Today's Automation News Headlines from Automation.com

June 2, 2011 - ABB started a new blog focused on Process Automation. The blog hosts discussions on timely topics including Collaboration, Control Systems, Evolution, IEC61850, Integration, Migration and Safety. Users of process automation systems are invited to visit the blog, comment on existing posts and communicate your automation challenges to the chief blogger for future blog or topic considerations.

Current posts include:

• The inspiration of integrations
• 6 technologies enabling true integration
• Death to the control system, long live the control system
• Abnormal States: Are your operators and procedures ready?

The Process Automation Insights chief blogger is Dave Huffman.  Huffman has been with ABB for the past 14 years in various sales and marketing roles. His areas of expertise include fieldbus technologies, distributed control systems and state based control. Over the last few years Huffman has participated on several standards committees and authored / published white papers on state based control and safety as well as a chapter in Martin Hollender's Collaborative Process Automation Systems (CPAS) book. In his current role, Huffman is repsonsible for Sales Readiness in the Americas region for ABB's Control Technologies Division. His experience as a process engineer at Koch Industries and Shell Oil brings a depth of knowledge and customer focus to his role at ABB. Dave received his Bachelor of Chemical Engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

"We view this blog as a great way to not only engage with our customers, but to provide a forum for open discussion on the issues faced by all process manufacturers in this era of decreasing budgets and increasing production, safety and security pressures. I look forward to a great conversation on many topics ranging from operator effectiveness to integration challenges to control system lifecycle issues," says Huffman.

Visit the blog at: www.processautomationinsights.com.