Hack College

I heard recently from Jennifer Yee who pointed me to a project pointed to university students called Hack College. The slogan is “Work Smarter, Not Harder”. She writes, "The face of education is changing, technology is king and we want to equip students with the knowledge to optimize their college experience from a technology standpoint. So far, University of Texas, University of Wisconsin Law School, University of Notre Dame, and University of Arkansas, among others, have listed the project as a resource link for their students."

Pass the word to anyone you think would benefit.

Industry Forum of Center for Intelligent Maintenance Systems

The Center for Intelligent Maintenance Systems, a National Science Foundation consortium including the University of Cincinnati, the University of Michigan and the Missouri University of Science and Technology, held its latest meeting at the Chrysler Education Center in suburban Detroit May 16-18, 2012.

Manufacturing companies join the Center and contract with engineering Ph.D. and post-doctoral researchers to conduct research into various engineering problems. Some of the companies I've seen in the past included GE Aviation, P&G and Toyota. This year at the Industry Forum Spirit Aerosystems, a spin off from Boeing, presented its experience moving its maintenance experience from reactive to condition-based. A presentation from Applied Materials explained something of semiconductor manufacturing and how it's looking for more sensing and automated data collection into an event-based database in order to improve its machine uptime.

Jay Lee, Director of the Center and a Professor of Engineering at the University of Cincinnati, challenged the audience to expand thinking by considering a cloud-based predictive analytics. The idea would be to perform the analytics in the cloud, not to store data there. There are potentially many people who would be interested in the analytics, but most would prefer to store data locally. While he mentioned to the audience the efficacy of Amazon's S3 cloud service and other similar ones, he really was advocating what's known as a "private cloud." Being from an Ohio-based university, he mentioned another benefit of the cloud idea--Only Handle Information Once (OHIO).

As I examined the poster board corridor containing information about some of the research students had conducted recently, two especially caught my eye: Estimation of Maintenance Opportunity Windows in a Manufacturing System; and Importance Measure-based Reliability Improvement for Multi-State Systems. With any luck, I'll get a paper from each to publish in Automation World.

Interview with Mary Ramsey SVP Schneider Electric Industry Business

I recently had a chance to catch up with Mary Ramsey, who was recently named Senior VP of Schneider Electric Industry Business. She has assumed the position previously held by Andy Gravitt, who has recently retired.

So, just what comprises the Industry Business, I asked. "It includes industrial automation, which in turn includes products such as drives, motion control, HMI, controllers and sensors. MES, data systems, and solutions around PlantStruxure are also included. PlantStruxure is about plant optimization software, beginning with data acquisition changing to meaningful information with a knowledge base around what each role is. I also have responsibility for these main industry segments--water/wastewater, mining/minerals/metal, automotive, food & beverage along with MachineStruxure in HVAC and packaging."

Her primary goals are to align with customers and differentiate Schneider Electric. "Our customers want to be up and running quickly with intelligence around asset management," she added. "We offer comprehensive, intelligent libraries in a toolbox. We bring more software competency to our customers through several acquisitions. I'm bringing them closer together. Schneider is known as a hardware company, and automation is a foothold with our expertise in connectivity, platforms, open platforms, safety/regulatory issues and energy management"

Ramsey sees her mission to get the word out about all the Schneider initiatives. "We don't go for a big splash, but we need to let people know we're not just the controller piece."

"We realize that aging workforce has some built-in knowhow to deal with automation problems," Ramsey said. "We have a full program around university recruiting to help through that. We try to make it a compelling story to bring new recruits and help manufacturers into generational change. So many manufacturing people feel you need an electrical engineering degree, and it helps. But today, more people like having software knowledge. So many things are modeled today, so having the right skill sets for access to information."

And a final word, Ramsey said, "Finally there is the energy story. It is a hidden cost in different parts of buildings. We are doing a significant differentiation by adding energy management to our offerings. Customers can't afford rip and replace, so they more often ask how to help manage what they have with better efficiency."

Center for Intelligent Maintenance Systems

I am at the 23rd meeting of the Industry Advisory Board of the Center for Intelligent Maintenance Systems. I can't make every one, but I get here when I can.

This is a really smart group of Ph.D. and Post-doc researchers who are looking into modeling prognostics and diagnostics. Several companies are here, too, such as National Instruments and Forcam. GE Aviation has been a big sponsor, today we'll hear from P&G, Spirit Aerosystems and Applied Materials.

Among the posters showing research set up in the hall were a couple of interesting ones: Estimation of Maintenance Opportunity Windows in Manufacturing Systems; Importance Measure-based Reliability Improvements for Multi-State Systems.

Hope to get some good engineering papers for Automation World out of this.

Tell Us How You Really Use Foundation Fieldbus

Technology suppliers, either individually or in consortia, develop technologies that they think (hope?) will provide great benefits to their customers. Sometimes how professionals actually use the technology surprises them. When I was first taught about DeviceNet, for example, the selling benefit was reduction of wiring. Availability of diagnostic information turned out to be the real benefit.

So, the question of the day is "How are you really using Foundation Fieldbus?" ARC Advisory Group along with the Fieldbus Foundation has constructed a simple online survey. Help them out by letting them know "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" of the network. It will help the product development process. And, I'll get a chance to report the findings. Thank you.