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Products are becoming commodities in the fast-moving new global business environment. To succeed, businesses need a competitive differentiator – a proprietary edge which can only be developed through innovation, knowledge and experience.

The world of HAL and Data, of sentient machines, is fast approaching. Indeed, in some ways it has already arrived as humanlike machines increasingly take on the work of humans. As processing power increases exponentially, and as MEMS technology brings smaller and smarter sensors and actuators, robots are the breeding ground for future-generation products with new, varied and exciting applications.

Within the next few years, literally billions of Internet-enabled microprocessors will provide digital intelligence and connectivity for almost every commercial and industrial product and appliance, extending the Internet into most aspects of our lives.

As more and more "nodes" become connected – products, equipment, people, organizations – Metcalfe's Law comes into play. The effectiveness and value of the Internet continues to increase exponentially.

Most people consider low price to mean lower margins. This is not necessarily true. A high priced control system may still only generate low margins. And too, low-priced, high value, high volume products could generate healthy margins. The key, of course, is to pursue a balanced value proposition.

Over the past decade, many companies have adopted new strategies for manufacturing, which has taken competitiveness on to new planes. A whole array of initiatives have been introduced, collectively labeled "new wave manufacturing."

Since automation is such a fragmented business, all the larger (multi-billion $) companies are mostly a conglomeration of products and services; each product segment generates relatively small volume, but lumped together they form sizeable businesses.

With annual revenue of about $30B and current market-cap of about $ 32B, Honeywell is arguably the largest US-based automation company. The company operates with four segments: Aerospace, Automation & Control Solutions, Specialty Materials, and Transportation Systems. Here’s an updated view of the corporate culture.

In the new and different manufacturing environment of the 21st century, the companies that can adapt, innovate and utilize global resources will generate significant growth and success.

When it comes to robots, reality still lags science fiction. But, just because robots have not lived up to their promise in past decades does not mean that they will not arrive sooner or later. Indeed, the confluence of several advanced technologies is bringing the age of robotics ever nearer – smaller, cheaper, more practical and cost-effective.

Automated factories and processes are too expensive to be rebuilt for every design change – so they have to be highly configurable and flexible. To successfully reconfigure an entire production line or process requires direct access to most of its control elements—switches, valves, motors and drives—down to a fine level of detail.

Many of today’s control systems use the same PC hardware, operating system and communications as corporate office and administrative networks. So automation systems security is an urgent issue, perhaps even a critical one.