August 2008
August News – 2008
July came and went pretty fast for UCDS. I was traveling all month visiting the World’s largest coal mine where I am helping them with some ergonomic issues and a new central control room and I also had a fast-paced visit to Tokyo where I visited with new and old friends at Yamatake.
During my visit to Tokyo, I made several presentations to over 100 customers and was impressed to see many of them are meeting the EEMUA KPI’s for alarm management. Many expressed a positive interest in the High Performance HMI that I showed them. I presented at one of their high tech conference centers who provided me with three translators one for English. I was not sure if that was to translate my English into American or Japanese into English! Unlike our conferences in America, many stayed behind during the break and studied the handouts and all came back on time. We can learn a lesson from them!
It was interesting to see how much Japan had changed from my last visit which was over 10 years ago. When I was there last, few spoke English on the streets and the only written word was in Kanji characters. Now you see English and Vietnamese. Tokyo was very European friendly.
I was pleased my good friend Tsutomu Takai was looking after me – and he did it really well. Fortunatelymy tea habit was met with the
local Starbucks being less than a 2 minute walk from my hotel. One thing you can rely on is that Starbucks is consistent worldwide and a Venti English Breakfast Tea is the same color, same taste, and same great service – it just costs more. I think the Japanese diet agreed with me also. We had great fish and saved energy by not cooking it. It is also very easy to use the ATM’s, funny how getting your money from the bank to spend is so easy.
The supermarkets were well stocked and even though I knew the word for milk, I did not now the Kanji Characters. However, a few simple words and my goal was achieved. I had milk for breakfast, not sure if it was 2% but it was close enough.
I finished the end of the month working in Houston, Texas. I guess it was a humid travel month for me. I introduced Rusty to some of my favorite spots in downtown Houston. We meet up with some folks from CCE and went to see our new office and showroom near IAH Airport. Very nice, you must make a point to see it.
What about Dave? He and Rusty made a trip to one of our clients in New Orleans and then he vacationed the rest of the month in England enjoying all the things that I would. He now has a lot of catching up to do!
UCDS has also had a busy month sending out proposals. We have a lot of clients expressing interest in control rooms, control room operator and field operator workload and staffing assessments, and at last the high Performance HMI is becoming a reality on many projects.
It is great to see Honeywell really endorsing our work. They have made a great video of the control room and operator support tools we did for Worsley Alumina. We have really exploited the power of Experion and the customer is getting that important ROI we all talked about. http://mediaservices.honeywell.com/HPS/testimonials/Worsley_Alumina.wmv
Please get the word out…
UCDS is actively looking for a new employee to generate proposals, track projects, and follow-up before and after sales. This individual should be an engineer who would like to learn from our experienced engineers and eventually become a consultant. This is an entry level position and we are open to graduates and engineers with just a couple of year’s experience.