The Supplier that Wags the Customer

You know the old saying, “The tail that wags the dog.” Yesterday morning, Gordon Bethune, the former president and CEO of Continental Airlines, spoke to the attendees of Yokogawa’s 8th Annual Users Conference and Technology Fair about Continental’s transformation from the worst to the best airline. Continental’s success came down to a pretty basic concept. Offer customers what they want, not what you think they want.

When Bethune joined Continental Airlines, one of the first things he did was evaluate their product offering. He quickly realized that their flight routes didn’t match the travel needs of their primary customer base. As a result, they were flying half-empty planes and they were losing money. Bethune changed their flight plans to better fit their target demographic audience. The results were fuller airplanes and one step closer to profitability. Give your customer what they want and they will buy it. It seems like a basic idea, but all too often many suppliers miss the point.

Mike Brooks, Technology Architect for Chevron, went on to talk about how the next generation of IT is aligning with the business process. Brooks presented a new opportunity to conference attendees. “We need a software framework that helps improve the operational performance of all personnel across all Chevron refineries,” says Brooks. “This foundation framework will do for production management what SAP does for business and what Yokogawa does for operations.”

According to Brooks, the framework must fit the following requirements:

1. provide collaborative work processes enabled by, but separated from the IT underpinnings;
2. secure data within primary systems, but provide easy data exchange and sharing;
3. allow users to find information easily, without knowledge of where it is stored;
4. isolate/abstract implementation and vendor packages.

The fourth requirement is one that doesn’t particularly sit well with many suppliers, mainly because it allows one supplier to be replaced with another without affecting production management. This may make suppliers uneasy, but let’s not forget who the dog is – the customer. In the automation industry we have a lot of standards which offer lower cost of ownership, agility and non-proprietary products. What we don’t necessarily have is interoperability between standards or even products that follow those standards. For all customers, interoperability is the ultimate goal. And those customers are ultimately going to select suppliers that help them achieve that goal. The OPC Foundation is moving to ensure plug-n-play between vendors as outlined in our recent interview, OPC Test Lab Certifications.

It’s up to the customers (end-users of automation) to push interoperability requirements onto their suppliers. The suppliers need to ensure they don’t make the same mistakes made by Continental Airlines. The supplier’s main objective should be to offer products that help the customers achieve their goals. The tail can only wag the dog when the tail is smarter that the dog. The customers know their processes better than anyone. The customer is the dog. Don’t let the tail wag the dog!

Enjoy the rest of this Automation Weekly!

Rick Zabel
Vice President, Publisher

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Product & Supplier Search

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Other Company & Organization News:

• Autodesk joins Citrix Alliance Program
• Cleveland Motion Controls acquires Kaliburn
• ScanSource Security to distribute GE Security solutions
• Thiele Technologies to acquire Nigrelli Systems
• Mr. Automation Federation goes to Washington
• Semaphore signs Pinnacle Sales as distributor
• Wilcoxon Research hires Ronaldo Sullivan as Sales Manager

Go to our Daily News Headlines page for the latest automation news.

Go to our Daily News Headlines page for the latest automation news.

Here's a list of new jobs posted on Automation.com:

• Electrical Engineer: Fiberforge - Glenwood Springs, CO
• Systems Engineer: Emerson Process Management - Altamonte Springs, FL
• Process Control Engineer, Business Generation Team: Emerson Process Management - Austin, TX
• Product Specialist-Automation: Border States Electric - Albuquerque, NM
• Control Systems Programming: Control Automation Specialists - Houston, TX
• DCS Engineer, ABB System 6: Coyote Technologies - Mid, MI
• Process Control System Marketing Engineer/Manager: Emerson Process Management - Austin, TX
• Electrical Designer: Grantek Systems Integration - Chicago, IL
• Application Engineer: automationtechies - Houston, TX
• CAD Designer: automationtechies - Twin Cities, MN
• Sr. Process Control Engineer: automationtechies - Manistee, MI

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