Articles and News

The decline in experienced controls engineers and technicians is occurring while engineering schools are not replacing these people fast enough.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Manufacturing automation has been doing the heavy lifting to improve productivity in the United States while the country’s educational systems continue to have disturbingly low productivity. After talking with management of many manufacturing companies, reviewing surveys and statistics, it is obvious to me that this situation is dramatically out of control.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Spring is a time of new beginnings and new life. So why can’t we breathe new life into our automation systems? It’s a good time for automation engineers to consider new innovative automation applications to improve production.

By Reid Paquin, Aberdeen Group In December 2012, Aberdeen conducted research into the state of the engineering and technical workforce and found out that a majority of the 562 companies polled (over 60%) feel that they are understaffed in their engineering positions. Aberdeen looked into the challenges behind hiring and retaining engineering talent and uncovered what the industry leaders do to combat this problem.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Siemens hosted a thought leadership event on February 22, 2013 in Houston, TX. More than 300 oil and gas industry executives, technology leaders, and industry experts attended featured presentations, a trade fair and a networking event at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.