A new rôle, a rule, and an acquisition

Snippits from the first Industrial Automation Insider for 2011

● Eoin Ó Riain has started a two year term as Vice President in the Publications Department at the International Society of Automation (ISA). As publisher of the major Irish instrumentation and control magazine ‘Read-out’, and the associated ‘Instrumentation Signpost’ website, Ó Riain will bring interesting fresh thinking to the ISA in respect of their approach to the media. Quite apart from his ‘Tweets’, and probably other electronic alerts that the rest of the automation press have not yet found, his website is notable for publishing detailed reports on industrial press conferences even before the applause for the presentation has died down. So the next steps from ISA publications will be awaited with justifiable anticipation!

● Invensys Rail has advised their ‘preferred’ UK suppliers that their invoice payment terms will be extended to two months after the month in which the invoice is raised, which can therefore be up to 90 days. This is in spite of moves by Network Rail, who have tried to help suppliers by reducing payment delays to as low as 28 days, after recognizing the effects of the recent decline in work available. Invensys Rail said the move was designed to align their policy with the standard Invensys company policy.

● Eriks has acquired Valtor Offshore A/S, based in Esbjerg, Denmark, one of Europe’s leading valve and actuator distributors and service providers to the offshore oil and gas industry. Valtor Offshore
has a high level of application knowledge and excellent reputation in servicing the North Sea and the international oil and gas industry with a wide range of valves, actuators and valve automation solutions, for the construction of oil and gas production installations, and for maintenance applications.

This issue also comments on the Emerson event in Berlin (see also our blog Conquest of complexity advances!) and Control's  Automation Vendors’ Top 50 "the most authoritative and consistent
source of data." An interesting statistical fact given in this issue is that "stories about the Alfa Laval activities attract the highest numbers of Google search led visitors to Nick Denbow's INSIDER blog website." There is also a piece on "the advertising spend for 2011!"

Altogether, as we have always said, Industrial Automation Insider is a must read publication for the Automation Professional especially if they want to find out what way things are moving in the "First World!"