With few exceptions, control architecture has changed little over the past 40 years. However, advances in processing power, network technologies, and software will enable greater value for end users in the near future by changing the way controllers are implemented and interface to the field. ARC believes that these new controller architectures, which support ARC Advisory Group's evolving collaborative process automation system (CPAS) vision, will improve simplicity, flexibility, and efficiency.

ARC Advisory Group's Collaborative Process Automation Systems (CPAS) vision goes beyond applying new technologies to include best practices for managing the lifecycles of process automation systems. The CPAS lifecycle management perspective starts with the early stages of the automation project through supplier selection, front-end engineering and design (FEED), installation, commissioning, startup, through the operational phase of the plant or facility.

When companies decide that their own internal warehousing capabilities are lacking, they can decide to select a third-party logistics (3PL) provider to run their warehousing operation for them. Often, a shipper will demand more from a 3PL than it would from itself. This is particularly true when it comes to continuous improvement. However, while lean manufacturing and Six Sigma practices have been widely adopted to improve production activities, this is far less common in the warehouse.

Thanks to relatively new technologies, such as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, companies operating in the US shale formations have brought on over one million barrels per day of incremental oil to global supply over the last year. OPEC's decision not to play the role of "swing producer" meant that the market for oil would be oversupplied by slightly greater than 1 percent relative to global demand.

Last week, ARC Advisory Group attended the National Retail Federation (NRF) Big Show. As the name suggests, this conference is the big retail show of the year, with more than 33,000 attendees flocking to the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City. Every year, two or three main themes define the show. Over the past seven years, those themes have not changed too much. Typically, they revolve around multi/cross/omni-channel, mobile, Big Data, the Cloud, social media, and/or customer experience management.

Last week, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) included railroad tank car upgrades to its Most Wanted list of safety improvements for the first time since the list was created in 1990. This action was a direct response to increased public awareness of and concern about the risks of transporting crude oil and other flammable materials by rail. (See ARC Insight, The Risky Business of Transporting Crude Oil, June 12, 2014).

Virtualization, a computing approach that decouples hardware and software, is rapidly gaining traction in the traditionally conservative automation and control industry. With its roots in the information technology (IT) world, virtualization was initially met with skepticism for industrial applications. But, this has changed, largely driven by end user demands to reduce costs and make more efficient use of their existing computing resources.

The third party logistics (3PL) market, defined here as non-asset based transportation, warehousing, and integrated supply chain services, has grown consistently in the third quarter of 2014. The growth was due to the performance of suppliers in the contract logistics segment across geographies, especially the EMEA region. The contract logistics market performed particularly well with a year-over-year 5.9 percent rate of growth.

Categories of 3PLs

Different Network, Same Name

Ethernet was first developed over 40 years ago. During that long lifetime, Ethernet has changed almost beyond recognition. Every aspect of Ethernet technology and performance has been improved, often by orders of magnitude.

NAMUR China held its sixth annual conference November 19 and 20, 2014 in Shanghai. The conference, sponsored by Siemens, drew about 200 participants (up from 150 last year) from NAMUR China member companies such as BASF-YPC, Bayer Technology and Engineering (Shanghai) Company, and Evonik Degussa Specialty Chemicals (Shanghai) Company. NAMUR invited ARC Advisory Group to attend the conference, which is becoming increasingly important for the process automation community in China.