2010 UGOC Wrap Up

Well, it’s been a busy couple of days at the 2010 User Group of the Carolinas. We had a pretty packed house and several of the presentations were standing room only. Mark Moore, our Site Services manager, gave a great talk on the comparisons between the XP/Server2003 platform and Windows 7/Server 2008, as DeltaV version 11 moves to the new OS.

The Emerson trio of Mike Lewis, Al Lee, and Gordon Lawther presented on Emerson and DeltaV’s forward direction and an in-depth look at the cost benefits of electronic marshalling – very CHARMing.

And what would a UGOC be without door prizes and food? I’ve struggled to accept the Carolina version of BBQ (everyone knows true BBQ is beef brisket), but I have to admit the pulled pork we had last night was some of the best I’ve ever eaten.

Copies of all the presentations should be up next week at http://www.remservices.com/. In the mean time, enjoy some more snapshots:

 

UGOC, 2010 Version

Final touches were being made this evening for the 2010 version of RE Mason’s User Group of the Carolinas (UGOC), which starts tomorrow afternoon and runs through Friday, May 14th. Over 100 participants from throughout the Carolinas have registered for this year’s event, which will include dozens of exhibitors, 6 separate tracks, and 30 presentations.

My buddy Al Lee was busy setting up “The Wall” (Pink Floyd fans, remain calm), showcasing the latest and greatest goodies from Emerson, including version 11 DeltaV. Not to be outdone, our Hatteras demo room is all spit polished and ready to show off our REM Services initiatives, including SAP integration, S95 level 3 integration with Syncade, and a variety of wireless and smart instrumentation.

 

Check back here over the next few days as for updates and more photos.

UGOC 2009 Day 2

What a turn out yesterday! We had over 100 customers pack our campus. The most popular presentations were our wireless talks and Syncade – it was standing room only when Scott Thompson and I presented our Syncade in Depth talk.

One of the big hits during the product showcase was Dick Beverly from Emerson ASCO Numatics showing off their line of smart valve manifolds/remote IO. And I do mean smart. Not only do they handle analog and discrete signals in addition to the manifold outputs, talk all the major busses including Foundation Fieldbus and Ethernet, but their DeviceNet version supports a DeviceLogix module, allowing high speed (5 ms) function block or ladder logic.

I’m excited about now being able to offer a one stop shopping controls and automation solution. For example, handling high speed valve sequencing around the bowl of a centrifuge in addition to all the other required skid batch automation is now possible as part of a total Emerson solution.

UGOC 2009 Day 1

So yesterday was Day 1 of the 2009 version of the User Group of the Carolinas get together. Attendance was on par with previous years for the first half day session.

One of this year’s cool attractions is the Emerson Wall – it’s a 20 foot long PlantWeb dreamscape with enough eye candy to keep folks coming back. Al Lee and Gordon Lawther from Emerson are here to put it through its paces.

Today should be a big day with most of our 120 plus attendees showing up. I’ll have more pictures and comments tomorrow.

Cold Enough For Ya?

So in preparing for the 2009 version of our UGOC (User Group of the Carolinas), I came across an interesting new nugget in DeltaV version 10.3. Interesting because it’s not documented in the Release Notes.

So now there’s a new drop down menu on the Controller tab of a controller node for additional selections of Cold Restart. "Always Disabled" is really no different than setting the timer to 0. "Enabled Within A Time Limit" allows you to set the time (no difference than now). The new choice is the "Always Enabled (maximum time)" selection, just in case being without power for more than 30 days just isn’t long enough.

UGOC 2008 "Collaboration - The Formula for Sucsess

It's that time again for the RE Mason annual User Group of the Carolinas. We've got over 160 folks registered this year and we kicked off the festivities yesterday. I'll post updates over the next couple of days of all the events (and more pictures!).