Good Rresources for Tracking Quarterly Health of Manufacturing Economy

These are all good links that I use to measure the quarterly health of the manufacturing economy:

Canada Statistics Monthly

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/start-debut-eng.html

US bureau of labor and statistics

http://www.bls.gov/

Fed reserve reports on industrial production and capacity utilization

http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/current/default.htm

ISM Manufacturing Report on Business:

http://www.ism.ws/ismreport/mfgrob.cfm

JP Morgan Global PMI

http://www.ism.ws/ISMReport/content.cfm?ItemNumber=13133&navItemNumber=12954

Cambridge Energy Research Associates

http://www.cera.com/aspx/cda/public1/home/home.aspx

Markit Economics Does a Series of Reports on the PMIs of Various Countries

http://www.markit.com/en/products/research-and-reports/pmis/pmi.page

Eurostat does a quarterly panorama of European Business Statistics

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/eurostat/home

UK HSE Advice on Control Room Design

http://www.hse.gov.uk/comah/sragtech/techmeascontrol.htm

Control room design can have a significant impact on operator performance and increased safety.  The UK's Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has a great web site on control room design. 

Google SketchUp Delivers Amazing Free 3-D Design

Maybe I am late to the game but I just found out about Google SketchUp, which is a kick-butt 3-D design package that is downloadable for free. 

Google SketchUp

Operator Workstations and Control Room Furniture Improve Operator Effectiveness

CGM has an alliance with ABB in which they sell their highly sophisticated operator workstations and desks -- really advanced furniture and diplays for control rooms using the latest research in ergonomics.  If you think that investing in the control room furniture and displays is just a cost and adds no value, consider the impact on your operators.  They recently did a study on tired drivers versus drunk drivers and found out that driving while tired is pretty much the same as driving while drunk.  If you apply that logic to your control system operators then you start to get the picture.  The right furniture can improve operator effectiveness and increase operator alertness. 

Here is a link to the CGM web site

US Manufacturing Adds 49,000 Jobs In January

According to the most recent data from the BLS, we added 49,000 manufacturing jobs in January!  Good news!  I have been saying for a long time that "globalization" and the global factory are extremely dependent on cheap fuel prices to ship those goods from where they are made to where they are consumed.   We'll see how the latest price spikes combined with rising Middle East tensions will affect my hypothesis. 

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Another Obstacle to ISA 100 and WirelessHART Convergence

Seems like the convergence of WirelessHART and ISA 100 has hit another snag.  This time due to channel hopping issues?  You can read Walt Boyes' post from ControlGlobal here: http://bit.ly/hGHzEE. 

In my opinion successful convergence is necessary to create a single standard.

Good Story in World Oil about Migrating Safety Systems

January 2011 - A practical live migration strategy for upgrading safety systems

This is specific to the oil and gas industry, but addresses many of the issues related to migrating your existing safety system to meet new standards and business requirements.

Rockwell Automation Announces Major Leadership Changes

Rockwell Automation announced some major changes in leadership today. Click on the header for the link to the story.  Of note: Blake Moret is moving from the services business to assume the role of Senior Vice President of Control Products and Solutions.  Frank Kulaszewicz is being promoted to senior vice president of the Architecture and Software (A&S) segment.

The Ultimate Heads Up Display Geek Goggles

Recon Instruments offers a pair of ski goggles with built in heads up display and GPS.  The HUD data includes speed, time, altitude, temperature, and a lot of other stuff.  Tell me you couldn't adapt these to an industrial environment with a roving operator or maintenance technician. 

http://www.reconinstruments.com/

BP To Sell Texas City Refinery

One of the iconic refineries in America is to be sold.  Here is a link to the story in the Galveston Daily News. 

http://galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=e1da7df15449d254

According to the article, this was a complete shock to most of the employees there.  The refinery contributes an estimated $22 billion to the Texas economy and is the third largest in the country.  BP also announced the sale of the Carson, CA refinery.