institute of
International Affairs. An upbeat article on America’s defeat of the
productivity paradox and how Europe and Japan stand to enjoy even bigger
productivity gains. Perhaps unlikely, it sure would be great after the
battering my stock portfolio has taken.
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Sponsor Insight: PDAC
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PDAC –
The Implementation People
The website for Plant Design
Automation Consulting, Inc. (PDAC) includes a short tag line, “The
Implementation People” and a long client list filled with names of owners and
contractors common to all of us in the process industry -- good credentials for
a five-year old company. Although small, the company reports an average annual
growth rate of 40 percent, attributed to satisfied clients -- nine out of ten
are repeat customers. PlantSuccess will be a great place to learn about this
service company.
PDAC also is responsible for
the pdXML (Plant Design eXtensible Mark-up
Language) initiative. This is an initiative to create a software and equipment
vendor-neutral, public domain, XML schema defining data for the complete
lifecycle of a process, power or manufacturing plant. This effort is
hosted by PDAC; learn all about it at PlantSuccess.
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PlantSuccess Close-up
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From the beginning, we felt
it was important to provide industry-related organizations with a speaking
opportunity at PlantSuccess. The Owner-Operator Forum was launched at PlantSuccess
’99. At PlantSuccess 2000, Joe Morray (Trinity Technologies Corp), then program
manager of the Owner-Operator Forum, Ric Jackson, then recently selected
director of FIATECH, and Steve Franke, current chairman of the Process
Industries Practices Group (PIP), each spoke to the goals and objectives of
their respective organizations. In addition, Ken Eickmann, director of the
Construction Industry Institute (CII), treated us to a wonderful lunch
presentation.
We are pleased to have
FIATECH as a partner with PlantSuccess 2001. The Owner-Operator Forum, a
Strategic Focus Area of FIATECH, represents process industry operating
companies, contractors and IT
suppliers in an effort to define strategy and direction for
process facility IT. In Thursday’s morning session, FIATECH director
Ric Jackson will discuss FIATECH and its mission to develop, deploy and
commercialize technologies that realize fully integrated and automated project
processes (FIAPP).
Joe Morray, President
of Trinity Technologies Corp, will talk about the Owner-Operator Forum and lead
a panel discussion of the Life Cycle Data Management (LCDM) project, its
progress to date and its future. Panel members will include Bob Donaho,
director of design engineering, and Robert Kwok, manager of computer-aided
engineering, from Dow Chemical, Steve Lorenz, advanced engineering systems
manager, from DuPont and Bryan Ball, manager of advanced technology, from
Merck.
Space and a welcome will be
granted again to PIP who will be represented by its senior management; they
will be joined by the pdXML initiative,
hosted by PDAC, Inc.
Join us at the Philadelphia Airport Marriott Hotel
for PlantSuccess 2001, 3-4 October and visit us at www.PlantSuccess.com to learn more
about this unique, high-level conference and to register online.
Full links to Volume I, Issue 5 Newsletter articles:
1.
http://www.arcweb.com/arcweb/default.asp
2.
http://www.csrf.org/newslet/ss01news/ss01clev.html
3.
http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eD2M0BywxR0V20Lwt0Ab
4.
http://www.manufacturingsystems.com/newsletter/080601/lead0806.asp
5.
http://www.accenture.com/xd/xd.asp?it=enWeb&xd=ideas%5Coutlook%5Cspecial2000_2%5Cse2_see.xml
6.
http://www.manufacturingsystems.com/midday/default.asp?ID=776
7.
http://www.theworldin.com/arts/lea/fs4.html