In this 18-minute podcast, Emerson's Ana Gonzalez Hernandez and Chris Hamlin describe how research into manufacturing resource efficiency is translating into better solutions for optimizing material usage, reducing energy consumption, and operating more sustainably. The Operational Certainty consulting team can help your organization plan and execute a path to more efficient and sustainable manufacturing.

Transcript

Jim: Hi. This is Jim with another edition of the "Emerson Automation Experts" podcast. And today, I'm joined by Ana Gonzalez Hernandez and Chris Hamlin and we're going to talk a little bit about resource efficiency. But before we do, let's find out a little bit more about them. Ana, let's start. Give us a little bit of your background.

Ana: Hi. I studied my undergraduate degree at Imperial College in London. I did mechanical engineering and then I did a PhD in Cambridge. My PhD was funded by Emerson. I've been working for four years on resource efficiency. Trying to help companies reduce their energy and material consumption and looking at developing new methods to understand resource efficiency in a way that is more holistic and integrated. And from there, after a few years of the PhD, Emerson started seeing a lot of value in the work. And when I finished my PhD, they offered me a job to try and develop an engineering solution within Emerson. I've been working under the Operational Certainty consulting team since I finished my PhD in March. I started working in May—it'll be now five months.

Jim: Well, it's great to have you aboard with Emerson. Chris, give us a little bit of your background.

Chris: Okay. I've worked for Emerson for 10 years. Joined as a chemical industry business consultant, done a variety of roles since then, and now look after our new Operational Certainty consulting practice for Europe, Middle East, and Africa. And I'm lucky enough to actually have Ana on my team. I'm very excited about the whole kind of concept of resource efficiency and where we're going with it.

Jim: Okay. Great. Can you tell us a little bit more about resource efficiency and what the potential is there for our customers?

Ana: Yes. I guess maybe going back a bit and talking about where the idea came from. In Cambridge where I did my PhD, we were looking into material efficiency which is basically looking at ways of reducing material use in big process industries, and we were also looking at energy efficiency. How do you reduce energy use? Then we realized that actually, there's very little understanding of how the two come together. How do you make sure that you reduce your material and your energy use and not...you know, there's trade-offs between the two.

The consumption of resources is linked and making sure that you're actually reducing energy overall to make changes to your material use and vice versa but also realizing that when you reduce material use, you are reducing energy use as well, because materials take a lot of energy to actually convert. It all started by seeing that there was a lack of metrics, a lack of an analysis, a framework, to actually have a complete idea of how the plants are operating in terms of their resource management. Basically, the work that I was doing in Cambridge was exactly coming up with ways of measuring, having indicators that bring the concepts of energy and material efficiency together and also using Emerson's expertise in process automation.

The fact that we can have access to a lot of data now, you have sensors, the whole digital transformation space, and making sure that we can use that data to actually inform our resource efficiency as well.

Jim: Chris, how does that tie in with the Operational Certainty consulting with having this framework and that part of it? How does that come together?

Chris: Okay. The whole basis for around what we do with Operational Certainty consulting is look to imp...

In this 18-minute podcast, Emerson's Ana Gonzalez Hernandez and Chris Hamlin describe how research into manufacturing resource efficiency is translating into better solutions for optimizing material usage, reducing energy consumption, and operating more sustainably. The Operational Certainty consulting team can help your organization plan and execute a path to more efficient and sustainable manufacturing.

Transcript

Jim: Hi. This is Jim with another edition of the "Emerson Automation Experts" podcast. And today, I'm joined by Ana Gonzalez Hernandez and Chris Hamlin and we're going to talk a little bit about resource efficiency. But before we do, let's find out a little bit more about them. Ana, let's start. Give us a little bit of your background.

Ana: Hi. I studied my undergraduate degree at Imperial College in London. I did mechanical engineering and then I did a PhD in Cambridge. My PhD was funded by Emerson. I've been working for four years on resource efficiency. Trying to help companies reduce their energy and material consumption and looking at developing new methods to understand resource efficiency in a way that is more holistic and integrated. And from there, after a few years of the PhD, Emerson started seeing a lot of value in the work. And when I finished my PhD, they offered me a job to try and develop an engineering solution within Emerson. I've been working under the Operational Certainty consulting team since I finished my PhD in March. I started working in May—it'll be now five months.

Jim: Well, it's great to have you aboard with Emerson. Chris, give us a little bit of your background.

Chris: Okay. I've worked for Emerson for 10 years. Joined as a chemical industry business consultant, done a variety of roles since then, and now look after our new Operational Certainty consulting practice for Europe, Middle East, and Africa. And I'm lucky enough to actually have Ana on my team. I'm very excited about the whole kind of concept of resource efficiency and where we're going with it.

Jim: Okay. Great. Can you tell us a little bit more about resource efficiency and what the potential is there for our customers?

Ana: Yes. I guess maybe going back a bit and talking about where the idea came from. In Cambridge where I did my PhD, we were looking into material efficiency which is basically looking at ways of reducing material use in big process industries, and we were also looking at energy efficiency. How do you reduce energy use? Then we realized that actually, there's very little understanding of how the two come together. How do you make sure that you reduce your material and your energy use and not...you know, there's trade-offs between the two.

The consumption of resources is linked and making sure that you're actually reducing energy overall to make changes to your material use and vice versa but also realizing that when you reduce material use, you are reducing energy use as well, because materials take a lot of energy to actually convert. It all started by seeing that there was a lack of metrics, a lack of an analysis, a framework, to actually have a complete idea of how the plants are operating in terms of their resource management. Basically, the work that I was doing in Cambridge was exactly coming up with ways of measuring, having indicators that bring the concepts of energy and material efficiency together and also using Emerson's expertise in process automation.

The fact that we can have access to a lot of data now, you have sensors, the whole digital transformation space, and making sure that we can use that data to actually inform our resource efficiency as well.

Jim: Chris, how does that tie in with the Operational Certainty consulting with having this framework and that part of it? How does that come together?

Chris: Okay. The whole basis for around what we do with Operational Certainty consulting is look to imp...

Emerson's Ana Gonzalez Hernandez joins our continuing podcast series, 5 questions for an Emerson Expert. Ana received her PhD from the University of Cambridge and is a resource efficiency consultant within the Operational Certainty consulting team.

We'll have an in-depth podcast in the coming weeks on how the Operational Certainty consultants are applying Ana's research to work with manufacturers on data-driven analytical approaches to materials usage and energy consumption to drive sustainability and efficiency performance improvements.

Transcript

Jim: Hi, everybody. This is Jim Cahill, with another edition of "Five Questions for an Emerson Expert" podcast. And today I'm joined by Ana Gonzalez Hernandez. Ana is a resource efficiency consultant based over in the United Kingdom. Welcome, Ana.

Ana: Hi, Jim.

Jim: It's great to have you. I always like to start out and understand a little bit about how folks get to where they are. So, what made you decide to pursue a STEM-based career?

Ana: For all of us, for all the engineers, it's a bit the same… we're interested in physics and maths and we're actually good at it. We're good with numbers and, that combined with the fact that we're curious about the environment that we live in. In general, that's what got me interested in studying science.

And originally, I actually wanted to study physics. And my mum is a physicist. So, when I told her I wanted to study physics, the first thing she said was, "No, just don't do that to yourself." She helped me try and figure out whether engineering was a better route for using my physics and maths skills, and I'm really grateful for that.

Once we started getting into those discussions, I started visiting universities and learning more about engineering. Because in my school...so I studied in Spain, in the Canary Islands and I went to a British school, but the knowledge that you learn in school about engineering at least for me was minimal.

I had to actively go and inform myself about what engineering meant when I was 16 and 17. I guess it was thanks to my mum and by going out and talking to universities about engineering that I ended up studying mechanical engineering.

Jim: Well, that's a fascinating path and very interesting that your mum steered you away from what she was doing. Kind of with that background, what led you to a career in the field of process automation?

Ana: To be honest with you, I started off doing my PhD in the field of sustainability and resource efficiency. And that was my prime interest, four years ago. Emerson was committed at that point to fund research on resource efficiency, and through that then I realized that a company like Emerson who has expertise in control, flow metering, etc... they are the essential building blocks to improve resource efficiency.

We're in a world where, process automation is undergoing digital transformation and data analytics, and all our decisions are data-driven now. I think being in a process automation company is the best way to get to improve the resource efficiency of process industries.

Jim: Well, that's interesting what you were studying and then that sounded like a good fit...I guess working with Emerson to do it because they had the technologies and some of the resources so that you could see advancements happen. Tell us about a recent challenge that you've been working on to solve?

Ana: The biggest challenge is transforming the research I did in my PhD into an actual engineering solution with Emerson. That's probably the big challenge that I'll be working on for the next few years. Transferring conceptual theoretical knowledge into a practical engineering solution through these data analytic skills and through all the digital transformation capabilities that Emerson is developing, we're able to hopefully turn the concepts into reality.

Emerson's John Sanders joins our continuing series of podcasts to share his insights on the process of effectively planning and executing plant shutdowns, turnarounds and outages. He also shares a surprising passion about chasing tornadoes, so make sure to listen in!

We hope you enjoy this podcast and please send me a note about other Emerson experts you'd like to hear from.

Transcript

Jim: Welcome to the Emerson Automation Expert's podcast series. I'm Jim Cahill and today I'm joined by John Sanders. John is Emerson's global director of shutdowns, turnarounds, and outages. He has a business degree from St. Cloud State University and an M.B.A. from the University of St. Thomas and has been with Emerson for almost 20 years. Welcome, John.

John: Thanks, Jim. I appreciate you having me on today.

Jim: Well, it's great you could join us. I always like to start with our Emerson experts by asking what made you decide to pursue a career in services in the process manufacturing industries?

John: Well, that's a great question. Most of my career I spent at Rosemount supporting the instrumentation there. So a lot of my career was spent talking to customers about the instrumentation needs. Now it's always about the devices. And what I've learned over time is that customers...really there was a big gap when it came to once they get the devices, how do they maintain them? How do they utilize them and leverage all the technology, the bells and whistles that come with them? So I really saw a big gap and opportunity there for Emerson to help our customers better understand the technology, be able to leverage our technology better which in the end you know it supports the brand, it strengthens the brand. So that's why I saw a good opportunity to help our customers.

Jim: Yeah and that's so important. You can have the best technology in the world and if you're not applying it to deliver the value that it can then you're not getting what you can from it. So that's really good. So tell us about some of the market trends and opportunities you're hearing from these manufacturers that you interact with looking around these lifecycle services.

John: Oh, I'll tell you I've always sought after talking to customers and interacting with them just because you know that's how we learn. That's how we learn what their needs are. And whenever talking with customers it seems just as we've all heard they're losing a lot of personnel. You know tenured, senior technicians that know the plant inside and out, they're losing all that experience and knowledge. And so what I'm hearing from manufacturers is they're looking for experienced technicians and experienced automation professionals that can come into there and supplement their feet on the ground in there. And again, it's more than just turning the ranch but it's that level of knowledge. You know I get this question all the time from customers, "Well, what level technician are these guys?" And the first thing I tell them is, "They're tenured, they're certified, these guys aren't you know fly-by-night technicians, they're very experienced, they've been certified by the manufacturer and there's an ongoing education program for them as well."

So it's really important for our customers to understand that our technicians are extremely experienced, extremely educated and they don't have to worry that when we come to their plant we're gonna bring a culture of safety and we're gonna bring all that experience to their site to work on their equipment. And that's what I see that's really important to them.

Jim: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. The way we can supplement in that way. Given this rapidly advancing technology landscape that we all find ourselves whether in our personal area or in the world of industrial automation, how are digital transformations and IIoT changing the way we as Emerson engage with our customers?

Emerson's Colin Nelson joins our 5 Questions for an Emerson Expert podcast series. Meeting the global demand for energy requires efficient transportation and storage from oil and gas production all the way through the supply chain to the consumer and business users. Colin helps to develop the real-time scheduling and optimization tools to help companies across this supply chain operate more efficiently.

Let me know if there are other Emerson Experts that you'd like to hear from and what you'd like me to ask them.

Transcript

Jim: Hi, everybody. This is Jim Cahill, and welcome to another edition of "5 Questions for an Emerson Expert." Today, I'm joined by Colin Nelson who's a senior software developer for Emerson and he has six years of experience with us by way of Energy Solutions International, who was acquired by Emerson a while back. Colin has a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Davidson College. So, welcome, Colin. Thank you for joining us today.

Colin: Thank you for having me on.

Jim: All right. Well, let's start out by asking what made you decide to pursue a STEM-based career?

Colin: So, I've always had an interest in STEM technologies, in particular biology, math, and programming. Starting off, I wanted to be a doctor, but I was really lucky to grow up in a strong STEM household. My dad has a Bachelors in Biology, my mother has a Masters in Mathematics, and they encouraged me to, you know, pursue my interest in all the STEM-related careers. And, I found during high school, I found out playing video games that if you hit this magic button, a little console would come up, and you could enter in these commands that would wind up changing the world around you, sort of a lightweight version of programming. And that sort of led me to explore and discover ways that I could write programs, or write software, and change the digital world around me, and that contributed well to my career in mathematics in college, and has brought me forward into my development role as it is today.

Jim: Well, that's fascinating. So, what got you to that transition into really our world of process automation?

Colin: So, this is actually my first job out of college. I was interested in joining Energy Solutions because I was joining into their pipeline scheduling and optimization team, where it was a fantastic and fascinating space, especially pipeline scheduling, because it gets you the ability to marry the sort of strange differences between the physical real world of mathematics, problem-solving, fluid hydraulics, all of that real world laws of physics things with the business world of accounting, and the, you know, paper trades, the swaps, all the business processes where you actually operate on and change the functionality of what you came at your scheduling with. And so, as the team grew and developed at Energy Solutions, we experienced an amount of success, and we happily joined the Automation Solutions with Emerson.

Jim: Yeah. And, we're glad to have you in the family. Right now, the whole world of pipelines is so dynamic with all this new production here in Texas, and other places brought to us by the Shale Revolution going on. So, that must keep things very exciting for you over there.

Colin: Oh, there is not a dull moment around here.

Jim: That's excellent. So, tell us about a recent challenge that you've been working on to solve.

Colin: So, a new industry or a new branch of the pipeline solutions space with automation that we're branching into is terminals. We have a terminal scheduling and optimization tool. And currently, I'm working on a real-time schedule verifier. You can imagine it as something that sits and is looking at and consuming data from the SCADA systems, from the meters, from the telemetry, getting a real-time view of what the terminal is, and then comparing that with the published projected schedules that the sche...

In this 15-minute podcast, I'm joined by Emerson's Johan Classen to discuss how enabling technologies that the Industrial Internet of Things brings is changing the way services can be delivered to process manufacturers and producers across the lifecycle of their operations.

 Transcript

Jim: Hi, everyone. And welcome to another Emerson Process Experts Podcast. Today, I'm joined by Johan Claassen, who is Vice President of Global Lifecycle Service Operations for Emerson's Process Systems and Solutions business. Johan has an electrical engineering degree from the University of Pretoria in South Africa and has been with Emerson for more than a decade. Prior to his work with Emerson, he was an engineering and maintenance manager with Sasol, in South Africa. Welcome, Johan.

Johan: Hey, Jim. Good to be with you this afternoon.

Jim: That's great. Let's start out by asking, what made you decide to pursue a career in services?

Johan: You know, it was actually the way that things just unfolded as, you know, when I started after my university degree, I started with Sasol, you know, in South Africa. And I guess all of my 23 years of my career I've been kind of in the services trades, I've just been on a different side of the fence. So with Sasol, you know, I grew up as an engineer. And, you know, I quickly went onto management and maintenance management and operations management. And, you know, so I got to see services from a customer perspective, you know. And then, through Emerson, I've got the opportunity, now, to see it from a different angle, you know. And, how do we supply services to our customer? And, you know, it's kind of been interesting. I always say that I'm still a customer at heart because of that 13 years. And then, Emerson, I'm now 10 years so, you know, it's getting close where I can't say that anymore. But I think it's great to have been on both sides of the coin and working with customers. You know, services, for me, is the place in the company where we deal with customers pretty directly through this. It's where, once they've installed your products and your technology, you know, this is where we come in and help them, you know, just servicing but also drive the value out of the investment that they made. And I think it's that aspect, for me, that really drives me to the service business and give me a passion and energy to get up every morning.

Jim: Well, I think that's really valuable, having that background and being in the shoes of the customer for having lived it so many years. So tell us about market trends and growth opportunities you see in Lifecycle Services?

Johan: Well, I think, Jim, if I look at some of your posts you've had in the last couple of months here, we know that the industrial Internet of Things is a big…will have a big influence on our business going forward. You know, digital transformation, mobile, all of those trends are things that, you know, not just affects our products but it also affects our services. And, you know, if we look at all of that coming together and, you know, as customers are embracing, you know, digital and IoT, I think it's going to fundamentally change the way that we do service through. So if you think about that, more and more assets will be connected as customers become more comfortable with, you know, connecting the asset into the cloud and sharing data up there. And, you know, fundamentally what will happen is that it will necessitate the need for our service people to go to site and make that less and less true. Because as you are more connected, there's no need anymore to, you know, to go and do monitoring on-site. You know, we will do that out of the comfort of our monitoring centers, our offices or wherever our field service people are stationed, so I think that's one trend.

The other side that I think has been going for quite a while is what we call the consumption/the consumption gap.

Emerson's Kris Lescinsky joins our 5 Questions for an Emerson Expert podcast series. Through her work as a project technical leader, Kris fosters collaboration via knowledge-sharing platforms among Lifecycle Services engineers across the Emerson business units and world areas to better serve our customers.

Share any feedback or suggestions you have for other questions or experts you'd like to hear in future podcasts.

Transcript

Jim: Hi, and welcome to our Five Questions for an Emerson Expert series. I'm Jim Cahill, and today, I'm joined by Kris Lescinsky. Kris is a project technical leader, managing collaboration across Emerson business units and world areas in our Lifecycle Services organization. After achieving a degree in economics and political science, Kris received an MBA and is pursuing an enterprise architecture certificate, currently, as her career has progressed. Welcome, Kris.

Kris: Thanks, Jim. It's great to be here.

Jim: Well, it's great having you today. Let's start out by asking, what made you decide to pursue a STEM-based career?

Kris: Well, Jim, I didn't get there on the straight path. I went to college thinking that I was going to be an attorney when I graduated, and I was pre-Law until my sophomore year. And as I was exposed to more things in college, I started becoming more interested in computers, but I didn't want to slow down my graduation because college is expensive. So, I graduated in three and a half years with my double major and got a job in finance at a bank, and progressed through the finance organization until a virus hit. And, suddenly, we had a problem that needed solved, and I had a crazy idea that we could maybe create a web server, and link some things together, and do something that didn't require macros. And my career in technology grew out of the Melissa virus.

Jim: Oh, that's a fascinating story there. So, from that time, from, you know, in the finance world with a bank, what led you to a career in the field of process automation?

Kris: So, I've worked in a number of industries. I started in banking and financial services, and then I went to a government agency and worked as an IT contractor at the Department of Energy. That job led me to a role in Power and Water Solutions with Emerson, and I've moved along ever since, becoming more involved in process automation and the technology that supports the people who actually do the process automation.

Jim: Well, that's a nice path going there. So, I guess, now that you're kind of steeped in our world of process automation, tell us about a recent challenge that you've been working on to solve.

Kris: Sure. So, one of my challenges is supporting the Global Lifecycle Services organization. We have service engineers and managers all over the globe, with multiple business units, who speak a variety of languages. One of my challenges is to get them accurate information in a timely manner and allow them to collaborate with each other to get quick answers to questions, so when they're on a customer site, they can quickly reach out to other Emerson experts and get the right answer quickly for our customers.

Jim: Okay. That's a lot of what we do in our Emerson Exchange 365 community externally for customers, peer-to-peer, working with each other, so that's really cool that you're kind of driving that process internally to allow our service engineers to be more responsive to our customers. So, when you kind of walk out the door on a Friday afternoon, or, you know, have done your week around here, advancing the cause in there, what do you like to do in your spare time?

Kris: Well, most people who know me would laugh at the idea of me having spare time because I'm involved in everything. I'm pursuing a graduate certificate in enterprise architecture, which is where business vision and strategy meets technology.

Emerson's Larissa Wechsler joins our continuing podcast series on 5 Questions for an Emerson Expert. Our goal with this podcast series is to share the stories of the paths taken to a science, technology, engineering and/or math (STEM) education and career in the field of instrumentation and automation, as well as to learn more about the individuals behind our Emerson experts.

Larissa leads out marketing efforts in the Lifecycle Services that Emerson provides its customers. We hope you enjoy this podcast and feel free to share any ideas on other podcasts you'd like to hear.

Transcript

Jim: Hi everybody, this is Jim Cahill and welcome to another edition of Five Questions for an Emerson Expert. Today I'm joined by Larissa Wechsler. Larissa leads our Lifecycle Services marketing. She has a mechanical engineering degree from her native country, Brazil, and received an MBA from Cornell. Welcome, Larissa.

Larissa: Thank you very much, Jim.

Jim: All right. I like to start by asking our experts, what made you decide to pursue a STEM-based career?

Larissa: Since I was a kid, I always liked math and science and it was always, for me, the easiest subject at school. I initially thought about doing just like pure math as my major, you know, undergrad, but then I realized I want to do something more practical. That's when I just started focusing on like, okay, I wanna do engineering. And what kind of engineering would be like the ones that give me more opportunities? I thought it'll be mechanical engineering. And that's why I chose to do mechanical engineering as my undergrad. And I also thought, like, engineering will open so many doors for different things I wanted to do in my career. It's in the STEM fields or even outside of it, engineering opens so many doors. It also helps you develop that quantitative analytical thought process that helps you anything like professionally and also personally. That's how I started and then later on, as you mentioned, I did my MBA at Cornell because I wanted to have that business background, so I could move more for management roles at Emerson.

Jim: Well, that's great. And I guess from getting that mechanical engineering degree, what led you into the field of process automation?

Larissa: That's a very good question. I started at Emerson two and a half years ago through the MBA leadership program. And the reason I decided to join Emerson in the leadership program it's because this program gives like exposure to senior leadership of the company. So you work with different presidents, you work with different VPs of the company, with different teams in different areas. It gives you the opportunity to be part of strategic programs that are gonna drive growth for the company, but it also gives you the opportunity to explore different areas in the company until you decide what will be the best fit for your career and also would be the best fit as your next role in the company.

Jim: Well, that's great getting broad exposure around the company and everything. So I guess in the role that you're in now around Lifecycle Services, can you tell us about a recent challenge that you've been working on to solve?

Larissa: Yeah, absolutely. So as I mentioned, I'm part of...it's a new role. I'm doing marketing for the Lifecycle Services and what we're doing right now is we're creating a value proposition in go to market strategy for automation solutions Lifecycle Services that goes across all business units in our company. And it's a very exciting topic because in the recent studies that we've done, outcome-based services, that's the next generation of services or what we call advanced services, it will take off in the next three to five years with a CAGR of over 8%. It's above the market. We're working on how we're gonna integrate the message, how we're creating a go to market strategy, how we're going to develop a roadmap for that.

Emerson's Jessica Jordan joins our continuing podcast series on 5 Questions for an Emerson Expert. In these podcasts, we want to share the stories of the paths taken to a science, technology, engineering and/or math (STEM) education and career in the field of instrumentation and automation as well as to learn more about them as people.

Jessica leads the product marketing efforts for the recently announced the powerful standalone and easily integrated DeltaV PK Controller which you likely have already heard about. We hope you enjoy this podcast and I look forward to any suggestions you have for other experts to interview and questions you'd like to ask them. Just leave a comment, send me an email or LinkedIn message.

Transcript

Jim: Hi, everyone. This is Jim Cahill, and welcome to another edition of "5 Questions for an Emerson Expert" podcast series. Today, I'm joined by Jessica Jordan. She's a marketing product manager for the DeltaV team for Emerson Automation Solutions. Welcome, Jessica.

Jessica: Thanks for having me, Jim.

Jim: Well, it's great that you're here. So let's start with, what made you decide to pursue a STEM-based career?

Jessica: Well, Jim, that's a really good question. I grew up in South Alabama, and traditionally, women in the south were not pushed to pursue technical career paths. They were more homemakers or moms. And the harder I was pushed to conform into that box, the quicker I wanted to get out of it. I was naturally a problem solver and curious. And, actually, my first career I wanted to pursue was an astronaut. But as I went through school and got ready for college and looked at the technical paths available to me, engineering seemed like a good fit. I was good at the math I was good at the science, and, let's face it, the pay wasn't gonna be that bad, either. So here I am.

Jim: Well, that's great. So from getting that degree in engineering, what led you to a career in the field of process automation?

Jessica: A little bit of luck, to be honest with you, being in the right place at the right time. I started my career in automation as a co-op for Ciba Specialty Chemicals. And when I interviewed for the job, I actually had to Google, "What is automation?" I had no idea what it was. When I was in school getting my degree in chemical engineering, we didn't really learn about, what is process automation, what is this disruptive technology, and what are all of the endless possibilities in this industry. So as I went through my first co-op, I fell in love with automation. And now that the industry is evolving so quickly, it's amazing to see all of the different opportunities that are available.

Jim: Okay. And tell us about a recent challenge that you've been working on to solve.

Jessica: So I'm the product marketing manager for one of our newest, most disruptive technologies, the DeltaV PK Controller, and it's a very interesting project to be working on in the fact that I really have to be a strategist here. I have to learn to anticipate the problems and pivot around the pitfalls. I think one of the most challenging things to do is really make a conscious effort to work on an integrated team. You have to be on the cutting edge of technology, while managing current customer expectations, while trying to penetrate a new market and capture that, all of which require you to look out of different frames and have different perspectives. And doing that in a real-time fashion is a big challenge that we're currently faced with.

Jim: Well, I know that was announced a few months ago, and it looks some of your work is paying off with the interest and everything we see out there. So kind of stepping outside the office and the things that you do around here and in our world of process automation, what do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

Jessica: So I like to say that I'm a jack of all trades and a master at none.

Emerson's James Beall joins our continuing podcast series on 5 Questions for an Emerson Expert. The goal of these podcasts is to share some tidbits on how they got their start in a science, technology, engineering & math (STEM)-based career and more about their background, interests and advice for new folks joining our world of automation.

James provides Control Performance Consulting and hands-on implementation for control improvement projects in the chemical, refining, upstream oil & gas and the pharmaceutical industries. Some of his key areas of expertise include instrumentation and control valve performance, advanced regulatory control and advanced multivariable control.

Leave a comment below, send me an email or LinkedIn message if there is an Emerson expert you'd like me to interview as well as the questions you'd like me to ask them… thanks!

https://www.emersonautomationexperts.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/5-Questions-James-Beall.mp3

Transcript

Jim: Hi, I’m Jim Cahill and welcome to our “5 Questions for an Emerson Expert” podcast series. Today I’m joined by James Beall. James is a principal process control consultant with more than 35 years of experience in the industry and in process automation. Welcome, James.

James: Hi Jim, how you doing? Good to be here.

Jim: I’m doing just great today. So, I like to start out and ask everyone what made you decide to pursue a STEM based career? You know, science, technology, engineering and math?

James: Well, probably the biggest influence was the fact that my dad was a Mechanical Engineer, and of course growing up I did all things mechanical with him. He taught me from a very early age how to work on engines, cars, everything! , I was rebuilding lawnmower motors and go kart motors when I was less than 10 years old. I got involved with the mechanical engineering side of things, but in general just the engineering way of thinking. I also got very good tutoring in math! I was very strong in math with the help from my dad and enjoyed that. That’s probably the biggest influence, and then maybe the other thing is my grandfather was a medical doctor. It seemed like to me being a doctor was too much involvement with people, and back then I didn’t want to have that much involvement with people. But now I love it and I probably spend more time with people than my doctor siblings! So that’s been interesting to see that evolve.

Jim: Well that’s fascinating. So what made you specifically get from that electrical engineering degree into process automation?

James: I enrolled in chemical engineering but switched to electrical engineering and finished up in that degree. When I was interviewing for my first job, I saw a company in Longview, Texas called Eastman Kodak, the chemicals division, that was close to where I grew up. I thought that’d be kind of neat to go back there and there were two openings for electrical engineers: one in electrical power and one in process instrumentation, which I had never heard of. So I interviewed in both areas and when I went back at the end of the day to the engineering superintendent, he asked me which area I was interested in and I said, “Well instrumentation engineering looks really interesting,” and he leaned over at me, and I can still remember him saying,