Walt Boyes' Blog

From Senior Technical Editor Rich Merritt: I have a soft spot in my heart for Square D. Back in the 1980s, in another lifetime, in another career, I was the PR account exec for Square D's PR agency. We had replaced Square D's long-time agency, and it was our assignment to beef up Square D's image, improve market share, and obtain sales leads. We did all that in spades, more or … [Read more...] about Rich Merritt on Schneider–

Not content with losing nearly all of Modicon's North American market share to Allen-Bradley, Schneider appears bent on destroying the second-best known brand of PLC in the world. The brand, that is. Schneider is careful to say that they will continue to be manufacturing Modicon as a brand of Telemechanique PLC. The Modicon website is dead. What IS it with automation vendors … [Read more...] about Where, oh where, has Modicon gone?

Rockwell Automation Announces Attendance at 2005 Automation Fair Rockwell Automation's John Bernaden and Steve Smith announced today that a record 14,000 people attended the just-completed Automation Fair in St. Louis, Mo. The absolute enormity of this announcement must be made clear. The recent ISA2005, held in Chicago, had approximately 11,500 attendees, including … [Read more...] about Trade Shows vs Automation Fair

Rockwell Automation to Acquire Datasweep, a Leader in Production Management Software Acquisition Expands FactoryTalk Plant-wide Information Software Offerings So, Rockwell Automation is buying Datasweep Inc., a privately held MES software company. ArvinMeritor, Johnson & Johnson, Lucent and Qualcomm are a few of the world-class companies that use Datasweep’s production … [Read more...] about Rockwell Puts Money Where Mouth Is

Automating the Panama Canal, Chips for Cows, and Five Technologies that will Drive the Future of Manufacturing Carlos Patterson from the Panama Canal Authority discussed the benefits of realtime control and information for ship tracking and collision management, and the huge control system upgrade they've just finished. Brad Galles from Wells' Dairy talked more about the RFID … [Read more...] about More from Manufacturing Perspectives