For the past 25 years, two men have spent their careers evolving a necessary control-engineering function. Curt Hastings, plant-floor systems director for Ball, a manufacturer of metal packaging for beverages, foods and household products, and Wade Burns, operations electrical engineer for Consol Energy, a coal mining and natural gas exploration company, both work in positions where IT and plant floor systems have come together to facilitate intelligent process control, push production performance dramatically higher, and move their organizations to a more connected enterprise, according to sister publication The Journal.
In this article, Michael Pantaleano, business manager for Rockwell Automation, discuss how the computer scientist and electrical or controls engineer have morphed into a new job title "information engineer." This newly created function integrates IT and process knowledge, creates efficient production solutions that connect the enterprise, and contextualizes and disseminates massive amounts of information.
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