MESA in the News: The MESA Smart Manufacturing Model for 2020

It seems like everyone in the industrial software field wants to define their work in a unique way. They want potential customers to look at the world through the lens of their product or service offering. So, they create their own terms for the functionality they offer. It’s not just industrial software. It happens with every type of software and technology. Marketing professionals and analysts have made a living creating new terms that represent specific functionality, and they often name their products and services accordingly. It’s not a malevolent practice. It’s all about differentiation. But the unfortunate result is confusion in the user community. How does a potential customer understand what they are purchasing? How do they decipher the difference between three (or more) letter acronyms, and how do they avoid overlap, which leads to added cost and integration complexity?

Standards help, but they are often difficult for the lay person to understand and implement. I recently spoke with Eric Cosman, the new president of ISA, and he has said many times that “standards are not meant to be read by civilians.” That’s part of the reason why MESA has worked over the years to interpret standards like those from ISA. This helps practitioners to implement standards in a meaningful way.

Chairman of  MESA's Knowledge Committee, Khris Kammer, explains MESA's Smart Manufactuing Model for 2020. Read more via Automation World.