Walt Boyes' Blog

Uchida-san gave his usual rousing oration. Long time Yoko employees describe a pivotal managers' meeting after the breakup of the partnership with Johnson Controls where Uchida got them so wound up that they were on their feet, banging their chairs on the floor, shouting and pushing their hands in the air, screaming "We can DO it! Yes, we CAN!" like they were a football team … [Read more...] about From the department of "the man can talk…"

David Johnson began by saying that his mission was to bring the passion of Yokogawa's culture to the end users. "Next year will be our 50th year in North America. The breadth of who we are," he said, "is amazing and most people in North America have never seen it. We have been understated." No kidding. Understated is an understatement. "One of our strongest assets is Isao … [Read more...] about The Gaijin-in-Chief speaks…

"The world is about to change again. We have three enormous challenges facing us. The first is demographics. The US Department of Commerce rated the infrastructure of North America a 'D'. The second is that our technology is underutilized: loops are in manual, advanced process control systems aren't updated and the operators turn them off... The third is also demographic: the … [Read more...] about John Bowron goes on…

First up this morning is John Bowron, who, although not a newbie to the world of process automation (having spent over 27 years in it so far), has recently assumed the position of vice president of Yokogawa Corporation of America, and is responsible for sales and marketing. He proudly announced that David Johnson has been promoted to President and CEO of Yokogawa Corporation of … [Read more...] about Bowron-san takes a bow…

This is the first really big user group meeting Yokogawa has had in the United States, and a lot of it is that they've brought the Technology Innovation Fair to the US from Japan for the first time. Just to show you how steep the run-up curve is, last year, we had 80 end users, and we all fit on one-third of a Potomac River cruise boat for dinner. Today, there are 600 end … [Read more...] about Yokogawa explains it all to you…