|
|
Applications -
Automation Business -
Communications -
Engineering Practices -
HMI -
Information Resources -
LinuxPLC Project -
Motion Control -
Open Control -
PCs in Automation -
Plant Networking -
PLCs -
Programming Languages -
Process Control -
Sensors -
Software
Re: Why is the Automation market declining?
Sep 20, 2000 2:11 pm, by Walt Boyes
Text :
An astute observation, Ken.
This is not the first time this has happened in the automation industry either. It seems to go in about 30-35 year cycles. First there is
consolidation of big companies, accompanied by stagnation. Then some little startups come up with a biig idea, like, oh, a really good differential pressure transmitter, for example (Rosemount) and they start out in somebody's garage, but they grow. We are in the third such wave of ferment in the automation industry.
Walt Boyes
Reply
-
Re: Why is the Automation market declining?
Sep 21, 2000 5:04 pm, by Matthew da Silva
Good points, both.
Walt boyes said:
Then some little startups come up with a biig idea, like, oh, a really good differential
pressure transmitter, for example (Rosemount) and they start out in somebody's garage, but they grow.
And, don't forget that those guys who started Rosemount were former Honeywell employees who took off to recycle their intellectual property in
an environment more conducive to experimentation. Same thing happened in Australia Honeywell where the Plantscape system was designed. It would have
been tough to try developing such a system in the U.S. due to corporate internal tensions; but it could happen in an affiliate remote from the
center. This leads nicely into Ken Crater's quoting of Tom Kuhn's seminal work, a stunning essay describing the mechanisms surrounding advances in science. He points out that change is the exception rather than the rule. The 'rule' is for existing paradigms to be exercised to the maximum of their capacity. In the systematic elucidation of any theory, eventually weaknesses are made clear. New techniques for measuring these weaknesses emerge and become technologies (that are applicable elsewhere also). Eventually, somebody stumbles onto a new idea, which is tested for robustness in a sort of 'hazing' and is not accepted until it has been
repeatedly resolved to identical or very similar outputs, in multiple independent experiments. A paradigm shift occurs where enough of these
discoveries force larger, monolithic beliefs to be adapted in order to fit the new data.
I don't agree in the decline theory ;) but I do think that the manufacturers should be looking at improving their market research techniques and also in communicating their advantages.
> But, in aggregate, it is anything but market stagnation. It more closely
> resembles the chaos described by Thomas Kuhn in his "Structure of
> Scientific Revolutions", in the period between when an old
theory/technology is
> exhibiting its limits and when a new theory/technology becomes accepted.
> People cast about for new ideas, many different approaches are tried, and
> ultimately one or more of these new ideas come to the fore.
Reply
|
