Executive Director's Message 

If you're anything like me when I managed a CSI company, about the time I thought I had everything figured out, something would happen that helped me realize just how far I still had to go. So do yourself a favor, follow and engage in the Connected Community Conversations. Most of them are in CSIA Open Forum, but join and watch the eight Best Practices sections too. I assure you that not a week will go by that you don't get a new idea or have a chance to share an idea. Here are some recent examples.

 

Hint for easy reading of Conversations: Click on "View Thread" beside the conversation in which you're interested and all submissions to that conversation will be arranged in chronological order. 

 

Did you participate in the September webinar The Value of OPC UA for Integrators by Thomas Burke of the OPC Foundation? If not you missed a good one. But don't sweat it, the archived recording is available to you on www.controlsys.org under News and Events. We are grateful to Tom for his time and commitment to CSIA.

CSIA Webinars 

 

Mark Voigtmann, Baker & Daniels

 

In this 30-minute webinar automation and tech construction professional Mark Voigtmann and automation IP expert Bob Null will discuss how to:
1. Maintain freedom to use your existing IP, and IP developed during a current project and on future projects
2. Minimize your exposure to IP infringement lawsuits
3. Control the exchange and use of confidential information

Register here. 

 

The Executive Council will meet Oct. 10-12 to make preliminary decisions on the 2011 Conference content. If you have an experience to share or feel strongly about an aspect of your business that others would benefit from, please contact Bob Lowe ASAP. If you know someone who would be a good candidate to do a 45-minute presentation, please let us know that too. 

We thought that you'd like to know that approximately 93% of our members that were up for renewal have remained with us, and the number may inch up a little higher! We are pleased with that renewal rate considering that the economic conditions have been difficult for most of our members. Obviously almost all members find good value in their CSIA membership!

Want to get the most out of your CSIA membership? Volunteer to serve on one of CSIA's active committees (Membership, Marketing, Best Practices, Statistics, Partner, Insurance). We're looking for a few good members! Please contact Jim Campbell to find out more.

Web site analytics show that traffic on the CSIA Connected Community continues to grow. For the period Aug. 30 - Sept. 29, 2010, the CSIA Connected Community received 935 visitors, who made 2,396 visits and viewed 14,139 pages. 

 

On average, visitors viewed 6.08 pages and spent 5 minutes, 11 seconds per visit.  Find an Integrator, which extends the boundaries of the community to the general public, continues to be the most popular feature of the community with 3,226 pages viewed. 

 

You've just spent 32.1 seconds reading this article, assuming you read at an average rate of 200 words per minute.  (We're kidding!)

 

ISA Automation Week
ISA has been very cooperative with CSIA for this year's Automation Week in Houston. Executive Director Bob Lowe requested the opportunity to do a presentation, but it didn't fit well with ISA's new theme of technical education. So, to still provide CSIA with some exposure, they asked that Bob provide a "virtual presentation" that will be included, along with the actual presentations from the event, on a memory device that is given to all attendees. How kind! Further, they are providing a table in the registration area to display CSIA materials. A big thank you goes out to EnerSys Corporation, one of our Houston-based integrator members, who will arrange the display table for us. If you'll be at ISA Automation Week, be sure to thank ISA for their support.  

 

CSIA thanks our Partner Member Invensys/Wonderware for providing us with a pod at their OpsManage 2010 event in October and for the opportunity to participate in a joint presentation with them on the topic of Wonderware Certification and CSIA Certification. Be sure to look up CSIA Executive Director Bob Lowe if you're at the event and attend his presentation at 8 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 21.

 

The Best Practices Committee continues to be busy as we embark on the journey toward Version 4 of the BP&B manual. We have submitted our proposed schedule and plan for updates to the Executive Council for their preliminary approval to proceed and have now initiated the beginning processes.

 

The majority of our committee members spent Sept. 16-17 in Beamsville, Ontario, Canada at Jordan Engineering for a V4 face-to-face workshop. During this workshop we began the update process focusing on four main areas of the document. Those areas include a new section that will outline best practices for service and support, some minor updates to section 1 - General Management, some updates to the Risk Management sections, some updates to the safety, health, and environmental sections, and some updates to section 3 - Marketing, Business Development, Sales Management. The purpose of the workshop was to draft the changes to these sections and get them ready for internal review. The schedule for this update has us ready to release V4 at the Executive Conference in 2012.

 

I would like to thank Jordan Engineering for hosting our workshop and also thank Jane Cunningham, Jordan Engineering; Brian Mullen, Exotek; Laurens VanPagee, JMP Engineering; and Nick Wagner, Esco Automation for their dedication to getting the process started. It was two long days for sure, but we made a lot of progress toward our first milestone.

 

Another thing that our committee assembled over the past quarter was a Proposal Risk Assessment Template as a new member resource. The purpose of this document is to provide a template that integrators can use to help them consider risk at the proposal phase of the project.

 

As always, if you are interested in getting involved with the Best Practices Committee we would love to have you. Please contact me via email at (605) 366-2087 or any time. Thank you!

by Don Roberts, auditor, Exotek 
 

Let's take it from the top.

 

One of the first questions of the CSIA Certification Audit deals with strategic planning. I am sure most of you are well into the planning process for next year so it is timely to share with you some of our observations.

 

The things we look for are a process for planning, not the quality of the plan. Are the goals clearly defined and how were they determined? Was the process totally internally driven or was there some external influence or facilitation. A common challenge for integrators that is addressed during planning is defining what they sell and how they differentiate themselves from the competition. The three main components of a strategy are a clear definition of the goals of the company, the products and markets and the competitive strategy.

 

When you are defining your processes make sure you address communication of the plan to the organization. We have seen lots of great strategic plans that have not been implemented. Even a weak plan implemented well typically yields better results than a great plan that just sits on the shelf.

 

A couple of tools you may want to look into are strategy maps and balanced scorecards. Quite a few integrators are using this framework to manage and communicate their plans. It does a great job of organizing specific actions that facilitates meeting the goals of the company

 

If you need any help or have any questions send me an e-mail or contact me on the CSIA Connected Community and I will point you in the direction of some help.

 

Happy planning and see you at the conference if not sooner.

 

Together with the IEC 67184-3 specification, the Safety-over-EtherCAT Protocol has been accepted unanimously by the 27 national IEC committees. Achieving this international standard is an important milestone for the EtherCAT Technology Group (ETG). This will further leverage the wide acceptance and uniform usage of EtherCAT technology within the automation world.

 

 

Science has always mattered to those of us old enough to realize how much we have achieved in a relatively short period of time. But are we creating a culture to ensure that we have captured the hearts and minds of the generations that follow? Will they come to know that science is really the language of discovery, learned through curiosity, imagination, and inspiration? In short, are we doing enough to make science cool?

 

 

 

The Control System Integrators Association (CSIA) is pleased to announce that the following member companies have recently earned "Certified Member" distinction.

 

To become a CSIA certified member, a member company must pass an intensive audit process with stringent performance standards categories in nine categories: general management, financial management, project management, quality management, technical management, human resources management and marketing, business development and sales management.