(l to r) Piercarlo (PC) Romano, Avid Solutions, CSIA chair; Mike Miller, ESCO Automation; Eduardo Acosta, Omnicon S.A.; Jeff Miller, Interstates Control Systems, CSIA treasurer; Richard Brueggman, Data Science Automation; Bob Lowe, CSIA executive director; Lynda Patterson, CSIA president; Samuel Hoff, Patti Engineering; Greta Mattison, CSIA global coordinator; Don Ulrich, Stone Technologies; Jeanne Rosen, CSIA communications director; Mark Moriarty, Rockwell Automation; Steve Goldberg, Matrix Technologies, CSIA past chair.

Organizational structure and clarity: Making the most effective use of our resources. After the Executive Conference we worked with each of our committees, re-evaluating their objectives and structure. Improvements were made, and all committees have updated their charters and are off and running. Now, our focus has turned to defining our overall organizational structure to support CSIA's growth over the next five years. We're currently forming a task force, including current board members and association experts to help us with this.

Increased value to our constituents. Earlier this year, we defined our constituent groups as system integrators, automation suppliers and clients. Now, there are three committees that will map out the increased value that CSIA will provide to each constituent group, as well as subgroups based on criteria such as size, geography and language. Then, they will begin work creating that value.

A more powerful online presence. We assembled a task force to develop a concept with a working title of "Marketplace," to increase system integrators' visibility in the market and to provide enhanced interaction among integrators, automation suppliers and clients. The team developed a user requirement specification for the site and researched a number of different strategies to roll it out. At the meeting in Madison, the board unanimously voted to move forward with Diamax, a firm that specializes in providing multichannel digital communications solutions and executive information services to organizations like CSIA. We are beginning work on Marketplace now, so stay tuned for updates over the next few months!

CSIA receives feedback regularly on the most significant business challenges facing our members. Among the feedback is a desire to improve selling capabilities, a skill that does not come naturally and that is particularly difficult for technology people. To meet this challenge, CSIA and Sandler Training have designed a Sandler's Solution Program to deliver sales training to sales professionals and those who manage sales professionals. The program is tailored to the system integration industry. With 250 training centers around the world and more than 600 certified Sandler Trainers, Sandler is uniquely positioned to support CSIA's members' sales and sales leadership teams for the 2014 calendar year and beyond.

The program offers options to meet the needs of members in all areas, and those with small or large sales training budgets. Regardless of location or budget, the recommended first step is Initial Training, a two-day workshop tailored to the system integration industry that will build a Sandler sales foundation. Following the Initial Training are two options: 1) local training at a Sandler authorized training center, or 2) a package of "reinforcements" customized for CSIA that will be delivered via the internet. The first Initial Training program will be the two days before the 2014 CSIA conference in San Diego, April 22-23. Other Initial Training programs will be offered after the conference at various locations based on demand.

To help us launch the program we ask that you complete a brief survey. Thanks in advance for your feedback. Our hope is that your company will take advantage of this opportunity to improve your sales effectiveness which no doubt will have a positive return on investment. Please know that all prices are below market value and are applicable in 2014. 

Here's the survey. Thank you!

SERIES SCHEDULE

NEXT:

Jeff Miller

• Build your PM team around a globally recognized standard --- project Management Institute's (PMI) PMBOK manual
• Develop training modules for your PMs that relate to your everyday world - relate your project delivery methodology to the knowledge areas
• Is PMI's Project management Professional (PMP) Certification for your company? Project Management is a profession, not just an extra responsibility.
• Effective hiring of Project Managers 

Register here.

ARCHIVES:

Aug. 28, 2013

Ken Edmundson

Oct. 23, 2013

Ken Edmundson

Gina Coleal

Nick Setchell

by Marcela Vallejo, Latin America Coordinator

The Latin America Advisory Committee has been created and a LATAM (LATin AMerica) Coordinator, Marcela Vallejo, has been retained by CSIA. The first meeting took place in late October. Main topics discussed and proposed were the following.

Main ideas to generate awareness of CSIA and the benefits of certification:

• Create alliances with partners and ISA
• Start contacting final clients throughout the region with the support of the committee focusing on Mexico
• Translate available materials and discussion forums to Spanish, including the website and Best Practices & Benchmarks Manual
• Have discussion spaces in Spanish regularly and for the annual conference
• Investigate other local associations and their strengths to benchmark
• Spread the word why the certification generates value to an integrator and that it is a customized product for each one

Main reason for integrators not being interested in being part of CSIA and/or being certified:

• Resistance to share best practices with their competitors
• Being certified is expensive and unnecessary if final clients do not demand it

Answers to the above:

• Make a survey to identify and validate the most relevant reasons for integrators not being interested

Other new improvements for LATAM

• A replacement for Find an Integrator is being developed and should also be available in Spanish

Priorities would be set to execute this plan to be implemented by the LatAm Coordinator with the support of the Advisory Committee.

• the state of most vertical industries from an integrator's perspective 
• which industries are being increasingly pursued by integrators
• system integration activity trends (orders, book-to-bill, revenue, backlog)
• vendor market positions and integrator perspectives of vendors
• MES position in the marketplace

by Rick Pierro, Superior Controls

What is the one task that a systems integrator absolutely has to get right? From my experience, it's hiring the right engineer. This sounds trivial, but to do it right and consistently requires a process ---  a process that should start with a written test.

Think about it. Your engineer is going to have to stay cool under pressure. During a startup, he or she will have to exude technical and managerial confidence while your customer is screaming that he needs the facility up and running now. What type of test comes closest to testing these skills under these conditions?

At Superior Controls we immediately tell a new candidate that we have a written test we'd like him or her to take to demonstrate his programming and electrical design skills. This test requires the candidate to write ladder logic to mix and heat fluids in a reactor. We let him know that this normally takes an hour but unfortunately we only have 30 minutes for him to complete the test. To make it a bit more challenging, we intentionally leave out some critical information - like the existence of a level sensor that is essential to write the program. Does your client always tell you upfront all the pertinent information needed to automate his process? 

This gives us a chance to see how the candidate thinks under pressure. When we sit down to review his test results, does he become defensive and angry? Does he make reasonable assumptions about the missing information? Does he gently and diplomatically point out his assumptions? And can he program under pressure?

If he passes the test, then we start the interview process and get to know him to see if he's a good fit in our company culture. If he fails, we do everything we can to help him save face. "You're a lot like me! We've both been in management for so long we've gotten rusty with programming" is what I often will say. Always assume that every candidate will eventually become engineering manager at your best client, because eventually one will.

Attend the 2014 Executive Conference and hear about the other nine tasks that a systems integrator should know!

• A contract will be interpreted according to its plain meaning. Only if the meaning of a provision is NOT plain and unambiguous do any of these rules come into play.
• Look to any "order of priority" provision in the contract for resolving contradictions between separate contract documents --- for instance between the specs and the written agreement itself.
• If there is a possible interpretation under which two otherwise contradictory provisions can be made consistent with each other, that is the interpretation that is adopted.
• If there are two provisions on the same topic, and one is general and the other is more specific, the more specific provision will take precedence.
• Handwritten or marked-up additions to a contract carry greater weight than pre-printed provisions.
• If there are two equally plausible interpretations of a contract term, the one most favorable to the company that did NOT draft the contract should be adopted.
• In the absence of being able to apply any other rule, the interpretation that the parties themselves have given the contract through their actions (either in this project or in past projects) is given great weight.
• When there is no other means of resolving confusion, established custom in the industry will be used to decide the issue.

Meet Eric Schaefer

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