Our final PROFINET one-day training event of 2006 concluded earlier today in Long Beach. The group was a little small but they asked so many good questions we actually ran late – didn’t wheel the bar in until 4:30pm. We had an IT person in the group again. That’s always a good sign in my opinion. I asked the group how many saw cooperation between IT and Automation and how many saw tension. They were equally divided in their answers. I’m afraid I got on my soapbox again about the need for cooperation. Then in today’s email I discovered an article in Control called “Mission possible: Control and IT integration.” This article is definitely recommended reading. There are a couple good quotes from Peter Martin at Invensys:
“We no longer tolerate islands of automation, and we shouldn’t tolerate islands of culture.”
“It’s not about connecting DCS and ERP systems or the latest Microsoft this or that; it’s about running the business better!”
Anyway, tonight we celebrated our last PROFINET one-day training class and tomorrow we start planning 2007’s schedule.