Headlines from Today's Activities
- CEO Johnson Addresses Yokogawa Faithful
- Yokogawa Acquires Laser Analyzer Technology
- Former Continental Chief Gives People Their Due
- Chevron’s Recurring Dream of Technology
- Free Technology Fair Open Through Thursday
CEO Johnson Addresses Yokogawa Faithful
“We don’t use many of our own products at Yokogawa,” said Yokogawa Corp. of America President and CEO Dave Johnson as he
welcomed the company’s end users to the 2008 Yokogawa Users Conference and Technology Fair, held this week in Houston. “So we rely on you
end users to tell us what you need, what you want, what you like and what you want us to do differently.”
Johnson went on to provide his annual state-of-the-company message. He reported that as of April 1, Shuzo Kaihori has been promoted again to CEO of Yokogawa Electric Corp. Isao Uchida will remain chairman of the board of directors. “But you should not imagine that this means that Uchida-san is retiring,” Johnson said. “He will be there making sure his vision is being followed.”
“We’re on track to become number one by 2010.” Dave Johnson, president and CEO of Yokogawa Corp. of America, on the company’s fast growing—and increasingly global—automation business.
Yokogawa Acquires Laser Analyzer Technology
Yokogawa Corp. of America (YCA) announced today that is has acquired Analytical Specialties Inc., of Clear Lake, Texas, after
a trial marriage that involved Yokogawa marketing ASI’s TruePeak family of tunable diode laser spectroscopy (TDLS) analyzers in Europe.
Analytical Specialties was established in 1994, now has 15 employees and has hundreds of installed analyzers in such applications as combustion control, ethylene oxide reactor control, acetylene converter control and chlorine dryer control. Trevor Knittel, formerly president of ASI and now general manager for laser technology in Yokogawa’s analytical business unit, said, “TDL spectroscopy enables the direct, high-speed measurement of many important process gases, including combustion by-products, impurities and oxygen in many chemical and refining operations.”
“Tunable diode laser spectroscopy has the potential to be a bigger game-changer than the process chromatograph,” says Trevor Knittel, former ASI president and now Yokogawa general manager of laser technology, on the market potential for TDLS.
Former Continental Chief Gives People Their Due
When Gordon Bethune took Continental Airlines from worst to first in the late 1990s, it wasn’t so much his doing as that of the
people he was leading.
In his keynote address at the Yokogawa Users Conference in Houston, the former Continental chairman and CEO illuminated lightbulbs above attendees’ heads. On the heels of Yokogawa Corp. of America President and CEO Dave Johnson’s opening address, in which he reiterated the organization’s quest to become the world’s No. 1 industrial automation company, Bethune offered some insight into how his company made its way to the front of the line.
“Employee satisfaction is the foundation for customer satisfaction,” says former Continental chief Gordon Bethune on the business case for offering employees the dignity and respect they deserve.
Chevron’s Recurring Dream of Technology
Mike Brooks has a dream. Chevron’s technology architect presented his vision for the next generation of IT systems aligned closely
with business processes and based on shared repeatable work processes in the production management domain, at the 8th Annual
Yokogawa Technology Fair & Users Conference in Houston. And he’s looking for vendors that can help him to bring his plan
to fruition.
By combining information integration with work process integration, Brooks hopes to create a ubiquitous framework for all applications, where IT functions support the business, and where data access meets the needs of the work or process.
“We now have an opportunity to remove work processes from the IT underpinnings.” Chevron’s Mike Brooks on the use of maturing services-oriented architectures to facilitate an increased level of manufacturing agility.
Free Technology Fair Open Through Thursday
Held in conjunction with the Yokogawa Users Conference is a free Technology Fair showcasing the company’s latest process automation
offerings, as well as those of 30 other partner companies. Held in the Grand Ballroom of the Hilton Americas hotel in downtown Houston,
exhibit hours are 1:00 p.m. until 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 9, and 10:00 a.m. until noon on Thursday, April 10. Walk-ins are welcome.
For more details click here.
At the Technology Fair, users have the opportunity to check out Yokogawa’s latest process automation offerings, including the company’s Centum VP next-generation control system.