I am pretty proud of the fact that Patti Engineering was recently published in Control Engineering Magazine. The article is about an automated system we did for Ancor in Troy, Michigan. The system packages Federally Mandated Vehicle Information Labels for all Ford Vehicles sold in North America. You can check the article out yourself:

http://www.controleng.com/article/CA6620339.html

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Last weekend, I attended the 15th annual Control Systems Integrators Association (CSIA) Conference in Savannah, Georgia. Patti Engineering staff has attended 12 of these conferences missing only one since 1996. The organization was started with a monthly newsletter prepared by Charlie Bergman in 1989 that targeted control systems integration (CSI) companies. Charlie, who retired from Bailey Controls, organized a conference with about a dozen companies in 1994 at Wrightsville Beach, NC. The 2008 conference had more than 150 companies represented as the organization has grown in excess of 325 companies.

The conference is a great way to remove yourself from the day-to-day operations and take a 30,000 foot view of your company. Some people are hesitant to go to the conference, feeling that they will lose a competitive advantage by talking to their competition. I look at it as talking with my peers.

There are enough industries and niches that there is plenty of CSI work out there. At one time, controls were used strictly in manufacturing facilities, but now you see application of control systems in amusement parks, farms, libraries, police departments, distribution centers, municipal systems and energy management. Add to this, the line between I/O electrical controls and information systems has blurred.

In 1997, the CSIA released the “Best Practices and Benchmarks” publication. In 2001, the CSIA started auditing companies against this standard to verify that its certified member companies are implementing these best practices. Patti Engineering was one of the early CSIA companies to be certified and were recertified in 2006 (CSIA requires recertification every 3 years).

CSIA has also been particularly helpful with our insurance and legal matters. For insurance, the CSIA has pooled about 70 members to a common broker and carrier. This has helped ensure that the member companies are properly insured. In the legal realm, Mark Voigtmann, of Baker Daniels, has given a great presentation at each annual conference and offered many companies (including Patti Engineering) outstanding legal advice. He has helped the membership with many terms, conditions, and contract issues.

I look forward to the 2009 conference in Naples, Florida so I can catch up with all my peers who face the same challenges as Patti Engineering. I also look forward to the great list of speakers that will be invited. The CSIA is helping to raise the bar for the control systems integration field.

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My site isn’t nearly as nice, but you can check it out if you would like.

I have noticed that I get an awful lot of friend invites from attractive young females.  Jason warned me that I have to be very careful on who I accept as friends, as this is a way to spam myspacers.

Internet security still remains a constant concern.  With that in mind, and at my wife’s request, there are no pictures of our 2 wonderful children. My song is from Duece, a band that my nephew Eric is in.  When they hit it big, I am sure that his inquiries from attractive young females will be real.

In 1964 IBM released the System/360 which was the first “large” family of computers to use interchangeable software and peripheral equipment. I believe this was the birth of the modern day I.T. department.

In 1969 Modicon introduced the “084″ PLC, this was the birth of modern programming based operations engineering.

Ever since then there has been a war between I.T. and operations engineering. If a company is to survive the in the 21st century, that war has to end!

Personal History: 

In the late 80’s, I was a Co-op student and a young engineer working at General Motors Truck and Bus in Baltimore, MD. At that time, I fell in love with plant floor control systems. Being assigned to the Body Shop was lots of fun as the place was full of Cincinnati Milacron Hydraulic Robots, Allen-Bradley PLC-2’s, and other automation. I learned tons about floor level control systems.

About the same time I started, Ross Perot’s Electronic Data Systems (EDS) was purchased by GM. EDS supported the front office business systems at the Plant. They would occasionally make the 1/2 mile walk from the front office to the Body Shop. The EDS people would look like fish out of water with their 3-peice suits and total lack of understanding of automation and production systems. We did not relate with the front office I.T. people and they did not relate to us plant rats.

None of the production systems in the Body Shop had any ties to the front office business systems.  Paper manifests were used for scheduling and quality control was done with a clipboard. Somehow we were able to crank out 250,000 M-Vans a year and make the General some money in those days.

Today:

Today, the smart manufacturers and distributors realize that I.T. and Operations must work seamlessly.  The I.T. people must be cognizant of the challenges the operations people face (multi-shift operations, little downtime, high turnover and uneducated workforce). The operations people must also be cognizant of the I.T. challenges (need for change control, thorough testing, task prioritization, many systems interacting together).

If an operational process is running efficiently, it will be a paperless process, and production information and results will be available instantaneously. This creates the real time information that allows management, quality, scheduling, and shipping to improve.

My business, Patti Engineering, has defined itself as a company that can work with both I.T. as well as operations. We can program the most complicated real-time control applications on the floor, but we can also do database design for enterprise wide data tracking systems. The concept of I.T. and operations engineering working together synchronously is a brave new concept for many companies. But if those companies want to survive into the 21st century, they need to get on board and end the war.

Often, these same companies will spend months of time and resources to select a package, then select an integration partner in a couple of days with limited research and limited due diligence, thereby treating the integration as a commodity.  Take this as gospel:  this solution is going to come off poorly unless properly integrated.

The Package Supplier is often not a good resource as the common sales pitch is “our stuff is so easy, anyone can program it,” or “we have our own integration team” (which mean they will charge 50% more for personnel who has 50% less experience and will never address or use any other solutions to work around the shortcomings that any package has).

An independent systems integrator is the key to your program being successful. If you are looking at the MES and plant floor level, I would highly suggest using a certified control systems integrator. By being certified, the company has been audited to ensure that they are meeting the best practices and benchmarks of the CSIA. The CSIA puts out a great resource for companies that will be selecting and working with an integrator. The document is completely free and titled “Guide for Selecting and Working with a Control Systems Integrator”

A good Integration partner will be concerned about your overall success as well as the success of the project. They will understand the need for the ERP, MES, and Floor Level Systems to appear seamless and support all phases of the business. Often the good integration partner will question and suggest ways to improve the business. They will also document the planned system before any code is written through means of a detailed functional specification.

Good Luck on your next project, and remember selecting the right integration partner is as important or more important than selecting the package.

I immigrated to Michigan almost 20 years ago. But my wife, Patti, is a born and bred Michigander who grew up in Flint the youngest daughter of Don and Jean Fridline. Don and Jean each spent 30+ years working at GM while having 6 sons and 2 daughters. All 8 children settled in Michigan, 7 of them living within a 30-minute drive.

Patti still tells me stories of how nice it used to be in Flint. Good jobs were easily had. It seemed like everyone worked in the “shop” where American Cars were made with pride.

Well, those days are over. No matter how nostalgic we get, or how many movies we make about the “evil” empire GM relocating factories to the south and/or south of the border, nothing is going to bring those jobs back. GM is in business to make money. That is or should be the goal of every company in America. So don’t expect this post to be another “Roger and Me.”

I went to my niece’s going away party last night. Patti and I have 13 nieces and nephews on her side of the family. All 4 who are old enough, have graduated from college. Of those 4, only 1 remains in the state. The other 3 have started their lives in New York, Colorado, and Florida.

Is what we are seeing in our family a trend? With me being an engineer, I like to examine the data. The following shows the percentage of US population living in the state of Michigan. I got all of my data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

• 1970: 4.34%
• 1980: 4.09%
• 1990: 3.74%
• 2000: 3.53%
• 2006: 3.37%

Now let’s look at the all important category of ages 20-29. These are the entrepreneurs, the new home buyers, the wealth builders, and the individuals that will create the future jobs. Look at the same numbers by that age group:

• 1970: 4.20% (96.8%)
• 1980: 4.21% (102.9%)
• 1990: 3.63% (97.1%)
• 2000: 3.39% (96.0%)
• 2006: 3.21% (95.3%)

The second number is the percentage of 20-29 divided by the total percentage. Anything over 100% is good. The further below 100% the more relative percentage of 20-29 years olds you are losing. You can see the trend is getting alarmingly worse. Tons of talented kids that are getting educated by the great Michigan Schools (Kettering, Michigan Tech, yes and even U of M) are leaving this state.

What can be done?

Well, I am not going to pretend that I have the answer, because I don’t. What I do have though is an opinion:

I feel that raising taxes on services as our Governor has recently proposed is not the answer. Michigan is competing with every other state in the union for 21st century jobs. Taxing services only drives young entrepreneurs out of this state faster. I also feel that the big 3 are not going to lead a turn around. They are losing market share just like the state.

Being an engineer, I would like to think that technology could really be the key to turning around this state. The key technology that will drive jobs and spur growth in the next generation is energy (especially concentrated on alternate forms). There are some great engineering schools in this state. Anything that the state can do to foster these kids to go get high tech engineering degrees and foster business and entrepreneurial pursuits in this field would help redefine the great state of Michigan for the 21st century.