David Chappell, one of the Procter and Gamble Batch Gurus, talked about the Make2Pack initiative, and then Adam Maki from Rockwell stole the show. Discussing the migration of S88 schemas and terminology to the discrete automation side, he was clearly the most entertaining speaker of the afternoon. Since I don't work in discrete automation much, and as your humble editor I focus on process automation, it was interesting to learn that the S88 standard generalizes so well. If you ever get a chance ...

Notice at work:

Due to safety concerns and recent incidents, the "Light At The End Of
The Tunnel" has had a NEMA4 Explosion-Proof cover placed over it to
prevent anyone from reaching it. The managment appreciates everyone's
cooperation in avoiding this dangerous light source.

Now why do I think we've all been there before?...

I have learned a lot today...the future of control is in understanding and controlling manufacturing theory. I said a while ago that people are breaking up "continuous processing" into batch-like segments and running them according to S88 principles. This is a complete reversal of what Lynn Craig found when he was first trying to figure out how to standardize batch production for Rohm and Haas, remember.

Now, what does all this mean for the process automation professional? Plenty.

First, the d...

You may have noticed from the preceeding that WBF is spending lots of time talking about S95, rather than S88. If you didn't notice this, shame on you for not paying attention. WBF is clearly about much more than batch, or the batch standards, and Lynn Craig discussed what's been going on.

A joint working group has been formed to define how S88 and S95 work together, starting with overlaps and gaps. There is much overlap, since both standards define similar functions. The biggest gap is that S8...

WBF Chair Maurice Wilkins chaired a lunchtime meeting of the WBF Board and the Sponsors, which indicated that WBF can sometimes be its own worst enemy, and that there were many ways sponsors could help WBF, provided WBF asks them to. CONTROL will be helping WBF, as a worthy cause....

Procter and Gamble has been a huge supporter of WBF since the beginning. David Cornell explained why. P&G needed to work with vendors to develop standards based interfaces; ERP with S95, MES with S95, and MES with S88. And P&G needed all their plant floor MES systems to play well with SAP, at the corporate level. P&G expects that they will save lots of time (months instead of years) implementing B2MML. Essentially, they've done what they call setting the standard for ERP and MES integration, usi...

John Blanchard delivered a very thought provoking talk this morning at WBF. His topic, written with the help of Bob Mick, also of ARC, was "Achieving Interoperability Using B2MML and Beyond."

Their thesis was that it is becoming critical for manufacturing companies to have seamless interoperability and integration in P2B (Production to Business). These guys are into TLAs. The challenge, John said, is not just creating standards, and not just interoperability on a technical level, but the abili...

This morning started with the traditional report from Maurice Wilkins, Chairman of WBF...I can't get used to it not being World Batch Forum, but I will, because they are right...it is about more than batch. The new tagline is "The Forum for Automation and Manufacturing Professionals," which, considering the contents of the meeting agenda, is much more accurate than "world batch forum" would be.

Asish Ghosh, from ARC, who chairs the WBF Nominating Committee, presented the WBF's own awards this m...

Last night, I had the ability to make grown men cry, as Dick Caro and Russ Rhinehart were honored before their peers as inductees into the Process Automation Hall of Fame. I can report that each of them was humble and a little teary as they acknowledged the accolade. As always, it was short, sweet, and finished fast....

I got to Atlantic City early for WBF. What this means is that the Trump Taj Mahal (there's a reason that Trump Casinos is in bankruptcy) wouldn't give me a room for about three hours. So, I went to Lynn Craig's S88 Tutorial.

Craig, who is one of the parents of the batch standard, and one of the inductees of the Process Automation Hall of Fame, has a deprecating and wry wit, and is enjoyable to listen to, especially since his rate of information transfer is high.

He gave a short history of the ...