Talking Industrial Automation

CSIA recently released the Fifth Version of the Best Practices and Benchmarks Manual. The Best Practices are nearly 400 items that CSIA Members have developed over 24 years relating to better run system integration business.

In this brief episode, Remco Kappert of EKB and Eric Schaefer of Stone Technologies help you understand what changes were made since version 4!

This was an in-person interview at our 2018 Executive Conference in San Francisco. Please bear with a bit of a noisy background. Thanks for listening!

Ashley Dawson is the General Manager of Crossmuller, a full-service system integrator located in Sydney, Australia.

Ashley describes how he approaches a project with a customer, and why he thinks their Certification feels different for the customer, and new engineers.

He also shares with us three things he looks for in new employees, and how a prospective customer can be a "good customer."

Enjoy getting to know Ashley Dawson of Crossmuller.

Arun Sinha of Opto 22 is our guest this week. Arun and I spoke online just before the CSIA Executive Conference in San Francisco.

Arun thinks the future looks bright for the industrial internet of things and that there some exciting things happening, beyond collecting sensor data.

Arun describes where he sees Opto 22 and its role in the industry, and how it relates to other companies in industrial automation, and we have a great conversation about the impact of the convergence of OT and IT.

Enjoy getting to know Arun Sinha of Opto 22, CSIA Partner Member.

Jeff Knepper is the Executive Director of Business Development at Canary Labs, a historian company near State College, Pennsylvania.

Jeff shares why data collection is so important to improving manufacturing and processing and discovering things that may not have been known as a problem.

We discover that even Jeff's coffee mug is an IOT device collecting data!

This week you get to know Georgia Whalen, president, and owner of Rivergate Marketing, a firm specializing in industrial automation companies. Georgia started her company and reentered the workforce in 2008 after raising her three children. We can all imagine how challenging that must have been given the economic forces at the time.

Perseverance and tenacity won out as they often do and now Georgia and her staff perform marketing services for many CSIA system integrators including setting a strategy, blogging and social media management.

Georgia discusses how engineers and technical people shop and research. She warns against the "old fashioned" viewpoint that business will always just walk in the door through referrals and repeat customers, something established system integrators have enjoyed in the past.

Finally, Georgia helps us understand how to start marketing if you're at ground zero. Visit Georgia's company on our buyers guide.

Enjoy getting to know Georgia Whalen.

Jason Andersen and I spoke about industrial automation computing at the edge, 24/7 reliability, and predictive analytics and maintenance.

Jason also discusses how analytics are the "sensory stimuli" for AI (Artifical Intelligence) and machine learning and how he approaches a client's project by simultaneously simplifying the installation and future-proofing it.

Jason is the VP of Business Line Management and drives the product development of Stratus' products.

Enjoy getting to know Jason Andersen.

In my conversation with Tim Matheny of ECS Solutions (a system integrator based in Evansville, IN) I learned about how he helps companies make more bread, (figuratively and literally) how buying a controls system solutions is like buying a vacation, and what made Tim successful in his career over 36+years.

Enjoy getting to know Tim Matheny of ECS Solutions.

Sam Hoff of Patti Engineering spoke with Tony Veroeven during the Manufacturing in America conference in Detroit in March 2018.

Sam discusses how he named his company, on what he spends the first 90 minutes of his day, and what the first couple years was like when he started Patti Engineering.

Enjoy getting to know Sam Hoff of Patti Engineering.

Rivergate Marketing's Meghan Pavasaris teaches us content is key in digital marketing, but where do you find content when engineers claim they "don't write"? We discussed tactics and strategies that work to gather the technical information and create compelling content that customers need and expect.

Even though this was a webinar, you can still glean some valuable information from our discussion. If there is something you want to see, all of our tools, tips, and tricks are listed in the show notes below.

Watch the webinar on our YouTube Channel.

In this episode of Talking Industrial Automation, I spoke with PC Romano of Avid Solutions.

You're going to learn the unique things he's doing to develop skilled engineers for his company; How he approaches a project and the unique things he does to ensure a project goes well; what are some of the things prospective clients can do to ensure a good relationship with their system integrator.

Enjoy getting to know PC Romano.