This is a high level recap of the second day of the conference is the 2009 SPS/IPC/DRIVES for automation technology. Just as a reminder, John Byrd, former President of AMT, has stated on many occasions that MTConnect will be the most important change to the machine tool industry since CNC.
When I met with customers and prospects today, I had a basic format that I followed to make my points in a clear, concise and compelling fashion.
- Introduce myself, Sun Microsystems, AMT, MTConnect Institute and MTConnect
- I asked how they provided information about their device to the outside world.
- I listened carefully, then when they were finished I asked if they ever heard of Java. Everyone, of course, has heard of Java.
- I then asked if they heard of MTConnect. Most had not heard of MTConnect. I then said that MTConnect will do for controllers and machine tools what Java did for computers. This got their attention :-)
- I then explained why they should care about MTConnect for their business.
- I explained how customers could taken advantage of MTConnect with their specific set of products/technologies.
- I then went into the brief history of MTConnect so they understood the context of where, when, why, what and how this is important for customers, integrators, software and vendors at this Nurnberg Conference.
- ITalk about why Sun Microsystems cares about MTConnect.
- After they understood everything above, I gave them my business card and the sheet Paul Warndorf gave me on MTConnect and said I would follow up with them via email this week.
- I typically spent about 15 minutes with some vendors/customers/prospects and up to 45 minutes with others.
- Industrie-Electronik GmbH
- Siemens
- epis
- BeR Industrie-Elektronic GmbH
- KUHNKE
- sontheim
- Beckhoff Automation
- ascolab
- NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS
- KW Software
- intel
- Schwieger
- CERTEC
- XiSys Software
- ige-xao
- Mitsubishi Electric
- Siemens
- Phoenix Contact
- Panasonic
- infoteam
- linutronix
- OPC Foundation
- OSADL
- Rexroth Bosch Group
- adstec
- Rockwell Automation
- ROSE
- A Phoenix Mecano Company
I am going to use Thursday, Thanksgiving in the USA, to follow up with the many customer/prospect meetings that I had the past two days and then fly out Friday morning to get some cold turkey when I arrive late Friday :-) It was a GREAT Conference!
