Leaving your comfort zone
27 Jul 2011
Technology crossover is a recurring theme in the latest issue of Process Engineering: highlighting how engineers can learn lessons from elsewhere in the process industries, as well as from other industrial sectors.
The latter point is well illustrated in our condition monitoring feature, which, among other developments, reports on the use of Formula 1 racing technology at nuclear plants and the emergence of smartphone applications for maintenance technicians and engineers.
The concept of applying technology from other sectors pops up in a slightly different way in our report on a panel discussion at the Automation and Control for Energy conference in Manchester.
During the session on control and instrumentation (C&I) trends, Robin Harvey of Yokogawa contrasted his experiences as a sales manager supplying C&I into the oil & gas and petrochemicals industries with his more recent engagement in the power-generation sector.
Describing the power industry as “very risk averse”, he said: “Their technicians are very familiar with 4-20mA, but the step to digital networks they find a bit daunting. I find this incredible, [as] this is not a new technology.”
That Harvey’s comments generated such a lively and informed discussion among the power industry engineers at the conference suggested that more vendors should leave their comfort zone to better engage with engineers, who spend many years using their systems and equipment.
At the same event, a BP engineer prompted debate on how the pace of new releases by major software suppliers, such as Microsoft, is imposing obsolescence on many tried-and-trusted process systems – a lesson our C&I vendors will, hopefully, not take from another industry sector.
