Sorry for my absence last week, I was attending the 2007 Siemens Automation Summit, or as I tried to call it SAS.  Okay, I admit, that was a poor attempt to jump on the TLA (three letter acronym) bandwagon as Honeywell did with their annual user group (or HUG) which happened to be held the same week.  While I had envisioned BLOGGING daily, it just didn’t happen as I was completely tied up overlooking all of our Process Safety related topics. 

The week of June 11^th, in Orlando, FL will be remembered as the week when a small mass of Siemens management, sales and automation experts huddled together in group of over 800 customers, system integrators and industry consultants talking shop and peaking at both present and future automation technology.    

I have never personally been a big fan of the general sessions, as most industry related key note speakers lack the evangelical ability to effectively communicate to such a large audience.  Instead what I find most beneficial for the attendees are the 2 ½ days of solution showcase, breakout sessions and of course evening networking events. 

Process Safety was well covered at many of the stops in the solution showcase, including the Siemens competence center for both Chemical and Oil and Gas, and in the solution partner pavilion.  There was also a dedicated area for just Process Safety which highlighted integrated control and safety, safety lifecycle tools, certified Fire and GAS solutions, and featuring the World’s first fault-tolerant safety fieldbus demo. 

With regards to the individual breakout sessions, this year we had ten (10) process safety specific sessions.  Minus the awe-inspiring ones as presented by myself, other non-Siemens folks kind enough to share their insight and experience with the group were:

DuPont’s, Mr. Guy Burnaman, discussed how DuPont and Siemens worked together to build an integrated high speed safety and data acquisition system while initially it had looked as if Siemens had bit off more than they could chew. 

AE solutions’, Mr. Mike Scott offered his professional viewpoint on how grandfathering installed systems could be achieved to meet today’s requirements.  

Linde BOC’s, Mr. Glen Kindall described his experience with a real world integrated control and safety system. 

Exida’s, Mr. Bill Goble discussed industry trends and talked about new tools for following the safety lifecycle

Canadian Light Source’s Mr. Rob Tanner, gave a very insightful look at the importance of safety interlock systems particularly when dealing with an electron beam powerful enough to zap the living daylights out of you (literally)

Air Products’ Mr. Dave Deibert, updated the audience on the recently released CCPs (Center for Chemical Process Safety) Safe and Reliable Instrumented Protective Systems that he helped co-author.

Conoco Philips’, Mr. Bruce Houston, described the benefits of using an integrated F&G system as compared to those old antiquated systems.

Over all it was a good week, with lots of networking and technology sharing and I am already looking forward to next years event…stay tuned…