Controls News 13
Editorial
Saia-Burgess
Controls AG
Bahnhofstrasse 18
3280
Murten
Switzerland
T +41 26 672 72 72
F +41 26 672 74 99
pcd@saia-burgess.com
Dear Reader,
This choice confronts us every day. But often we are simply unaware of it.
Many serious problems in our working lives can easily be avoided. How?
By accepting the challenges and preparing ourselves for them well in advance.
Because sooner or later, any challenge you ignore or put off will turn into a
problem that ruins your whole day. Avoiding problems of this type costs you
much less energy and effort than tackling them.
Anticipate identifiable challenges and do not optimistically assume that things
will «work out all right».
But how should one prepare for such serious challenges as the following?
Energy is becoming increasingly expensive and the weight of CO
2
restrictions
increasingly heavy. Today the situation is still bearable. Due to demographic
developments, scarcity of resources and rising demand, there will be an
increasing need for greater and more complex automation, but there will no
longer be the resources for this – quite the opposite.
In 10 years at the latest, the age pyramid will mean that for each specialist
retiring from your company, there will only be one half of a qualified engineer
coming into the job market.
Such serious challenges turn into problems if you are not prepared to
thoroughly question traditional and established structures, processes and
thought patterns – if you do not challenge the paradigms. To represent this
pictorially, we have turned the old automation pyramid on its head on the front
page of this edition of Control News.
However, it is not enough to question old, established practices. We
immediately need a new vision and equally new ideas and concepts to replace
them. This is represented by the term «Lean». Lean ideas and concepts can be
transferred to automation technology – the main topic of edition 13 of Controls
News.
I hope you enjoy reading this edition and are inspired by it.
Jürgen Lauber
Director Saia-Burgess Controls
CO
2
emissions per m
2
must fall
More automation
with less money
Fewer qualified employees
Problems
. . .
. . .
avoid or tackle?
