PlantSuccess Newsletter
Volume IV, Issue 11
5 May 2004
Dear
Subscriber:
PlantSuccess
Gulf Coast 2004, held recently at the Hilton Houston NASA Clear Lake, was
another great event. Our unique conference got off to a wonderful start with an
equally unique welcome reception – a Texas-style BBQ by Truett Airhart,
an award-winning chef.
Kirk
Wilson, Bayer’s VP
of Engineering Services and keynote for PlantSuccess 2000, introduced this
year’s keynote, Tom Jefferson, director of IT Production and Technology,
Bayer Polymers, LLC. Jefferson did a great job with a topic critical to the
process industry: Facility and Asset Management –
Delivering a Realistic Value Proposition.
As always,
our keynote set the table for a roster of outstanding speakers and we were
treated to presentations by managers with Air Products, BE&K, Cargill, Dow
Chemical, Degussa, DuPont, Fluor, Lyondell, North Star Steel and Shell E &
P.
Bill
Treasurer,
consultant, noted author and former member of the US High Diving Team, shared
his unique perspective on taking risk and managing change. Perhaps most
important, Captain Inferno reminded us that risk-taking is a key driver of
personal and professional success. Without taking risks, you can't be an
entrepreneur, you can't be an innovator, and you can't be a leader. Bill
attracted many of us to his book and website: www.GiantLeapConsulting.com
A great day
concluded with presentations by our sponsors: AVEVA,
Dimension4, Impress Software, IndX – a Siemens
Company and Ivara, followed by a cocktail reception
in the Solutions Marketplace and drawing for a Siemens cell phone, model S-55;
the lucky winner was Steve Crowley, plant manager for Air Products in
Pasadena, Texas.
In a short
period of time, PlantSuccess has built an enviable reputation for outstanding
content – actively moderated sessions with presentations on the successful
implementation of engineering IT and automation tools also addressing business
drivers, work processes and integration requirements. As with previous
conferences, all PowerPoint presentations from PlantSuccess Gulf Coast 2004
will be available for downloading at www.PlantSuccess.com.
This library of presentations is becoming an industry treasure with more than
100 presentations on the critical issues, by different speakers representing 65
different industry-leading companies.
As we
recognize the efforts and successes of contributors to PlantSuccess, it is good
also to recognize significant achievement elsewhere, particularly of those
breaking “impossible” barriers. We celebrate such an anniversary at this time;
it was 50 years ago that an Australian, Roger Bannister,
broke the barrier of the 4-minute mile in Oxford, England.
Bannister’s
biography, “The Four Minute Mile,” has been re-released; “The Perfect Mile,” by
Neal Bascomb, a book about the history of this record-breaking run, has
just been published. This is the story of Bannister and his main competitors of
the time: American Wes Santee and Australian John Landy – three
athletes driven to change their training approaches after disappointing
performances at the Summer Olympic Games, in Helsinki, in 1952.
“It's really a story about what it takes to
do the impossible," said Bascomb, who was inspired by the
men's incredible tale. “The lessons the characters learn from their
failure and triumphs are just as relevant to the same challenges we experience
in our lives and careers,” Bascomb said.
Visit www.PlantSuccess.com to learn about the
stories and the managers in the process industry who can relate to this
analogy, and join us at PlantSuccess Northeast 2004, 21 October 2004 at the
PHL Airport Marriott. If you have questions or need additional information,
please call me at 770-565-3282.
Carl Howk,
Chairman
*****************
Current
Links
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A
Comprehensive Report on Outsourcing …
A Presidential election six months
off will insure continuing coverage of the issue of “outsourcing” for that much
longer. Much has been written, more has been spoken; some of the information
available is quite credible.
One of the more recent efforts,
certain to be controversial, is by Global
Insights (USA) Inc,
Lexington, Mass, for the Information Technology
Association of America (ITAA). Read the “Executive
Summary: The Comprehensive Impact on Offshore IT Software and Services
Outsourcing on the US Economy and the IT Industry.”
US
Internet Leadership is Slipping
From a
report in a recent issue of InformationWeek Daily:
“The U.S. ranks sixth on this year's E-readiness
list of 50 developed countries. E-readiness measures a nation's E-business
milieu to determine how open it is to Internet-based opportunities. The United
States was the undisputed leader when the E-readiness ranking first surfaced in
2000, a position it lost last year to Sweden when the United States fell to
third place.
The Economic
Intelligence Unit bases its E-readiness rankings on each countries'
technology infrastructure, general business environment, degree to which
E-business is being adopted by consumers and companies, social and culture
conditions that influence Internet usage, and the availability of services to
support E-businesses.
It's not
that the U.S. Internet use is in decline--it isn't--but other countries are
making bigger strides in E-readiness. For instance, the study gives strong
marks to nations that adopt broadband, and the United States continues to have
a large base of dial-up users. In Europe, many recent Internet converts have
skipped dial-up and gone directly to broadband, specifically digital subscriber
lines, and the per-minute charges abroad have mostly vanished. READ
MORE
The
PlantSuccess Newsletter generates a substantial number of visits to our
website, we welcome the interest and the access to previous issues of the
Newsletter which are available there. If you'd like to share this newsletter
with a colleague, just forward a copy. Subscribe or cancel by sending a request
to Carl.Howk@PlantSuccess.com
Full links to Volume IV, Issue 11 Newsletter articles: