Mayhaps I have struck a nerve. I got reaction in person today, by email, and in the blogosphere. Gary Mintchell noted in his blog that Automation World will be covering the subject. In person today, another editor indicated his magazine was also approaching the topic. And I had a visitor at our booth here who was a rare breed – an IT guy who had done control engineering in the past. He admitted the problem is very much with us.
Tom Kopanski expanded on his original remarks from yesterday at this morning’s opening. He added that we tend to think of this gulf from an operational viewpoint, but we need to get control engineering and IT thinking strategically together. Amen.
The PTO and PIC (Profi Interface Center) have also decided to expand our PROFINET one-day training events to include the commonality, synergies, and structure for working together. I’ve attended a few user presentations here that span this gap, too. So there are examples out there. I would love to hear of more. Drop me an email if you know of one (carl dot henning at profibus dot com). It doesn’t have to involve PROFINET.
There’s a lot more to report from here, but now I’m off to the networking event.