In This Issue
Rates increase $100 next week
Sandler Sales Training
April Webinar
Strategies for choosing a system integrator and managing the relationship
Remote auditing process is being tested
ARC Advisory Group
Check out the new and improved Application Showcase
The strong, silent type
21 Legal Takeaways
Cybersecurity: Are you prepared?
Mentor of the Month: Tom Walther
REGISTER TODAY!
2013 logo
Register now open for the 2013 CSIA Executive Conference, 
May 1-4 in St. Pete Beach, Florida.

 

certified logo
Congratulations to these CSIA Certified members

Re-Certified
Fresno, CA
United States

MIlwaukee, WI
United States 

Mumbai
India 

 

Welcome new members

Automatik Control Industrial, S.A. DE C.V.
Cuauhtemoc, DF
Mexico

Automation Management Solutions
Maadi, C
Egypt

Cooper Bussmann (Wireless)
Pleasanton, CA
United States

Ingenieria Automatizacion Control Y Communicaciones S.A. de C.V.
Puebla, PUE
Mexico

Integrated Process Solutions, Inc.
Fosston, MN
United States

Kooltronic, Inc.
Pennington, NJ
United States

Parasyn
Tingalpa, QLD
Australia

Productos y Servicios de Medicion, Automatizacion y Control
Caracas, D
Venezuela

Qanare Engineering
Karachi, SD
Pakistan

Sentinel Machine Safety
New Lenox, IL
United States

 

Contact Us 

Leadership directory

________________

 

Get Connected 

LinkedIn 

Facebook Twitter

________________

 

Join CSIA

Apply Now  

________________ 


Refer a new member!

Tell your colleagues about CSIA. Find member benefits and an application at www.controlsys.org.

 The go-to resource for control system integration.  

April 2013  
Rates increase $100 next week
Plus: Reserve your hotel room fast. 

2013 logo
We're getting down to the wire now. Just a few days left to save money on your conference registration. After Sunday the early rates will expire and registrations will increase $100 per person.

Hotel rooms are going fast too! The TradeWinds Island Grand has a limited number of rooms left at the special conference rate of $199. After Sunday, those rates will increase dramatically. Get your room while you can! 

For program details, registration information and hotel reservations, please visit the conference website.

Register Now  
Sandler sales training  
Bring your sales team!
Come early to the CSIA Executive Conference for a full day of intensive sales training.

Guide yourself to break conventional rules that make the sales process ineffective. Join sales development expert John Rosso for this informative full day of training that illustrates how to incorporate honest, no-nonsense sales techniques that get results. Russo is founder and CEO of Peak Performance Management Inc., a Sandler Sales Training Center.

Designed specifically for CSIA members, sales people, technical leads, sales managers, owners and presidents all will benefit from this seminar, which builds on the recent hour-long webinar that broke the record for CSIA webinar attendance.

Come to this full-day training session on Wednesday, May 1, to learn:
  • How to break down the prospects' defense walls and develop instant trust and credibility
  • The four crucial steps for effective pre-call planning
  • The questioning methodology that will motivate your buyer to take action
  • To talk money and uncover budget objections early
  • To find the hidden decision makers and have your buyer stick to a timeline
  • Effective phone and voice mail strategies to get through to prospects and have them return your call
  • To get people to make decisions without being a pushy or stereotypical salesperson
In this full-day training session, you can see first-hand how we tackle the same business development issues that your people deal with every day. Invest one full-day of training and discover why more than 95% of attendees rate the content and presentation of these sought after business development solutions the BEST they've ever heard!

Break the Rules and Close More Sales
8 a.m. - 4 p.m.
,EDT
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
TradeWinds Island Grand
5500 Gulf Boulevard
St. Pete Beach, Fla., U.S.

Fees:
First attendee: $500 USD
Second attendee: $400 USD
Note: CSIA has negotiated a discounted rate for this full day of sales training - a $900 value!

 

register now  

April Webinar
How to leverage KPICs and CSIA Salary Survey data to benchmark your business

Thursday, April 4, 2013
11 a.m., EDT (New York)
Chris Smith, iLumen, Manager - Services

Are you winning? How do you know? This webinar will help answer these questions by showing you how to quickly leverage the latest updates and improvements to the KPICs and Salary Survey.

Customers want best pricing, employees want great salaries, and banks want clean balance sheets. But how realistic are their expectations? Your company can help answer this question by joining the CSIA Statistics Program. On this webinar, we'll be discussing 1) the latest improved new features and benefits and 2) how you can extract the best value from the KPICs and Salary Survey programs.

The ability to benchmark against industry norms is fundamentally important. Don't just react to your customers, employees and banks. Be proactive. Start by participating in this webinar. 

 

Register here.

CSIA webinars are recorded. See the webinar archives to listen in again or find out what you've missed.

 

Automation Conference 2013

 

CSIA to present strategies for choosing
a system integrator

CSIA's Bob Lowe, Steve Goldberg, Joe Martin, Eduardo Acosta and Ed Diehl will present a session at the Automation Conference on how to select a system integrator. They'll explain how the indirect questions you ask will have as much impact on the success of your project as a direct question. They'll also provide tips on managing responsibilities and expectations.


Register for the Automation Conference, May 14-15, in Chicago, Ill., U.S. and save $100 with your CSIA discount. Use "CSIA" as your discount code. 

 
Remote auditing process is being tested

The cost of having an auditor travel to each branch location to conduct an onsite audit keeps some of our members from seeking CSIA Certification for their branch offices. To overcome that barrier, CSIA will work with one of our certified members, JMP Engineering, to test a pilot remote auditing process in the third quarter of 2013. Their offices in the United States and Canada are included in this pilot program.

 

Using today's video and desktop-viewing technology makes it possible to audit the business capabilities of a branch from the member's main office and see the same materials as if being physically there. Although a physical presence may have some benefit, we feel that the difference may not be great enough to continue requiring an on-site audit. We realize that some branch offices are tightly linked to a main office and others function nearly autonomously, so business models will be factored into the decision to allow remote branch office audits.

 

Of utmost importance to CSIA is maintaining the quality and credibility of audits for CSIA certification. The clients of our certified members rely on us to conduct high quality audits, so please know that we take that responsibility very seriously. 

 

ARC Advisory Group - Process Management Academy in Belgium

by Bob Lowe, Executive Director

 

I attended the ARC Process Management Academy in Belgium in March, which was attended mostly by end users located throughout Europe. With me was Marcel van Haren, chairman of FEDA, a Dutch-based trade association. Three of their members are CSIA Certified members. Another CSIA guest was Bart Crombez who is an IT Manager at Cargill in Belgium. I came to know Bart several months ago from his inquiry about CSIA certification.

 

Although neither Marcel nor Bart knew what to expect, both were pleased with the conference content. My presentation, "Selecting and Working with a Control System Integrator," was well received. My primary point is that selecting an integrator is simplified by selecting a certified CSIA member because the client is reasonably assured that the integrator is well structured and has good business practices, thereby reducing risk.

 

While in Europe, I traveled with Marcel to the FEDA office to meet with CSIA members and other FEDA personnel. The outcome was a renewed desire for CSIA and FEDA to collaborate to the mutual benefit of both organizations. Marcel and the former FEDA chairman, Andre Braakman, will be at our conference in May where we'll develop a strategic plan.

  
CSI industry survey results are available 
to members
by Bob Lowe, Executive Director

The results of the recently completed Personnel Safety Program survey are in the Survey Results library, along with results of other CSIA surveys. Thank you to the Member Relations Committee for developing this important survey, which came at the request of a certified member. These surveys are very helpful to our members so please review them. This CSIA industry information is not available anywhere but here at CSIA.

The JP Morgan/CSIA survey of the system integration industry is being repeated very soon. This will be an abbreviated version because we feel that some of the questions need to be asked only annually and it reduces the time required to complete it. More than 200 integrators completed the inaugural survey in December so we would like to exceed that number this time. The survey provides valuable information about the CSI industry which is critically important to our members and other institutions. All members receive the raw data but only participants receive the JPM summary report, something you don't want to miss.

Check out the new and improved
Application Showcase

by Sam Hoff, Partner Committee Chair

 

Members can expect to see a greater variety of information presented in the Application Showcase on the Connected Community in the future. The Partner Committee revised the process for Partners to share news about their products and services. In addition to the template, Partners now can upload white papers, video and other types of files to the library.

 

Partners traditionally roll out new offerings at the expo during the Executive Conference. The Application Showcase gives all members immediate access to new product information. Thank you, Partners, for helping members stay on the cutting edge of SI technology.

 

The strong, silent type

by Philippe Cesson, 2013 Executive Conference speaker

 

If like me you are a fan of the old TV show "The Sopranos," you probably remember Tony. The head of the New Jersey mob family frequently lamented the dearth of strong, silent type guys like John Wayne or Cary Grant while struggling mightily to reconcile his mafia family to the 21st century realities.

 

As CEOs and executives, we deal with change on a daily basis. It is human nature to anchor ourselves to the people and customs we are comfortable with, so cut yourself some slack if that's what you do, especially when it comes to technology. Then get over it, because we are living in the best time our human race has ever seen. And 2014 will be ever better. And the year after that. And so on.

 

The answers to your most pressing business and personal issues are out there, ready to be reaped with just a little knowledge and the willingness to edge out of your comfort zone.

  • Unimpressed with your social media results (or lack thereof)? Have you tried scoop.it?
  • Can't believe your employees are using Facebook at work? Create a clear set of key performance indicators to evaluate their performance on a 24-hour clock and you'll avoid having to micromanage them or their time.
  • Wondering why you can't get your work email on your iPhone? Switch to Bring Your Own Device and a cloud-based solution instead.
  • Exhausted by the onslaught of stimuli made possible by technology? Give your brain a daily rest and use liberal doses of humor and humility.

These may not be the solutions that you need, but we've only just begun. Please join me in St. Pete Beach on Friday, May 3, during the CSIA Executive Conference for "The Alchemy of Business, Life and Technology workshop - or How to Thrive and Collaborate Via Technology While Bridging the Generational Divide." And if you can't make it, please enjoy our webinars, blog posts and scoop.it articles at cesson.com.

 

Philippe Cesson is Chief Alchemist at Cesson 3.0, a a marketing and training agency with offices in Miami, San Diego and New York City. He can be reached at (619) 955-7555 or [email protected].  

Focus on ROI justification tools and OpEx budgets
by Craig Resnick, Vice President, ARC Advisory Group

CSIA members offer a tremendous value proposition to their end user and original equipment manufacturers (OEM) customers by deploying products, solutions and services focused on raising productivity levels that provide a measurable, justifiable return on investment (ROI). This is often the only way their customers can justify upgrading what is not broken.

Capital expenditure (CapEx) approval for automation improvements is hard to come by. End users and OEMs only want to make automation investments that provide a certain guarantee of a return, as often less than one year payback is required for CapEx approval. The challenge for CSIA members is to provide their customers with the help, expertise and tools to do the ROI calculations, as well as to find creative ways to get projects justified. Then CSIA members can focus on projects with the obvious, quickest ROI first.

This conservative approach by end users and OEMs is not because these companies are not doing well. In fact, most of these companies have plenty of cash because of their cautious view of the global economy, which has led to pre-emptive cost cutting and smaller payrolls. Reduced labor forces create service opportunities for CSIA members. Services are often paid for from the customer's monthly operations expenditure (OpEx) budgets.

So when the ROI calculations don't provide a short enough payback time based on the customers CapEx criteria, CSIA members should focus on opportunities directed towards the service side of the business and OpEx budgets, which are often quicker and easier to justify than CapEx projects.

Resnick, vice president of consulting at Advisory Group, will be speaking on "Megatrends of Industrial Automation,"on Friday, May 3, at the 2013 CSIA Executive Conference. You can reach Resnick at [email protected].

21 Legal Takeaways: But wait, there's more
by Mark A. Voigtmann, CSIA Attorney

At this year's CSIA Executive Conference, I will be presenting "21 Legal Takeaways in 45 Minutes," with each takeaway corresponding to a different chapter of my new book being published shortly by the ISA, The Automation Legal Reference.
 
I have decided to preview all 21 of the takeaways in different forms. Three have been done already. Takeaway #4 appears here.

Takeaway #4 is to treat contract integration as seriously as system integration. The two concepts are surprisingly similar but it's rare to find a system integrator who gives careful attention to both. System integration often means to harmonize the distinct parts of a process. To be successful, you need to know what is included in the "system" and what is not. So too with contracts.

Consider this: Every job, every project, regardless of what your company may call it, forms a new and distinct contract. But what is included? To know this, first check out which documents are included - is there a list? Second, look for something called an "integration clause." This is the sentence in one of your documents that says something like "except for the terms in these documents, no others are valid." If you have both, your contract likely is integrated and you are on your way to managing your risk.

I have 17 to go. Between now and the conference look for Takeaways #5 through #21 on Twitter - @automationlaw (hashtag #21takeaways), in posts within the CSIA Connected Community, or both.

Mark Voigtmann is a partner in the automation practice at Faegre Baker Daniels LLP. He can be reached at (317) 237-1265 or [email protected].

 

Cybersecurity: Are you prepared?

Safeguarding industrial automation and control from cyber attacks is essential for manufacturers, energy companies, municipal facilities and others. Control system integrators carry a responsibility to employee secure best practices, ensure that their facilities are safeguarded and the facilities of their end-user clients are safeguarded to the extent that the integrator has control.

So how does an integrator prepare to meet these responsibilities? Training. ISA provides several training opportunities so go to the CSIA Education and Training library for a flier that provides details. Additionally, the U.S .Department of Homeland Security provides training. See the Cybersecurity Training & Exercises section of the DHS website.

The ISA Security Compliance Institute manages the ISASecure™ program, which recognizes and promotes cyber-secure products and practices for industrial automation suppliers and operational sites. The ISASecure™ designation is earned by industrial control suppliers for products that demonstrate adherence to an industry consensus cyber security specification for security characteristics and supplier development practices. Become part of the movement to secure critical infrastructure around the globe by using ISA Secure™ certified products. 

 

Mentor of the Month:
Tom Walther, ESE, Inc.
Tom Walther

by Joe Martin, Ambassadors Committee Chair


Tell us a little about yourself:

I was born in San Francisco, but have lived most of my life in the Midwest, including Illinois and Wisconsin. (I like the Central time zone!) I started my college endeavors with my eye on going on to medical school. But during those years, I fell in love twice; first with my high school sweetheart, and second with computers. My sweetheart and I have been married 38 years, and she'll tell you that she still fights my second love. I started in business management at 20 years old and never looked back. I became president of a $20 million distribution company at age 30, and got hooked on logistics and business systems. I started at ESE in 1995 as the general manager of our computer division, and became president of ESE in 2000. In 2013, I engineered a buy-out and transitioned the company to a 100% employee-owned ESOP. My passion is my faith, and my life revolves around helping change lives for eternity.


Tell us about ESE, Inc:

The company was started in 1986 by Mark Weber. He has been the majority shareholder until our recent transaction. We focus our control system integration in the process arena specializing in the food industry, specifically from receiving raw materials to the completed product before packaging. We also have developed a line of product analyzers that measure multiple constituents like fat, protein, moisture, pH, viscosity, sugars, salt, etc., and provide accurate results in fewer than five seconds for all of the constituents. We offer this in three platforms: a laboratory instrument, an at-line instrument and an in-line model. We have successfully now placed these internationally.


What has CSIA done for you and your company?

We joined CSIA in 1998. In the first several years we had little interaction with the organization. I attended my first executive conference in 2001 and my eyes were opened! I understood how meeting with likeminded business owners can be such a value in learning different approaches to problems we all face. We became certified in 2005, after starting the process in 2003. We have been re-certified twice since then.

 

The certification process is a benefit in itself. The focus on continuous improvement has taught us that we can always do better. The audits have always provided more insight into our own company than we ever imagined. 

 

Participating in the CSIA Best Practices has helped us set ourselves apart from integrators who haven't gone through that process. New clients have found us on the certified member list of CSIA's website and Find an Integrator.


What can you offer as a mentor?

I approach our industry from a business perspective, not specifically as an engineer. My background is deeper into the whole of the company including the financial controls, human resources, sales, marketing and information technology, in addition to the engineering operations. That insight can sometimes give a different perspective.

 

I serve on the CSIA Marketing Committee and am a past board member. I'm interested in sharing my experiences from both our company and working with CSIA leadership.


What one piece of advice would you give to a new member?

Attend the executive conference. That is the most important activity to get value out of your membership. You may share a special tip that you've learned along the way, and in return, you'll get 20 new ones that may change your business forever! Download the Best Practices and begin to prepare for an audit. While it may appear a little daunting in the beginning, just reviewing the practices and beginning an internal audit can reap great dividends!

 

Get involved. You will only get out of this organization what you put
into it!


If you're a new member or just want to find out how you can get more benefit from your CSIA membership, please feel free to contact Tom at [email protected].

_________________________________________________________

 

Looking for a member mentor? In the Connected Community go to Directory > Find a Member. Check Mentor search box, then Find Members.