NEWS RELEASE – Feb. 28, 2006 – National Instruments Business and Technology Fellow Mike Santori will deliver the industrial automation keynote address to an audience of industry experts at National Manufacturing Week on March 21 in Chicago. In his keynote address, “Automation: How to Compete in a Global Economy,” Santori examines the critical technologies and architectures that create improved efficiency in next-generation production facilities and help companies compete in the global economy. “To be competitive today, manufacturers must intelligently optimize their systems for the best performance possible from their automation architecture and resources,” Santori said.
“They need to take a critical look at their facilities to pinpoint opportunities and optimize specific parts of the process. This could be as simple as giving operators or plant managers better real-time management data about the process or as complex as adding high-speed control subsystems to an existing machine or production line.”Santori’s keynote explores new technologies that deliver the higher efficiency and throughput required from the entire production process – from design to manufacturing to validation.
For example, one of the most innovative trends in industrial automation is the emergence of unified high-level software tools that provide embedded control, machine control, machine vision, operator interface, historical trending, real-time data access and Web-based enterprise connectivity. National Manufacturing Week is the premier event for engineers and executives from across the country responsible for product design, IT integration and manufacturing. Tens of thousands from the U.S. manufacturing community, especially small to mid-size manufacturers, attend the conference for in-depth education and exhibits spanning the broad spectrum of enabling technologies, systems, new products and solutions.
Since joining National Instruments in 1986, Mike Santori has played a vital role in the development of National Instruments software products, such as NI LabVIEW. In 2000, Santori was named an NI business and technology fellow due to his leadership and contribution to the National Instruments direction and vision. Santori currently manages the software product strategy group, for which he oversees the product direction of LabVIEW and other virtual instrumentation software. Prior to his current mentoring position, Santori served as LabWindows/CVI product manager, software marketing manager, software development manager and industrial automation marketing manager. He earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Texas A&M University.
About National Instruments
For 30 years, National Instruments has been a technology pioneer and leader in virtual instrumentation – a revolutionary concept that has changed the way engineers and scientists in industry, government and academia approach measurement and automation. Leveraging PCs and commercial technologies, virtual instrumentation increases productivity and lowers costs for test, control and design applications through easy-to-integrate software, such as NI LabVIEW, and modular measurement and control hardware for PXI, PCI, PCI Express, USB and Ethernet. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, NI has more than 3,800 employees and direct operations in nearly 40 countries. For the past seven years, FORTUNE magazine has named NI one of the 100 best companies to work for in America.