Yokogawa: Future in networking

Future plant success lies within the network.
“In the future factory all information for the plant will be connected by a network,” said Isao Uchida, president and chief executive of Yokogawa Electric Corp. in Japan during one of the keynote addresses at the Yokogawa Technology Innovation Fair and Users Conference in Houston.
“In order to realize the future two key technologies will become leaders,” Uchida said before 500 people during the company’s seventh U.S. user group meeting. “One is fiber optics for transporting large volumes of data. The second is network security technologies. At Yokogawa over the years, we have acquired quite a bit of knowledge of those technologies.”
“Together with fiber optics, Yokogawa has been developing wireless technologies to cover every corner of the plant floor,” he said.
Part of staying ahead of the curve is investing to keep investing in the company and in new technologies.
“Yokogawa keeps investing in research and development even in hard times,” Uchida said.
Uchida explained Yokogawa is running 8th in Japan in research and development costs, behind 7 pharmaceutical companies.
Part of the investment is paying off for BP. Carl Sisk, program manager North American Gas for BP America talked about how his company is looking at the gas field of the future. “We have already gotten the easy gas, but how can we increase recover in the difficult areas and increase recovery?"
Part of what will make the recovery easier, Sisk said, is to bring in data and share information. “We need to work in a more collaborative environment.”
Sisk said the company has been able to “greatly reduce the amount of time that we have to drive out in the field by optimizing automation equipment. We have increased our operational efficiency and increased production from our pipeline monitoring.”

Leadership starts at the top

Bosses are always in charge and their word will carry the day. But it is rare occurrence when they earn the respect of an entire workforce.
That is where Isao Uchida comes in. For those that don’t know, he is the energetic driving force, not to mention the president and chief executive, behind Yokogawa Electric Corp. in Japan.
His vision and his word carry the day at Yokogawa throughout the world.
At today’s Technology Innovations Fair and Users Conference in Houston, the level of respect shown Uchida went beyond the typical admiration shown “the boss.”
John Bowron, vice president at Yokogawa Corp. of America and David Johnson, president and chief executive at Yokogawa Corp. of America, both went out of their way to explain how Uchida’s vision and driving force are truly an inspiration to them and to the company.
Uchida talks about “a commitment made is a commitment kept” and he stands by that motto and makes sure the rest of the company sticks to it also.
If you ever want to see a leader of a company that is a true leader, take a look at Yokogawa.

Security on a roll

“Industry is just now starting to learn what they need to know when it comes to securing a control system,” said Eric Byres, who heads up Byres Security, during Tuesday’s keynote address at the Honeywell EMEA Users Group conference in Seville, Spain.
“Accurate historical data is critical if we wish to effectively secure our control systems,” he said.
Toward that end, Byres’ company has an industrial security database with 22 companies that submit information. Right now, he has 135 incidents in the database and he gets 10-15 reports a quarter. Conservatively, Byres said, there are about 400-500 attacks on control systems a year in the United States. That does not account for attacks on systems in other regions of the world. The dynamic of who is hacking into systems has changed also. At one point, 58% of the attacks were accidental, 27% came from external sources and 15% were internal. Today, however, 61% are external attacks, 32% are accidental and only 2% are internal.
Knowing there are people planning attacks means companies should be proactive. “There are clearly some flaws out there,” Byres said. “We can’t stick our heads in the sand. We can’t hide behind security through obscurity. What we currently lack is security certification. We need a third party to test and certify that a system is secure.”
In addition, Byres said you would not believe what system a hacker can get into. He said even printers are susceptible to hackers. One time a hacker was able to use a printer’s system to spam pornography, he said.
“Anything that has an embedded processor needs to be secure,” he said.
Security does not come by just installing a firewall, but rather from an intelligent plan that adds layers.
“A single point of defense is a single point of failure,” he said. You need layers of protection.” But, he added, the manufacturing side of things has different needs and therefore should have a plan of attack for the plant floor. “We want security that works in our environment, not what works in the IT world.”
Ioannis Kioufis, DCS section head for Motor Oil (Hellas) in Greece agrees. “Security is like an onion; it has many layers.”
Simply stated, Kioufis said there are three layers of risk, high, medium and low. “Do you relax when you are low risk? No way. You have to work hard to stay at that level. Security is a journey, it is not a destination you never arrive.”
“If you prepare well,” Kioufis said, “your journey will be smooth. You can fight your enemies and win.”
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Honeywell talks wireless

As wireless was a focus of ISA EXPO 2006, the technology is having a major impact at Honeywell’s EMEA User Group meeting in Seville, Spain.
While it is not the only topic at the meeting, wireless mesh networking continues to get heavy play.
“What happens when a company gets serious about technology look at what happened when Microsoft got serious about the Internet, said Paul Orzeske, Honeywell’s vice president and general manager for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). “Honeywell has been in the wireless business for many, many years. We have taken wireless technology and applied it to industrial wireless. We have 30 million installed sensors today. We have more than 400 dedicated engineers working on wireless technologies.”
What is the next generation for wireless? Orzeske sees two areas, one will be complying with wireless standards and the other will be the development of the next wireless infrastructure. “There are those that would say wireless will be for data acquisition and not control. Not at Honeywell. We don’t feel like something is able to be used in absolute control we don’t think it is ready for a sensor.”
Part of that infrastructure is building a wireless mesh network, which Honeywell has a version that it is pushing hard. “This is a self healing, self propagating growing mesh you can lay over your operation or a portion of your operations,” Orzeske said.
There are six critical features of the mesh network:
• Single integrated mesh network
• High speed, ready for control
• Control enabled architecture
• Predictable long battery life
• Scalable. Up to 30,000 sensors in a network
• End-to-end industrial security
The next step is getting a wireless standard approved in a timely fashion. In the mean time Honeywell, along with other companies, will ship wireless products before any wireless standard gains approval. Industry watchers are talking about a clash of titans where two companies want to push through their ideas for what the standard should say. Which company will win? Who cares. In the end, the only winner should be end users.
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Biotech on the bubble

Everyone surely remembers the great Internet bubble that consumed the United States, if not the world, in the late 90s. If you were an Internet start up, times were great. IPOs guaranteed millions if not billions of dollars for the founders and their shareholders. The only problem was the companies had nothing to offer but the promise the good times would always continue. Then pop goes the bubble.
Now we have the potential to walk into the new bubble: Biotech companies. This week pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. shelled out $1.1 billion to buy biotechnology firm Sirna Therapeutics Inc. Think about this one for a moment, Merck's $13-per-share offer for the San Francisco-based company is over a 100% premium over Sirna's closing on Monday.
Is this a move toward a bubble or is a smart move in an area that could pay off in years to come for Merck?
Sirna is developing drugs using RNA interference technology. There are at least a half-dozen biotechnology companies developing drugs that silence genes by interfering with the messenger-carrying RNA, a technique discovered by this year's Nobel Prize for medicine winners. There are eight U.S. and European patents specifically related to the technology.
Will this technology take off or will it go the way of other promising technologies? Venture capitalists have already invested hundreds of millions in the technology.
This deal is Merck’s second move in the RNA arena. They also invested in Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, one of Sirna’s competitors.
All this sounds good, right? Well, here is the issue, the closest drug Sirna has near market is at least two years away, and, in reality, more like three.
This is a complete turnaround for Sirna. In 2003, the company was failing when company officials decided to change its name from Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals Inc. to Sirna.
This is in no way suggesting biotech is even remotely close to those Internet start ups that filled the landscape, but they are companies to watch.
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