New technology, old problem

There are parallels between the forces currently at work in the process automation market and the tidal wave which nearly overwhelmed IBM and DEC in the late 80s and early 90s. Embracing new technology is not enough

Technological change can be a hard task master, even for those who instigate it. Twenty years ago IBM was the world's largest computer company and Digital Equipment (DEC) the runner up. Today IBM, having flirted with oblivion and then totally reinvented itself, can claim with some justification to be the world's leading computer services company, but it is nevertheless a shadow of the 'Big Blue' whose ability to spread FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) struck terror into the hearts of competitors and customers alike. As for the once mighty DEC on whose PDPs and VAXs many readers will have cut their computing teeth, some might say that oblivion would have been a kinder fate than a faltering existence as the server division of Compaq.

The point of this somewhat unseemly raking over of old bones is to draw a parallel between the processes which brought down these once mighty monoliths and the forces currently confronting the process automation world. Just as no one could accuse IBM of having ignored the personal computer - credit where credit is due, they invented it - so it would be difficult to make the charge of ignoring technological change stick against most, although perhaps not all, of the process automation leaders. Most now have a hybrid successor to the traditional DCS offering or offerings in their portfolios, better known examples being Fisher-Rosemount's DeltaV and Honeywell's PlantScape, and many have either direct or indirect links into PC-based SCADA/HMI technology, as, for example through Foxboro parent Invensys' ownership of Wonderware and Fisher-Rosemount parent Emerson's of Intellution.

But if the process automation majors can justifiably claim to have embraced the new technologies, their ability to adapt their own organisations to the implications of those technologies currently looks little better than that of IBM and DEC to ride the PC tidal wave. Selling DCSs with their $multi million price tags was traditionally a lot like selling mainframe computers, involving a large in-house sales force and a huge baggage train of engineering support. Hybrid systems such as DeltaV or PlantScape, by contrast, are a lot like PCs, coming in orders of magnitude lower down the price scale. That did not matter too much so long as the hybrid was simply the vehicle for attacking those market areas, traditionally the province of the PLC vendors, from which price had excluded the DCS. Now however, the latest versions are themselves true DCS replacements, capable of handling tens of thousands of I/O and the very largest of applications - but still at prices to make traditional DCS salesmen weep.

How does the process automation vendor react? With an advanced case of schizophrenia. On the one hand it accepts that a product which competes on price with the PLC should logically be sold through a PLC style channel, with customer facing sales and support devolved to industry specific integrators. On the other it argues that the only way to maintain revenues, margins and jobs is to take unto itself an even greater proportion of the engineering, support and consultancy, turning itself into an essentially service- rather than product-oriented organisation which will inevitably compete for business with its own integrators.

It's a conflict of interest which will be familiar to anyone who followed the long-running battles between DEC and its OEMs in the 1980s. Upon its resolution will depend the shape of the process automation industry over the next decade. In the US, where even DCSs have traditionally been sold through the integrator channel, the culture shock may not be so great. Here in Europe, however, many are already asking just what the local subsidiaries of the process automation vendors are actually for. Not everyone will be disappointed at a failure to answer that question satisfactorily. PLC vendors such as Siemens and Rockwell not only have their own hybrid products, but they have a long history of managing and motivating integrators - and a real hunger for expansion into the process market.

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Andrew Bond is the Editor of the monthly subscription newsletter Industrial Automation INSIDER. You can contact him by email at scada@abpubs.demon.co.uk. And if you mention INOC, Andrew will send you a complimentary copy of the latest issue of Industrial Automation INSIDER

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